10 Long Film Franchises that Simply Refused to Remain Dead in 2020
By: Felipe M. Guerra
Tags: Lists, Movies, Pop Culture, Film, Cinema

Halloween

How many films: 12 (10 official films + 1 remake + 1 sequel to the remake)

(10 official films + 1 remake + 1 sequel to the remake) Most recent film: “Halloween Kills” (2021)

Another franchise with such a long and tortuous path that it became even difficult to keep up with the official chronology. It all started with the masterpiece “Halloween” (1978), directed by John Carpenter, about a masked psychopath chasing babysitters on Halloween night — including virginal Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. Considered the cornerstone of one of the most popular subgenres of horror cinema (the slasher movie), the film received a successful sequel, “Halloween II” (1981, dir: Rick Rosenthal), also starring Curtis and continuing the story from the point where “Halloween” stopped. Part 2 ended up with an explosion that kills both the villain Michael Myers and his nemesis, Dr. Loomis (played by Donald Pleasence). So “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” (1982, dir: Tommy Lee Wallace) had none of the characters in the first two films, preferring to tell an independent story about a conspiracy to kill children using Halloween masks and witchcraft. But the fans felt cheated with the absence of Michael Myers and co. As a result, the villain and Dr. Loomis were exhumed and resurrected to return in cheap sequels like “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” (1988, dir: Dwight H. Little), “Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers” (1989, dir: Dominique Othenin-Girard) and “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” (1995, dir: Joe Chappelle). Since Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t want to return to the franchise at this point, her character was “killed” and replaced by Laurie Strode’s daughter, a little girl played by Danielle Harris, that Dr. Loomis needs to protect from Michael Myers. In 1998, to celebrate the original’s 20 years, “Halloween H20: 20 Years Later” (1998, dir: Steve Miner) marks the return of Laurie Strode and Jamie Lee Curtis to the series, and for that, it was necessary to delete from the chronology Parts 4, 5, and 6, making this one a direct sequel to “Halloween II”. A few years later, “Halloween: Resurrection” (2002, dir: Rick Rosenthal) showed a final duel between Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis, in which poor Laurie Strode ended up dead, much to the horror of the fans. The franchise took a hiatus and Rob Zombie directed a very bad remake of the 1978 classic, “Halloween” (2007), which received its own sequel directed by Zombie himself: “Halloween II” (2009). Finally, in 2018, David Gordon Green co-wrote and directed “Halloween”, a new film that disregards ALL sequels and proposes to be a direct follow-up to the 1978 film, bringing back the character of Laurie Strode with Jamie Lee Curtis 40 years later. The proposal was successful and gave rise to its own sequel, “Halloween Kills”, again directed by Gordon Green and starring Curtis, and which should have hit theaters in October, but was postponed to 2021. At the end of the day, the “Halloween” series has become an exotic narrative with a lot of alternative timelines: depending on the order of the sequels you follow, Jamie Lee Curtis’s character has different incarnations where he lives or dies several times, and even has different children (including Danielle Harris and Josh Hartnett!), in the style of those old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.