With the recent news from John Carpenter that the upcoming Halloween Kills is set to have a massive massive kill count, it's time to look back at how the previous films in the franchise rank in that department. It might seem like a foregone conclusion that the movie entries have more murders as the series goes on, but that isn't always the case, especially as the franchise has seen a couple of reboots and refreshes.
This new list contains every kill in the franchise, including Halloween III. It also includes kills made by other characters, even Laurie Strode. From Carpenter's original classic and its sequels to the Rob Zombie reboots to the highly praised 2018 return to the original canon, here is the entire Halloween franchise so far from least to most lethal installment.
Halloween (1978) - 6 Kills
Not surprisingly, the original Halloween has the lowest kill count. It's typical for horror sequels to always try and up the kills from the original film— it's so common that it was even mentioned as one of the "rules" of horror sequels in Scream 2.
Among Michael Myers' victims in the original film are his older sister (who he killed as a child), and even a poor, innocent dog. But despite the somewhat small kill count, it's still regarded as one of the best slasher movies of all time, relying on tension, terror, and suspense rather than blood and gore.
Halloween H20 (1998) - 7 Kills
Halloween H20 rebooted the series and largely ignored the events of Halloween 4-6, which themselves completely ignored the events of Halloween III, which itself completely ignored the events of Halloween and Halloween II.
The film saw the return of Laurie Strode, now an adult, at a remote California prep school with a new cast of young '90s celebrities— Josh Hartnett, Michelle Williams, and a very young Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Though the film received mixed reviews, everyone praised Jamie Lee Curtis' performance. In fact, Curtis gets the final kill in the film, when she decapitates Michael Myers...or so we think.
Halloween II (1981) - 10 Kills
Halloween II upped the ante from the original, not only increasing the kill count, but also increasing the intensity of the kills. No longer was Michael Myers just stabbing people with his trusty kitchen knife. This time, the audiences saw an absolute cornucopia of murders, including being both scalded to death and drowned in burning hot water, getting a syringe to the brain, and at the end, Michael Myers is even set on fire (though it's later revealed that he isn't actually killed).
Halloween: Resurrection (2002) - 10 Kills
Halloween: Ressurection is considered one of the worst films in the franchise. It came out in the early 2000s as the 90s horror wave was starting to fizzle out. Other slasher bombs that premiered around that time include Jason X and FeardotCom. The movie was also universally panned for killing off Laurie Strode right at the start of the film.
Resurrection also has a potential 11th kill that isn't shown on-screen or mentioned in another film, but is alluded to. In the final scene, Michael Myers' corpse is brought into a morgue, and a lone nurse is tasked with performing an autopsy. As she goes to take his mask off, his eyes open, you hear a scream, and the film ends.
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995) - 17 Kills
Easily the most-forgotten film in the series, The Curse of Michael Myers saw a young Paul Rudd play Tommy Doyle, one of the children that Laurie Strode was babysitting in the original film. The movie also involves cults, spells, nefarious plots, and a bad attempt at telling Michael Myers backstories. It was an all-around mess. It was also the final film of Donald Pleasence (Dr. Loomis), and the movie gives him an off-screen death at the end in order to kill off his character.
Halloween (2018) - 17 Kills
In the Blumhouse reboot, audiences saw the return of Laurie Strode after 16 years— and she wasn't messing around. Her house was loaded with panic rooms, booby traps, and stockpiles of weapons. The film added a whopping 10 extra kills from the original, and was a critical and box office success, hauling in more than $255 million. The film's success has also led Blumhouse to look into reviving more classic horror franchises.
Halloween II (2009) - 19 Kills
Rob Zombie's sequel to his 2007 hit received largely negative reviews, based mostly on the film's shaky plot and the use of Sheri Moon Zombie to play some sort of spirit that encourages Michael to kill.
But what everyone agrees on is that the film has ample amounts of gore and bloodshed, which is a trademark for Zombie's slasher films. The movie was also the final installment of Halloween until 2018's Blumhouse return to the world of the original series.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) - 19 Kills
After the disastrous release of Halloween III, the filmmakers realized that audiences wanted Michael Myers back. And while Jamie Lee Curtis didn't reprise her role, fans loved the sequel. Centered around the young Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris), the film added more kills, more gore, and more lore to the Micheal Myers mystery.
Myers also had a field day with a variety of new murder techniques, such as pushing someone off a moving truck, throwing someone into an electrical transformer, and even shoving his thumb straight into a skull.
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989) - 20 Kills
Just one year after the release of Halloween 4, the series offered a direct sequel, Halloween 5. While the movie had 20 official kills, it technically had 21. After beating Michael Myers senseless, Dr. Loomis has a massive heart attack and collapses on top of him. This was supposed to be the actual death of Dr. Loomis until they brought him back for Curse of Michael Myers.
Also of note is the extremely strange finale, where a strange man in black kills a hoard of police officers and breaks Michael Myers out of jail. The 6th film tried to make sense of the mysterious man by creating the whole cult storyline which was never really embraced by the fans.
Halloween (2007) - 20 Kills
In typical Rob Zombie fashion, his remake of Halloween brought more gore and violence than the franchise had ever seen. In fact, the first five kills of the movie take place when Michael Myers is still a child.
Despite mixed reviews, the film was a success and has been Rob Zombie's highest-grossing film to date. 2007's Halloween also holds the record for being the most profitable Labor Day release in cinema history.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch - 22 Kills
Halloween III was meant to be a stand-alone film that would turn the Halloween franchise into an anthology series. Fans were not happy about the idea. Michael Myers had already become a pop culture icon and had helped create the slasher genre. However, the film has been reappraised by horror film fans in recent years, with the consensus being that it's better than it originally got credit for.
The film's plot centered around an evil mask company that had a boatload of android henchmen. Because of this, it was easy for the film to rack up a high kill count. In fact, in one scene, 10 of the henchmen are killed all at once.