horrorfan_1986

In celebration of Rob Zombie's Halloween 2 coming out world wide on August 28, I will be doing a full series review of the Halloween movies. There are currently nine (Soon to be ten) Halloween movies in the series. This thread will have a total of 13-14 reviews. So as you can probably guess, I have a few other reviews as bonuses. Like my Friday the 13th series review, I will follow a certain layout:

The Story - Basic summery of movie

The Characters - Brief descriptions of main characters

The Verdict - Review of movie

The Extras:

Death Count

Boob Count

Best Kill Gif
Grade: On a 1-10 William Shatner Mask scale
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horrorfan_1986

The Story

Halloween 1963, seventeen year old, Judith Myers is enjoying the night with her boyfriend while her parents are out. The couple decides to head upstairs for a little fun. Meanwhile, an unknown intruder comes into the house and waits until the boyfriend leaves. Heading up stairs, he kills Judith while she sits naked brushing her hair. Heading down stairs and out the door, he's stopped by Judith's parents. Removing the mask, the killer is revealed. Six year old Michael Myers.

Fifteen years later, Michael is now about to turn eighteen and is ordered to be taken before a judge to decide his fate on whether to stay at Smith Grove sanitarium or transferred to another place. Michael's doctor, Samuel Loomis along with Nurse Chambers. However, getting to Smith's Grove, Loomis finds that all of the patients are out in the grass during the rain. While trying to talk to someone by the gate, Michael Myers attacks Chambers and forces her out of the car. Michael gets in and drives away. The evil has escaped.

Halloween 1978, before school, Laurie Strode drops a key off for her real estate father at the old Myers house. Without knowing it, only a door is between her and killer, Michael Myers. Thus begins a game of cat and mouse of Michael stalking Laurie all during the day at school, her home and around the neighborhood. After school, Laurie and friends, Annie and Lynda makes plans for the night. While Laurie and Annie will babysit across the street from each other, Lynda will eventually head over to the house that Lynda will babysit for some alone time with boyfriend, Bob.

Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis is unsurprised at Michael escaping fearing that Michael has been planning this for years. After talking to friend, Dr. Wynn, Loomis wonders how Michael even knew how to drive. It was as if someone had taught him. Loomis travels to Haddonfield, Michael's home town. Once he gets there, he meets up with the town's sheriff, Brackett, the father of Annie. While Brackett does doubt that Michael will come home, he agrees to work with Loomis and watch over the Myers' home. The only real proof Loomis has that Michael has come home is that Judith Myer's tombstone was recently stolen from the cemetery.

As the night goes on over at the houses of the Wallace's and Doyle's (Where Annie and Laurie are babysitting), Annie talks Laurie into watching over Lindsay Wallace so that she could pick up boyfriend, Paul. After bringing Lindsay over to the Doyle's house, Annie meets her end as Michael chokes her to death in her car. Young Tommy Doyle is the only one to see Michael carrying the dead body back into the Wallace's house. Not long after Annie is killed, Bob and Lynda pulls up. Once Lynda hears that Lindsay is over at Doyle's house, Lynda and Bob heads upstairs for some fun. Michael sees it all. After sex, Michael kills Bob when he heads downstairs to grab some beers. Upon coming upstairs, Michael wears a bed sheet and Bob's glasses. Lynda, thinking it's Bob, calls Laurie to figure out where Annie is at. Michael uses the phone cord to choke Lynda to death while Laurie hears it all.

Not sure what to think of the strange phone call, Laurie heads over to the Wallace's house to check up. Upon entering the bedroom, Laurie sees Annie's dead body laid on the bed with Judith's tombstone as the headboard. Laurie then sees Bob and Lynda's dead bodies. Crying and scared, Laurie slowly backs out of the room as Michael's mask from which he stole from a hardware store, comes into light. Stabbing her in her arm, Laurie falls down the stairs, hurting her leg. Laurie tries to run and seek out help. The only person who takes notice of her (The Wallace's neighbor) thinks it's just a prank. Laurie is able to get back into the Doyle's house just in time. Laurie then sees that the window is open. Michael jumps out from behind the couch, but Laurie stabs him in the neck with a sewing needle.

