Worst Decisions Halloween Characters Made In The Franchise
Horror movie characters are just as flawed and easily confused as the rest of us. Criticizing the decisions they make as being stupid has been a cliche for a while now. The original "Scream" commented on it perfectly when Sidney explained her reasons for not enjoying scary movies, saying, "What's the point? They're all the same. Some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act and is always running up the stairs when she should be going out the front door. It's insulting."
As accurate a description as that is, viewers tend to forget that the people they're watching have no idea they're in a scary movie. So they're not thinking about all the various horror movie cliches because they're too busy being traumatized. Also, horror movies need characters to make dumb decisions because otherwise, there'd be no movie.
Sometimes a decision is objectively bad, like when all the evidence surrounding a character suggests that their next move is a mistake. Others are seemingly innocuous, only to inadvertently lead to death. To examine the spectrum of poor decisions in horror, we're going to take a look at some of the worst decisions made by the characters in the resilient "Halloween" franchise.
Dropping off those keys
You could argue that some of Laurie Strode's decisions during the climax of the original "Halloween" film were pretty bad, but they really just boil down to a terrified teenager in an unbelievable situation. She was really doing her best, so it's easy to let them slide. The entire movie is so lean and efficient that it's difficult to point out a glaring character mistake. Instead, we're going with a decision that Laurie had no idea was a mistake and was kind of the catalyst for the entire film.
While on her way to school, Laurie's father asks her to drop some keys off at the Myers house that he's trying to sell. Even though little Tommy Doyle tells her not to approach the house because something terrible happened there, she does it anyway, putting her right in the crosshairs of the masked killer currently occupying the vacant property.
Fans of the later films know that Laurie and Michael are siblings. However, this was eventually retconned in the 2018 "Halloween" sequel that ignored all the sequels, and there was no way audiences in 1978 could know about the family connection. So this scene can be interpreted as the moment Michael decides to make Laurie his victim, as he starts stalking her almost immediately. If Laurie hadn't done this favor for her father, maybe her friends would still be alive.
Checking Michael's vitals
The original "Halloween II" is the film that starts depicting Myers as almost superhuman. We get hints of it in the original film with Dr. Loomis' speeches about Michael being pure evil and Michael's disappearance at the end of the movie despite being shot six times and falling out a window. But that's nothing compared to what happens in the 1981 sequel.
As Laurie, Dr. Loomis, and Nurse Chambers try to escape from Michael, they witness him walk through a glass door, shattering it. And Michael doesn't bash his way through the glass or even charge through it like a football player — all he does is step through it, and the thing shatters. That's how powerful the killer has become.
Loomis shoots Michael a bunch, and he falls to the ground. Alerted by the gunshots, the marshal comes running over. Despite Dr. Loomis warning him that Michael is still alive, he insists on checking to see if the masked man is still breathing. Of course, because he's supernaturally powerful in this one, Michael grabs him and slashes his throat. When will people start listening to Dr. Loomis?
Buying all those masks
"Halloween III: Season of the Witch" is notorious for being the only "Halloween" film without Michael Myers. Instead, the franchise attempts to go in a new direction and tells an entirely different story set during the spookiest time of year. Instead of following the boogeyman as he stalks the citizens of Haddonfield, the story here focuses on the mysterious Silver Shamrock company and their incredibly popular line of Halloween masks.
The commercials for these masks have been running on TV incessantly and kids all around the world just have to have them. Parents, wanting to make their kids happy, are buying them up like crazy. The only problem is that these masks are designed to brutally murder the person wearing them on Halloween night. This activation is triggered by the commercial, and anyone wearing these masks and watching TV at this time is completely doomed.
Dr. Daniel Challis, the film's protagonist, is able to stop the broadcast on two channels. The third, however, is still running it. Kids all over the country are watching, and their parents are probably regretting buying those masks.
Vigilante justice
Most of what you need to know about the fourth film in this franchise is in the title: "Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers." Released on the 10th anniversary of the John Carpenter original, the fourth installment is about as far away from "Season of the Witch" as you can get. Michael Myers is back on the streets of Haddonfield, killing folks and hunting a relative. This time the object of his rampage obsession is his young niece Jamie, with who he seems to have a psychic connection.
