How Many People Has Michael Myers Killed In The Halloween Movies?
Michael Myers is one of the most prolific serial killers in cinematic history. More than 40 years after he first dawned that William Shatner mask and started dicing up babysitters in John Carpenter's original "Halloween," he will be continuing his reign of terror in the upcoming "Halloween Kills." To bring ourselves up to speed before the October 15 premiere of the latest film, let's take a look back at all of the victims that Michael has claimed over the years.
To determine how many people Michael has killed, we're going to be counting all of the named or recognizable character deaths throughout the "Halloween" series. There will undoubtedly be a bit of an undercount, as there are a few movies that briefly show or allude to massacres committed by Michael where a total body count is hard to determine. With apologies to those unnamed victims, we're going to focus on the deaths we can actually confirm. To assist, we used the Halloween Series Wiki and cross-referenced with the films.
For this count, we'll also be including every entry in the franchise, including the reboots, remakes, and all the movies that have been retconned out of the official timeline over the years. The one movie that won't be included is "Halloween III: Season of the Witch," which is perhaps most famous for not including Michael Myers at all.
Without further preamble, here is an accounting of all the people Michael Myers has killed throughout the "Halloween" franchise.
Michael Myers racked up a high body count in his early era
Let's start back at the beginning. Michael has spilled gallons of blood throughout the course of his career, but his first cinematic outing, 1978's "Halloween," was a relatively low-key affair, all things considered. Myers killed just five people in the first movie, including his older sister Judith (Sandy Johnson), which is the murder that started it all.
In "Halloween II," Michael got more ambitious. The hospital set film saw Michael stabbing, bludgeoning, and in the notable case of nurse Karen Bailey (Pamela Susan Shoop), boiling nine victims to death. Then, after sitting out "Halloween III," Michael mounted an impressive comeback in "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers." In that film, he slew a whopping 14 people.
After his bloodiest outing yet, Myers scaled back a bit for "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers," which saw him claim 12 additional victims. That, of course, doesn't include the many murders committed by Michael's accomplice Dr. Terence Wynn (Don Shanks), who racked up a healthy kill count of his own at the end of the movie thanks to a police station massacre that results in Michael being released from prison.
The '90s and early '00s were a mixed bag for Michael Myers
1995's "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is known for its strange plot involving a cult, providing an early role for an upstart young actor named Paul Rudd, and having a theatrical cut and a "producer's cut" that are significantly different. The different versions of the film and several obscured or off-screen deaths make this one a challenge to get an accurate count for, but we're going to mark 16 new kills for Michael here.
"Halloween: H20," on the other hand, is a significantly easier film to tally. The movie was a return to basics for the franchise in many ways. It reintroduced our heroine from the first movie, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and retconned basically every movie after "Halloween II" out of existence. For his big 20th anniversary, Michael decided to go for a minimalist celebration by only killing six people.
Things picked up again in 2002's "Halloween: Resurrection," an entry that tried to modernize the franchise by having Michael's victims be participants in an internet live-stream event involving college students spending the night in the Myers' family home. John Carpenter was famously not a fan of the film but it did add 10 new kills to Michael's count, including Nora Winston, a character played by supermodel Tyra Banks in one of her few film acting roles.
Michael Myers slashed his way through Halloween's reboots and remakes
Thus far, the original "Halloween" holds the record for having the fewest kills by Michael Myers out of the entire franchise. The 2007 remake/radical reimagining by writer-director Rob Zombie, in contrast, has the most with a whopping 25 total kills by the masked menace. It should be noted that a number of these murders happen either in deleted scenes or are exclusive depending on what cut of the film you're watching.
Zombie's "Halloween" was yet another timeline reboot for the franchise, and in 2009, it got its own sequel. Similar to the first entry, "Halloween II" is both a loose remake of the original second film and a reimagining that significantly expands the scope of the narrative and fleshes out Michael's backstory. The movie features 14 kills by Michael in the waking world, as well as four that happen in a vivid dream sequence.
And finally, that brings us to yet another reboot. 2018's "Halloween" followed in the footsteps of "Halloween H20" by reintroducing Laurie Strode to the franchise and doing away with the entire timeline apart from the first movie. Set 40 years after the original, this direct sequel sees Michael returning to his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he butchers 18 people.
So, now that we've run through all the films, what is the final count? In 10 films and over 40 years, Michael Myers has killed 124 people. We're sure that number will rise significantly when "Halloween Kills" hits theaters and Peacock on October 15.