Giving up on the Myers' home, Loomis happens to find the car that was stolen down the street. He now knows Michael is around someplace. Loomis walks the streets in hopes of finding some clue. Meanwhile, getting the children, Laurie tells them that they are safe. From behind her, Michael climbs up the stairs. Hiding in a closet, Laurie tries to stay safe only to have Michael break down the door. Laurie thinks quick and uses a wire hanger (Straightening it out) and pokes Michael in the eye and then stabbing him with his own knife. Telling the children to run and tell a neighbor to call the cops, Laurie finally feels safe. Loomis sees the screaming children running away from the Doyle house. Michael sits up and chokes Laurie one more time. Loomis climbs the stairs and fires off six gun shots at Michael sending him out of the window and down to the ground. Finally, Michael has to be dead. Looking at Laurie, Loomis turns back to Michael only to find him missing. The film ends with shots of all of the major locations with Michael's breathing increasing in volume.

The Characters

Laurie Strode - Heroine who is the only one to notice the things around her. Michael's intended prey. Very straight lace and is your typical "Good girl".

Dr. Samuel Loomis - Michael's doctor who knows that Michael is more dangerous than people believe. After Michael escapes, Loomis is on the hunt for him.

Sheriff Brackett - Sheriff of Haddonfield and father of Annie. Brackett helps Loomis search out for Michael.

Annie Brackett - Daughter of Sheriff Brackett and best friend of Laurie. Babysits Lindsay Wallace on Halloween.

Lynda - Laurie's other friend and girlfriend of Bob. The slutty friend who is a cheerleader and doesn't really care for much other than having fun.

Michael Myers - Killed his older sister in '63. Escaped in '78 to continue his killing ways. Has an unknown need to stalk Laurie.

The Verdict

What is there to say about one of the greatest horror movies of all time? It's the film that made me a horror fan in the first place. Already have watched it close to two dozen times in my life, I wanted to look out for things I didn't like about the movie. For a movie that gets praised so much, I wanted to offer some criticism as well as praises. So, lets get the negative things out of the way.

With the exception of Dr. Loomis, I didn't particularly like the other characters. Now, I didn't hate them at all, but I either had no reason to like them (Lynda especially) or I found them to be boring (Laurie). I find this so interesting because I found the acting decent enough. Even though I'm trying to make this into a negative, it's not totally bad. The characters felt realistic and in life, you don't always like everyone.

Two things that has always bugged me are with Bob's kill and when Laurie finds the bodies. For Bob's death, he was choked off of his feet and stabbed against the wall. The knife kept Bob suspending in the air. Now, the knife was a large chef's knife. Normally, the blade is about 8 inches. I'll be generous and say it was a full 12 inches. Bob was a normal size man. I have my doubts that a knife could even go all the way through him. But, even if it did, it would have to go in the wall far enough to stay in there due to the weight of Bob. Once the knife is in, there's still an inch or two not inside of Bob. So that's only 10 inches. It just doesn't seem possible. Meanwhile, after Laurie finds Annie's body, Bob falls hanging upside down in the closet and the door of the closet (?) that Lynda was in opened by itself. Michael was revealed to be in the other room, so he couldn't have been the one doing these things. These are really cheap ways to reveal other bodies. With a filmmaker as talented as John Carpenter, I would of thought he could figure out a way to reveal them in a less cheesy way.

Sadly, that's all that I can really say bad about the movie. It's truly an unique movie that works in all the ways that other slashers (Especially the Friday the 13th's) doesn't. Halloween's death scenes are average, if that. In fact, I'd say compared to most slashers, the death scenes in this movie was pretty poor. Yet, this isn't a movie that relied on the death scenes. Instead, the scare scenes are what really drives this movie to succeed. Laurie's chase scene outside and the closet scene remains two of the scarier moments in slasher history.

The other major thing missing is blood. There is barely any blood at all. The only moments that really had blood was Judith's kill and the truck driver's body. However, you had a mask obstructing your view and break away. The truck driver barely even had any blood either though. With zero gore and little blood, it's somewhat ironic that Halloween is said to be the film that caused so many slashers to be made. The very thing that people think of when they think of slashers (Bloody and gory kills) is absent in this movie.

It's really the suspense that made this movie scary. The element that helped the most was the score. Carpenter used very simple tracks that he played himself to set the mood perfectly. The Halloween theme and Laurie's chase theme remains two of the more well known themes of all time. Carpenter has told a story about screening the movie for a woman without the score. She gave her opinion that the movie was simply, not scary. In my honest opinion, there isn't a horror movie out there that has a better soundtrack.