The people of Haddonfield have had 10 years to turn Myers into an urban legend. So, when Dr. Loomis comes back preaching about evil and death, and the bodies start piling up, they decide to take matters into their own hands and fight back. The problem here is that most of them are drunk hunters desperate to shoot something. When they drive through the streets in their pickups, guns loaded, they're ready to blast Myers away on sight.
Drunk guys driving around at night with big guns is never a good idea. Naturally, something goes wrong. In this case, they think they see Michael and fire, only to discover it's just another random citizen. In their frenzy to protect themselves, they kill a totally innocent man.
Keeping Michael around
Almost nothing you need to know about the fifth film can be found in the title: "Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers." He's not getting revenge, just picking up where he left off after a brief sabbatical from murdering. This is where the big mistake comes into play.
In the opening moments of the film, we're shown how Michael escaped the guns and explosions directed at him. He made his way to a river and drifted down it until reaching a safe distance and returning to shore. Back on land, he encounters an older man living in a ramshackle house on the outskirts of town. Instead of murdering the guy right away, Michael passes out on a table and sleeps for an entire year.
The man, credited as Mountain Man, didn't try to wake Michael up or haul him out of his home. Apparently, he just went about his life as normal for 365 days until Michael woke up. Of course, the first thing Michael wants to do upon waking up is murder, and who better to kill than the older man who let you sleep in his house for a year? The guy should've thrown Michael out much earlier.
Hooking at the Myers house
"Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is the final film in the original timeline. This time, Michael successfully kills his niece, but she just had a kid, who is next on his kill list.
The Myers house has been a big part of the franchise because this is where Michael claimed his first victim. Usually, it's depicted as being a derelict husk rotting in the heart of Haddonfield. In this film, though, Laurie's uncle has moved his family into the house. But just because people live there doesn't make it an okay spot for Haddonfield residents to hang out or sneak in and have sex.
Two characters named Tim and Beth head over to the Myers house after a shock jock DJ says he wants to check the place out with an audience. The house is empty, so the two decide to make the best of it and head upstairs for sex. It's become a cliche, but people who have sex in these movies don't typically last long, and committing the act in Michael's own house is basically asking him to end your life.
Skipping the trip
This is one of those mistakes that result in the deaths of one's friends. In "Halloween: H20," we discover that Laurie Strode has been living under an assumed name following the events of "Halloween II." This is the first in a new timeline of "Halloween" sequels that removes preceding sequels — save for "Halloween II" — from its continuity. In the movie, Laurie is teaching at a private school in California called Hillcrest Academy and her son, John, is a student.
The school is about to take a trip out to Yosemite during Halloween, but John can't go because his mom is incredibly overprotective. He's kind of okay with it because his girlfriend can't go either, and he and his friends decide to take advantage of the empty school to have a Halloween party. However, his mom gives him a permission slip to attend the trip at the last minute. Now that he's all excited about possibly having a "roaming orgy" with the others, John doesn't want to go on the trip.
Although Michael was coming to the school anyway, if John had canceled the party plans and gone on the trip, there's a chance that his two friends who were killed by Michael would still be alive.
Reaching for that mask
The sequel to "H20" tries to break new ground with the series by killing off Laurie Strode once and for all. We learn in the opening of "Halloween: Resurrection" that the man Laurie thought she decapitated at the end of the previous film was not Michael Myers. It would seem that killing an innocent man was too much for her, and she was committed to a mental hospital.
We see Michael make his way through the gloomy hallways of this hospital, searching for his sister. Finally, the two stand off on the roof, where Laurie has rigged a crane to hold onto Michael so she can drop him to his death. In this moment of victory, however, she has a flashback to the previous film and doubts herself. Maybe that isn't Michael hanging there but one of his many tricks.
