The granddaddy of them all is John Carpenter's Halloween , which bowed in 1978 as an ultra low-budget indie that proved to have amazing legs. The film ran and ran and ran, and never sputtered. It became one of the very few modern American horror classics, offering more chills and thrills per minute than anything since Hitchcock in his heyday. For a whole generation of horror fans, the Halloween theme has become synonymous with the holiday. Halloween spawned five sequels.
None are worthy of the title.
The third, which has nothing in common with its predecessors or successors, is a pointless waste of time. The fourth has its high points, including a seemingly-daring ending, but is still on a significantly lower than the original. The success of Halloween led to the Friday the Thirteenth series, which was a worthless exercise in bare breasts and fountaining blood from beginning to end. A Nightmare on Elm Street evidenced some creativity, especially in the first film, but quickly became a cash cow. And, though Michael, Jason, and Freddy were the big three, there were others.