The whole cat and mouse game really interests me. Ignoring the real reason for why Michael chases Laurie, one has to assume he simply picked her because she came to his house. While everyone is so caught up in their own lives, Laurie is the only one who notices Michael following her. It's almost as if this is a moral in life. If you do not pay attention, you will be killed by a crazed psycho with family issues. Okay, not really, but Laurie does end up living because she's smart and observant. The best example of that is hiding in the closet. She just doesn't run in there, she first opens the window to make it seem as if she climbed out. While Michael was smart enough to know she was still in the room, it was still a good effort to outsmart Michael.

Dr. Loomis has remained one of my favorite characters since first seeing him over ten years ago. Like Laurie, he knows what's really going on. He's a very serious person which only heightens the fun when he has a light heart moment such as scaring the kids away from the Myers' home and getting grin on his face only to be scared when Brackett comes up behind him and lays his hand on his shoulder. Loomis is someone I would feel safest with if he was trying to protect a town from a psycho. This will most likely be a running theme of these reviews, the evolution of Loomis. For this one movie, Loomis seems to believe that Michael is dangerous and wants to get him back. But for now, he's basically normal and not obsessed.

Halloween was just a little film that a bunch of unknowns made for under a half millions dollars. It brought it nearly fifty million dollars and for years was the highest grossing independent film of all time.

The Extras

Death Count: 5 humans, 2 dogs
(Extremely low number for a slasher. There were only three human kills during the night.)

Boob Count: 3
(There may of not been blood, but there were some boobs. Halloween at least had one slasher must have.
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Best Kill: Lynda

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(Truth be told, not even that good either.)

Grade: 10
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Bigpapa42

Nice. Looks good so far, Jim. Should be as entertaining to read as the Friday review series was.

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Necro

Sweet. I think I'm going to watch the movies again, and then read your reviews after. Good stuff.

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Jayman

Well done...this is my favorite horror series of all time, so I'm looking forward to the reviews on these. Keep it up.

EdgeCage94

It's pretty much the only movie I can watch over and over and love it. I can't wait to see what your view is on the 4th one...as it is my favorite one.

Balla

i hope you trash on the 3rd one as much as i would

Brandon

Sweet. Again, love the reviews. First one is an all-time classic.. I'll be interested to see how you rate the sequels.

horrorfan_1986

The Story

Starting at the ending of the original film, the opening shows Michael in his dazed state as he tries to regain his bearings after being shot six times. Myers grabs a knife from the home of an elderly woman, but when a teenage girl comes outside at the sound of the scream from the elderly woman, Michael has his first victim of the movie. The other major characters of the first movie are busy as well. Dr. Loomis is back with Sheriff Brackett trying to find Michael, meanwhile; Laurie is taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital.

Upon taking Laurie away, paramedic, Jimmy, takes a liken to Laurie. Throughout the movie, he keeps checking up on her. We're briefly introduced to some of the other hospital staff members such as Jimmy's ambulance partner, Budd. Budd's girlfriend, nurse Karen among others. All's quiet until Michael heads over to the hospital to finish what he tried to do at the Wallace's house. Elsewhere, Loomis thinks he sees Michael on the street. In a chaotic few moments, the man in the mask is struck by a police car and wedge between the car and a van. With the vehicles bursting into flames, the person is burned to death. Was it Michael though? Loomis' work with Sheriff Brackett comes to an end when Deputy Hunt tells Brackett that Annie was one of the ones killed earlier.

As Michael goes one by one killing each of the hospital staff, Laurie appears to have some effect from a drug that causes her to be in a comatose state. While the nurses and Jimmy tries to find help, she escapes the room moments before Michael comes in. Stabbing the pillows Laurie planted in the bed, Michael is unsuccessful in his first attempt at killing her again. While Laurie is very out of it due to the drugs, she has enough wits to sneak into an empty room and hang out until she can figure out what to do. Loomis and Hunt are called to the elementary school where there had been a break in earlier. With blood on the broken window and desk, Michael seems to have left a message. On the teacher's desk is a picture a child draw of a family. Michael's knife stabbed through the sister. On the chalk board written in blood, SAMHAIN - Festival of the Dead. Just as Loomis finishes up at the school, Nurse Chambers returns with direct orders to bring Loomis back to Smith's Grove. A Marshall is there in order to ensure Loomis does come with her.

