Summing Up Halloween

"Death has come to your little town." - Dr. Sam Loomis

Okay I know I'm posting this a few days after Halloween, but I have to get this under way before I move onto to other things. The Halloween horror franchise has probably stretched itself out as far as it will go unless there is another reboot in the future. Aside from Rob Zombie's continuation of his remake, I have watched every Halloween movie to date. My opinions on them were strong when I was a kid because as a kid I was really into the slasher film franchises but now as I've matured and grown out of them mostly I have different views. So to end my Horror Season I will Sum Up the Halloween Franchise.

BEGIN!!!

Halloween (1978):

Holy god that was awesomely scary, but did he really get his eye jabbed out.

Halloween II (1981):

That was pretty good. Michael must've retreated to a nearby house after he got shot to watch Friday the 13th and thought to himself "Okay my approach only catches me knives, bullets, hangers, and balconies. Maybe Mrs. Voorhees had the right idea." Yeah, he found out, as did Mrs. Voorhees, that this never turns out in their favor. PS I think Laurie has a fetish for taking Michael's eyes.

Halloween III:

...What the hell?

Halloween 4 The Return of Michael Myers:

Okay how did Michael AND Dr. Loomis survive being caught in the eye of an explosion? I can see Michael with his whole "purely and simply evil" thing but Loomis is a man. And old. At least Michael is scary again. Nice cliffhanger, if this were Lost someone would've had to have been like "WHAT?" PS I guess the explosion blew Michaels eyes back into their sockets because last time I checked sister Laurie put a bullet in each one.

Halloween 5 The Revenge of Michael Myers:

Well this was just weird. Let me get this straight, Michael's survives what might be his biggest barrage of gunfire, a fall down a mineshaft, a dive in the river, and a long foodless coma only to be reawakened near Halloween via a telepathic link to his catatonic niece only to go on another killing spree, get caught like an escaped zoo attraction by Dr. Loomis and thrown in jail only to be rescued by a machine gun toting man in black who has been showing up in the background throughout the movie? Okay filmmakers, you got me. Guess I have to watch the next movie.

Halloween 6 The Origin of Michael Myers:

Alright now they've just gone comic book soap opera on us, they've Heroesed us. Consider for a moment that Dr. Loomis got it all wrong in the first movie. Yeah, Michael Myers was never simply an inherently evil psychopath, he was the product of long held cult prophecy. His murderous rampage and desire to exterminate his family was driven not by his own impulses but because if he didn't a generation of cult people would not flourish. And to boot Michael is apparently made to impregnate his niece and then kill her brutally. And somehow the new descendants of Laurie Strode's adopted family become involved due to the fact that they are living in Michael's home. AND a still living Dr. Loomis has teamed up with a character played by Paul Rudd of all people to defeat Michael and the cult. In the end we get some pretty good scares, a plot that ruins the mythos and an awesome final fight between Michael Myers and the Paul Rudd character...Betcha ten bucks Michael isn't dead at the end.

Halloween H20:

Brother and sister. Hero and villain. Laurie and Michael. A last showdown, a fight to the death in the majestic halls of...A college campus. Okay this movie is not that great. By the end we get Michael being bludgeoned with fists by Josh Hartnett, bludgeoned with a rock by Michelle Williams, and fucked up in every way shape or form by our uber badass Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh and among the bodies you'll find LL Cool J and Joseph Gordon Levitt. And my god, I think they've actually ended this thing. I think it's finally over. He's dead, the William Shatner looking son of a bitch is dead! Oh there is a god, there is a-

Halloween Resurrection:

-Oh son of a bitch, really it was the ambulance driver under the mask. I know Michael is crafty but I really don't think he'd be smart enough to pull off crushing a guy's larynx, switching outfits, and convince everyone else the other guy's him. I guess Michael can tell the future. Oh but wait, we open with another bad ass showdown between Michael and Laurie in the majestic halls of...a mental institution. I think this movie is going somewhere. Oh but wait, Busta Rhymes and Tyra Banks are leading a reality TV show group into the Myers house. Now THAT sounds like a story, yeah you can just write off Laurie's entire arc. Essentially Michael is just killing people with no real motive other than the fact that they are on his turf. Resurrection is a comedy, watching a wise cracking Busta Rhymes run circles around Michael Myers with karate moves is just hilarious. BUT DOES HE LIVE! Refer back to the last six pointless sequels and you'll have your answer.

Halloween (2007):

Rob Zombie hits and misses equally. The first half of the movie is a darkly unique look of what could have been (but what I didn't think should be) Michael Myers' past and descent into murder and his relationship with Dr. Loomis. The second half however is the remake and it sucks. After realizing he could only crowbar in about 10 percent of character development for our original but totally model worthy girls, Rob decides to just take the easy route with a remaining 90 percent of gore, tits, and screaming. Yes, there is more screaming in the last half of the movie than there is dialogue and that's not a good thing. Rob succeeds at making Michael The Shape a bit more interesting than just a slow walk and stab but really the character was created as a one dimensional force of nature, an evil force. That was John Carpenter's intention and I think that's better than the product of a dysfunctional white trash family. They should've explained Michael's father, maybe his father was a killer too. But no all we get is Jenny from Forrest Gump topless telling us that daddy Myers "is in heaven." Bullshit, man. Bullshit.

Well that's Halloween for ya. If you're a fan of the slasher genre, go ahead and have fun watching the whole series. It keeps your interest just a little bit and with Michael on the screen it's hard not to be tensed up. But if you want my opinion, stop at the first Halloween. I know it has an open ending but that's what is so fun about it. I think Michael getting shot and then disappearing into the night is better than Michael getting shot and disappearing into the night only to later be blown up in a hospital only later to be gunned down by cops only later to be the product of a cult's diabolical plan while hunting down and knocking up and killing his neice only later to hunt down and kill his sister only later to have his ass kicked and burned alive by Busta Rhymes and then somehow turned into a white trash dilenquint in a Rob Zombie reimagining. Wow that's a mouthful.

This has been another issue of Sum Ups from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.