A Beginner’s Guide to the Halloween Franchise

The Fantasy Review‘s beginner’s guide to the Halloween Franchise.

Overview

With thirteen movies and several different storylines, reboots, and sequel trilogies, it can be a bit daunting when thinking of watching some Halloween movies. Hopefully you find this guide a nice, simple way to get started.

The Halloween franchise is a series of slasher movies, starting in the late 70’s, based around the main charcaters of Michael Myers (the killer), and Laurie Strode (the “final girl”). These films and their themes, soundtracks, and even charcaters have been hugely influential on the horror genre, especially slashers.

A Beginner’s Guide to the Halloween Franchise

Which Movies to Watch First

Ask any Halloween fan and you will probably get a slightly different answer, but my main answer for this question, with any horror franchise, is if you are watching them for the first time, watch them in release date order. The plots will feel natural, as will character development. Plus, you will understand the references and easter eggs from future reboot sequels, etc!

However, there are a couple storylines you could follow if you don’t necessarily want to watch all thirteen Halloween movies in a row:

The Classic Trilogy

Halloween (1978)
Halloween II (1981)
Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

This is a great choice to start with as you can quickly get to grips with Laurie Strode’s main, classic story before jumping into some of the weirder. Halloween: Resurrection (2002) should come in at number four on that list, but you can skip it.

The Modern Reboot

Halloween (1978)
Halloween (2018)
Halloween Kills (2021)
Halloween Ends (2022)

There have been several reboots, but this is the most recent, and probably the best. Although, the ending of Halloween Ends (2022) isn’t to everyone’s taste. In this storyline, we start in the same place in the late 70’s, but then jump forty years later in the 2018 movie with Laurie prepared for the possibility of Michael Myers coming to finish the job.