Laurie beings to crawl out of the room when Nurse Jill finds her. Before Jill can help Laurie, Michael comes up behind her and kills her. From there, it's another chase scene between Laurie and Myers. Through some good luck, Laurie is able to escape through an elevator and get outside. While the car she tries wont start, it's a good hiding place. In the car ride back, Nurse Chambers informs Loomis of a secret file in Michael's report. As it turns out, Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' sister. Shocked and finally understanding why Michael is back in Haddonfield, Loomis holds a gun to the Marshall in order to get him to drive to the hospital. Jimmy, knocked unconscious from falling in a large pool of blood, walks out to his car, the one that Laurie happened to be sitting in. Jimmy can only stay conscious for a few moments before collapsing on to the car horn. Knowing that her cover has been blown, Laurie crawls out of the car to the sight of Loomis and company arriving.

Laurie's crawl becomes crucial as she spots Michael several yards behind her. Just in time, Loomis lets her into the hospital and locks the door. Michael just lunges himself head first through the door. Several shots are fired bringing Michael down. As Chambers heads out to call for help, the Marshall makes the mistake of getting too close to Michael and is killed. Loomis and Laurie runs to an operating room with Michael slowly...very slowly following. Loomis gives Laurie a gun, but makes the mistake of not reloading his own. Michael stabs Loomis, but ends up being shot twice in the eyes by Laurie. With Michael blindly swinging a scalpel, Laurie and Loomis opens up several air supplies to continue to confuse Michael as to their locations. Loomis orders Laurie to run away as if pulls out his lighter given to him by Hunt and lights it, blowing the entire room up. Laurie, safely away, has one last scare as Michael, inflamed, continues to walk until finally collapsing for good. The movie ends with Laurie once again being loaded into an ambulance just as it began. Final shots of Michael's mask being on fire.

The Characters

Dr. Loomis - Knowing Michael's danger, Loomis is more desperate to find Michael. Struggles between feelings of regret for this happening and determination to find Michael.

Laurie Strode - Revealed to be Michael's sister. Semiconscious, yet still smart girl.

Deputy Hunt - Takes over once Brackett finds out that his daughter was killed. The most helpful officer to Loomis in the entire series.

Jimmy - Ambulance driver. Seems to have a crush on Laurie who goes to school with his brother.

Michael Myers - Brother of Laurie, robotic and less stealth, more action form from earlier in the night.

The Verdict

As the original Halloween gained popularity, as did the slasher genre. Friday the 13th had two films out, while The Burning was also made. It seemed to make sense that Halloween would have a sequel as well. They made some right moves in bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence and Charles Cyphers. John Carpenter and Debra Hill would return again to write. This time though, first time director, Rick Rosenthal, would helm the project.

It doesn't really matter what movie you make a sequel to, the main thing you need to ensure is that there's a purpose to the sequel. Whether it's a good purpose or rather lame, at least have a purpose. This is where Halloween 2 is flawed. Most of the film is just filler until Michael and Laurie could finally face off again. We're introduced to new characters we barely get to know, new subplots are added and there's a lot of down time for our main characters. Let's first focus on the new characters.

With the slasher genre becoming a line of film that concentrates on kills rather than suspense, so it made sense to up the body count. However, we only get a chance to get to know some of the hospital staff right before they die. Why would you get rid of Nurse Karen when she's the nurse you know the most? Yet, she's killed first among the nurses. So while we have to take more time to get to know (Extremely briefly) the other nurses, instead of continuing to get to know Karen. I suppose you could relate it to wrestling. You just don't push one person right before they leave a company and leave others without any attention. The only new character (Hospital staff only) that had some nice attention was Jimmy. To no surprise, he ends up being the most likable for fans.

For anyone who's been a fan who didn't see Halloween before Halloween 2 was released, you've probably taken the fact that Laurie and Michael are siblings as essential. However, watching this, the revelation of the two being related comes off as a lazy move in order to figure out a way to keep the story going. They didn't even need to add the subplot in order to give reason for Michael to keep going after Laurie. They already set it up with the last movie. When Michael goes after someone, they die. Yet, Laurie got away. So Michael is annoyed now and wants to kill what escaped him once before. Truthfully, I enjoy the idea of Michael having this unnatural desire to go after certain people. No longer was Michael just wanting to play some cat-and-mouse games and instead has some women issues. The other subplot of the Samhain is yet another unneeded reason for Michael's mayhem. One has to assume that Michael is having the same urges as he did when he killed Judith, how would six year old Michael even know about Samhain and such? It's just all unnecessary and that time could of been used to develop the hospital staff's characters.