Needing to know for sure, Laurie moves in to remove the mask, but Michael grabs her, and the pair wind up hanging from the edge of the building. Michael stabs his younger sister in the back, and she falls to her death. While it's understandable that all the trauma she's suffered has left her mental faculties a little wonky, Laurie really should know better by now. Demand the guy to take off the mask. If he doesn't, drop him, because it's probably Michael.
Being good to Mikey
After two attempts at bringing new life into the franchise by ignoring all the other sequels, Rob Zombie was brought in to start over again from scratch. His "Halloween" takes a different approach from the others in several ways, but the most obvious is making Michael Myers the main character. He chose to detail Michael's childhood leading up to his original murders and show what his life was like as a patient of Smith's Grove Sanitarium.
One of the staff members of the sanitarium is played by Danny Trejo. He's a kind man who treats Michael like a human being, even calling him Mikey. Well, when "Mikey" decides to bust out of the hospital to go on a rampage, Trejo believes he's earned Mikey's trust. He puts himself in front of the gigantic Myers, hoping to subdue him and return him to his room. When it doesn't work, Trejo repeatedly pleads with the killer, bellowing, "I was good to you, Mikey!" It doesn't matter, though — Michael takes his time murdering Trejo in a brutal fashion.
Not watching the road
The opening moments of "Halloween" sequels are very important because they typically update us on where Michael is, how he survived, and what his plans are now. Although the previous film made it seem as though Michael had been shot in the face, it happened off-screen. Therefore, "Halloween II" is free to pick up where the last installment left off and show us that Michael was not shot in the face and could definitely come back.
The two coroners tasked with transporting Michael's body decide not to do their jobs and joke around about necrophilia. While they make gross comments, neither of them is paying attention to the road. This means they don't have enough time to see the cow standing in the middle of the street, and they crash directly into it. The cow is practically obliterated, and the impact is so intense that it eviscerates the driver's head. This is enough to wake up Michael, who climbs out of the vehicle, finds the other coroner, and kills him. If these two had been watching the road, they might still be alive.
Trying to help Michael
Following Rob Zombie's remake and its sequel, the whole franchise was rebooted again. Twenty years after "Halloween: H20" — which was 20 years after the original "Halloween" — another film titled "Halloween" was released. This one decided to change things up by ignoring every single "Halloween" film ever made except for the original. In this new film, it's a brand new timeline, and Laurie and Michael are not related.
Instead of Dr. Loomis wandering the streets yelling about evil, we get Dr. Sartain. While Loomis gives up on Michael and decides the kid is pure evil, Sartain still wants to help Michael. Only his idea of "helping" is pretty twisted. When Michael gets plowed by a cop car driven by Officer Hawkins, Sartain looks over the body with Hawkins. Instead of shooting Michael in the head or cuffing him, Sartain stabs Hawkins in the neck and puts Michael in the cop car.
Sartain reveals to Laurie's granddaughter Allyson that he is responsible for Michael escaping, and he intends to reunite him with Laurie Strode, the victim who got away. What does Sartain get as a thank you from Michael for helping him with his new rampage? His head stomped on and crushed.
Vigilante justice ... again
Although "Halloween Kills" is a sequel to "Halloween" from 2018 and not connected to any of the other sequels, it does mirror them in three major ways. First, it takes place the same night as the previous film, just like "Halloween II" from 1981. Second, much of the film takes place in a hospital — again, just like "Halloween II." The third is the idea of an angry mob trying to hunt down and kill Michael Myers. As discussed earlier, this was also a big part of "Halloween 4," which was the third film to feature Michael Myers, just as this is the third film in this new timeline.
The mob in this film is much bigger and a lot angrier than the one in "Halloween 4," though. During the chaos of Michael's newest murders, Haddonfield whips up in such a frenzy that they all turn into a bunch of Dr. Loomises, chanting, "Evil dies tonight!" They target their rage on a terrified man with a wound on his head who appears to be one of the other patients released during the bus crash from the previous film.
Blinded by fury, they chase the poor guy (who probably just wants some help) through the hospital. In his terror, he jumps from the building and splatters all over the place in a fittingly gory scene. Yet again, Haddonfield vigilantes kill a harmless man.