Even though I didn't love Laurie, I was at least entertained by her in the first movie. However, in this, she's barely awake and coherent during all of this. Where's the life that was in Laurie? One good thing they did with Laurie was that they kept her smart at least. Whether it was begging not to be put to sleep or hiding out in the empty room or car, she still had her wits about her. That's something uncommon in most slashers. Dr. Loomis remains the highlight of the Halloween series by adding some great lines and continues with a solid performance. However, likewise, he doesn't do much in the movie. Like I said earlier, the biggest problem of the movie is it's mostly just filler.

Sadly, Michael Myers is a huge negative in this movie. First, it's the look. After being stabbed twice, poked with a hanger and shot six times, Michael decides to tuck his mask into his work suit and brush the mask hair back some. Why would he change how he looked in the middle of the night? With now Dick Warlock under the mask, Michael is now very slow and robotic. He doesn't even bother to open doors, he just pushes through them. Suddenly, Michael seems to not even care about hiding anymore. He's right out in the open a lot of the time. To make all of this worse, Michael is shown a lot more during this than the original. It's a lot like a monster movie. The less you see of him, the better.

Even with all of these problems, Halloween 2 isn't a horrible movie. In fact, besides the first and forth, I've probably seen it the most out of the entire series. Maybe it's because it's so closely connected to the first, but it doesn't really enter the bad territory. Instead, it's a good film with the life sucked right out of it. Cast a better Michael, give some more time to the hospital staff and find new ways to use Loomis and this could have been fantastic. If this movie proved anything, it's that it's difficult to create a sequel that follows from the ending of the first. Because really, unless it was the original idea of the writers to have the story be in more than one part (Lord of the Ring for example), the first movie ends when there isn't any more story to be told. So don't try to create one.

The Extras

Death Count: 10 (+3?)
(While we would see Loomis and Michael again, at the end of the movie we don't know if they are alive. Meanwhile, in an alternate ending, we see that Jimmy has lived, however; his fate in the regular version is not known)

Boob Count: 2
(But what a glorious pair)

Best Kill: Nurse Jill
(While some others may have been more exciting such as Nurse Karen's, the shoes dropping has always been such a memorable addition.)

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Grade: 6
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horrorfan_1986

The Story

Starting on October 24th, a man is shown running through a junkyard from an unknown chaser. The only clue as to what's going on is that he's holding a pumpkin mask. A man in a suit catches him and begins to choke him on the ground. Through some good luck, the runner is able to pull away a cement block causing a car to come crashing against the choker, killing him. The man continues to run. One hour later, the man runs into a gas station and grabs the gas station attendant before passing out. Taking him to the hospital, we're introduced with Dr. Dan Challis. Shortly before admitting the patient, the man with the pumpkin mask warns the doctor they're "They're going to kill us. All of us! All of us!"

In the middle of the night, another man in a suit comes into the hospital. Once he enters the room of Harry Grimbridge (Man with pumpkin mask) he kills him by breaking his skull through his eye sockets. Dr. Challis chases the man to his car, but upon getting in, the man dumps gasoline on his body and blows himself and the car up. Ellie, Henry's daughter, comes in to identify the body. A few days passes until Challis meets Ellie again in a bar. She asks for his help in trying to figure out what happened. Whether it's because Challis is already becoming obsessed with what happened or it's because he's attracted to Ellie, he agrees to go along blowing off his children and lying to his ex-wife (Played by Nancy Loomis, actress who played Annie Brackett). Through looking at her father's records, Ellie has determined that something went wrong around the time he went to pick up Halloween masks in Santa Mira, California. The two decides to take a road trip to there.

Santa Mira is a predominately Irish community out in the middle of nowhere. The main supporter of the town is Silver Shamrock's masks created by Conal Cochran. Arriving in Santa Mira, Challis and Ellie learns that Cochran virtually runs the town through his factory. Staying the night in a hotel, Challis meets up with a drunk man insisting on evil doings by the company. In his drunken state, the man even declares that he will blow the factory up. Not long after Challis leaves him, the drunk man meets up with a couple of men in suits. After a few tugs, the drunk loses his head. As Challis becomes more suspicious of the town and Cochran, he calls up Teddy, a female coroner to find out as much information on Cochran as possible. Teddy is already puzzled though. The past few days she's been trying to exam the remains of the man who blew himself up in the car. Yet, all of the body parts she's been given has been car parts. Hmm.

In the middle of the night, another hotel guest was messing with the logo button on a mask when lights shot into her face and bugs came out. Some of Cochran's medical men comes to take her away. No one is willing to tell Challis any information on what happened. After getting a free tour of the place along with the Kupfer family (Buddy Sr was the highest seller of Shamrock masks), Ellie spots her father's car in one of the garages at the factory. Before she's able to get to it, she's surrounded by men in suits. Back at the hotel, Ellie and Challis realizes that they're over their heads and pack to go back home. While Challis makes one last phone call to Teddy, Ellie goes missing. The men in suits line the front of the room. Challis locks the doors and is able to escape through the bathroom window. Heading back to the factory, Challis knows that Ellie is there.

Not long after the phone call, Teddy gets a visitor in the form of a man in a suit. She quickly dies. Challis apparently has forgotten his ninja training, being caught very quickly. Cochran begins to explain everything to Challis in his best evil voice. Cochran shows Challis a test room where the Kupfer families are. Little Buddy Jr. has a Shamrock mask on and the promised commercial that has been advertised for days is played. The commercial enables the logo on the mask causing the child to be killed. Bugs and snakes come out of his mask. The parents are killed from the snakes. As Cochran explains, Taken from old Celtic cults, whenever the planets align in a certain way, sacrifices must be made. 9 PM on Halloween night, every child with a Shamrock mask will watch the commercial and the world would be changed. Challis is tied up and a mask is thrown on his head. All that's left is to wait until it's time. In the meantime, Challis can watch some of Halloween on the television. Challis kicks in the television and frees himself. Upon getting free, Challis calls up his ex wife to get her to take the masks away from his children. It's unknown whether she does or not.

Challis finds Ellie and frees her. From there, he grabs a box of the Shamrock logo and from high above, dumps it on the factory and employees. Causing a light storm followed by fire, everyone is killed with the exception of Cochran, whose fate is unknown. In the car, Challis is trying to find a way to stop the commercial. Ellie attacks Challis. During the fight, Ellie's head is knocked out revealing her and every other man in suit to be a robot, thus explaining why Teddy couldn't find any human parts. We head back to the gas station where all of this started. Calling up some stations, he begs them to take off the commercial. As 9 PM hits, the channels begin playing it. Finally, one channel turns it off. A child in the station turns to the next and it's still playing. Challis screams for it to be turned off. Once it is removed, the child turns to the third channel. The commercial is still playing. In the final moment of the movie, Challis looks to the camera and screams, "STOP IT!". Credits begin to roll and the viewer doesn't know if the commercial was stopped or not.

The Characters

Dr. Dan Challis - Hero of the movie. At times unlikable because of his womanizing ways and what a horrible father he is.

Ellie - Once her father is killed, Ellie sets out to find out what happened to him. Believed to have been killed and a robot version of her made.

Conal Cochran - Owner of Silver Shamrocks and controls the city of Santa Mira. Creates the masks to have a mass moment of sacrifice.

Teddy - Works with Challis and gives the first clue that the men in suits aren't human. Fairly likable and most likely has feelings for Challis.

Buddy Kupfer Sr - The highest Silver Shamrocks salesman. Is invited to get a tour of the factory with his family. His family is a test kill.

Rafferty - Owner of the hotel where Challis and Ellie stays at. Continues to praise Cochran throughout the movie. Possibly in on the entire plan.

The Verdict

With the success of Halloween 2, a third movie had to be made. However, due to some issues (More on that later), it was decided that this would be the first in a line of non-Michael Myers movies. Due to this, we end up with one of the most hated horror movies of all time. I suppose the best way to start this part of the review is a controversial statement. Halloween 3 is the single most underrated horror movie of all time.

Whether you're talking to a hardcore Halloween fan (I want to tattoo Michael's mask on my butt) or just a casual fan of the series, the main reason why people hate this movie is because it's a Halloween movie without Michael Myers. After a decade of being a fan of this series, I still don't get that reasoning. I can understand not enjoying it and not wanting to watch it more than once, but to think it's one of the worst movies ever solely because Michael isn't in it? I have one friend who's been a fan of the series for years and years. Yet, he despises this movie only because it doesn't have Michael. How much sense does that make? It's as if people can't look at the quality (Whether good or bad) of this movie. They just have this huge and rather pointless hang up on it.

For the first three films, this movie has the best death scenes. They're creative, unique and are like nothing else you see in the Halloween series. Especially during a time period when all of the rage was to come up with new deaths, this one blew away most horror's of the decade. On top of that, they kept the Halloween little blood tradition going on.

In case you are hung up on the fact that Michael isn't in the movie, there are some links to the other movies. The most obvious is the Halloween scenes playing during the movie. So technically, Michael is in the movie. Upon arriving at the hospital, Dr. Challis calls to give Harry a shot of Thorazine. For anyone who's seen the original Halloween a few times, that drug should sound familiar. During the car ride in the beginning of the movie, Nurse Chambers asks Loomis what they should give Michael. His reply was "Thorazine". Near the end of this movie, Challis is trying to call out while in Santa Mira. However, a recorded phone operator would come on saying a call could not be placed. The voice of the operator is none other than Jamie Lee Curtis. Finally, the Samhain ties in H2 and Cochran's Celtic rituals are somewhat similar. Both ties into sacrifices. However, the biggest similarity is with Halloween 6's the Thorn cult. However, I'll wait until those two reviews before I go into detail with that.

The movie isn't without it's faults though. There's a good amount of corniness and I felt the last act was a bit too much for me. I preferred knowing there's something weird going on rather than knowing what exactly is going on. It's a lot like my desire of not knowing a reason for Michael's killings. The questions of what's really is going on can be more entertaining than anything else. The single thing I hate the most is Dr. Challis. While he is played wonderfully by Tom Atkins (One of Carpenter's go to guys), the character is hard to like at times. He basically seduces Ellie, who's still grieving over her father dying. What's worst is that he keeps abandoning his children in order to try and score with Ellie. Then there's Teddy who he leads on and uses her feelings in order to get favors from her. That ultimately leads to her death. While I appreciate the writers trying to make him realistic, couldn't they have found a way to make him a bit more likable?

For everyone who is upset that Michael Myers was not in this movie, you can blame one man. Ironically, it's the man who started the series - John Carpenter. Basically, Carpenter had hated the idea of doing Halloween 2. He struggled to think of anything new. So by time Halloween 3 came along, he was at a loss of what to do. However, he did write a Michael/Laurie story. The premise was a few years after the events on Halloween, Laurie is battling her thoughts on that day. However, she is a hot shot police officer (Detective I want to say?). On the anniversary, Michael comes back and heads to a mall (Or some such building) he holds the place up with hostages, but allows one person to go free to get the police. This brings Laurie back to deal with Michael. From all of the descriptions of the movie I've read over the years, it sounds more like a daytime Lifetime movie rather than a slasher. Apparently, Halloween owner, Moustapha Akkad, thought the same. After the idea was turned down, Carpenter decided to just make a new Halloween themed movie from now on. The series would just be a movie based on something Halloween related, rather than Michael Myers. Had Carpenter not been so limited in his thinking, we may of never had to deal with this.

Tommy Lee Wallace (Long time Carpenter worker and who came up with the idea to use Michael's mask) directed a much different Halloween than what we were used to. It gets unfairly criticized by even the most hardcore of Halloween fans. Had it just been called Season of the Witch, it would of probably had a nice little cult following. Instead, it's the bastard child of the series. Shame really, it's a fairly decent movie about a holiday that rarely offers anything different.

The Extras

Death Count: 7-8
(This does not count any robot deaths. It's also unknown how many others have died due to the fire at the factory and the masks 9 PM commercial.)

Boob Count: 1 (?)
(There is one moment where it looked as if there was a brief one during a sex scene, but with the lighting, body positions and Tom Atkin's damn mouth, it's unknown whether it's actually shown.)

Best Kill: Harry
(Killing someone through their eye sockets? It's the first kill of the movie and it really shows how creative the movie will be.

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Grade: 7
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