Ben Tramer’s mistaken-identity incineration wins over the remixed opening, neighborhood kitchen murder, Brackett finding Annie, hot-tub murders, hospital chase, and gas-soaked finale.
In the discussion (7)
- The reprise remixes the original ending, Loomis’s “you don’t know what death is,” the opening score, and Michael stealing a kitchen knife into a propulsive first twelve minutes.
- An elderly couple watching Night of the Living Dead while preparing a huge midnight sandwich creates domestic calm before Michael enters the neighborhood.
- Ben Tramer is hit by a speeding police car, pinned to a van, and incinerated while Loomis and Brackett immediately leave; its grotesque scale and lack of aftermath make it the unanimous comic favorite.
- Brackett closing Annie’s eyes and blaming Loomis is unexpectedly moving, while Loomis responds with monomaniacal indifference.
- Loomis repeats his inhuman-patience speech like stand-up material and grows increasingly frantic as nobody believes Michael cannot die.
- Karen and Bud’s workplace hot-tub tryst combines unhygienic absurdity, coercive set history, nudity, and the movie’s most iconic scalding murder.
- The hypodermic deaths, scalpel lift, Laurie’s car hiding, blind Michael, and Loomis’s willingness to explode an occupied hospital are additional set pieces.
Leo Rossi wins narrowly over Jeffrey Kramer, the mortician also known as Deputy Hendricks in Jaws and Jaws 2.
In the discussion (1)
- Rossi’s later role as one of The Accused’s attackers makes Bud immediately recognizable.
The Datsun truck narrowly leads nurses’ caps, transistor-radio news, walkie-talkies, and razor-blade candy as the most 1981 element.
In the discussion (3)
- A teenager carrying a boombox late downtown is the initiating example.
- The nurses’ formal caps stand for vanished workplace uniforms.
- The razor-blade-in-an-apple injury captures a powerful but possibly baseless era-specific Halloween panic.
The deserted-night hospital, delayed setup, erotic-to-repulsive murder pattern, messy vignettes, varied kills, Loomis’s speeches, Michael’s operational efficiency, and maternity-ward image age best.
In the discussion (7)
- A nearly empty hospital is unrealistic at this scale but authentically eerie to anyone who has visited one late.
- The sequel spends thirty minutes continuing Halloween before introducing its own quiet hospital ensemble.
- The film weaponizes arousal immediately before violent disgust and gives incidental newscaster and candy-injury vignettes texture.
- Hammer, scalpel, needle, and scalding water show the genre learning to vary kills into distinct set pieces.
- Pleasence’s reported chaotic 1981 SNL hosting and Loomis’s endlessly repeated warnings increase the character’s comic afterlife.
- Michael follows the hospital sign, disables phones, lights, tires, fuel, security, the doctor, and nurses with systematic efficiency.
- Michael standing among unattended newborns is among the franchise’s creepiest images.
Michael stepping into the light behind Nurse Jill as she finds Dr. Mixter wins.
In the discussion (1)
- Michael stepping into the light behind Nurse Jill as she finds Dr. Mixter wins.
Laurie’s drugged incapacitation is the majority weak link; Dick Warlock’s shorter, stiffer, ill-fitting-mask Michael is the dissent.
In the discussion (2)
- Two hosts object that the sequel mythologizes Laurie while giving Jamie Lee Curtis almost nothing to do; alternatives include killing her early or moving her to another hospital.
- The dissent prefers the athletic original Michael to Warlock’s zombie-like movement and mask fit, while acknowledging fan arguments that six gunshots justify the stiffness.
Laurie’s visible wig, the marshal’s blank response to the sibling reveal, fake blood, pointless school vandalism, the nicotine-yellowed mask, and hot-tub death mechanics age worst.
In the discussion (5)
- Curtis’s shorter hair from another production makes the wig increasingly obvious on modern screens.
- The marshal registers no information while Marion explains the newly unsealed sibling file.
- The effects blood, Annie’s neck wound, and Michael’s school detour look artificial or purposeless.
- Debra Hill’s cigarette smoke reportedly discolored the original mask in storage, and Warlock’s head changed its fit.
- The panel debates whether Karen dies from burns or drowning and why Michael’s hands withstand scalding water.
The elderly ER doctor’s inexplicably drunk performance wins.
In the discussion (1)
- The elderly ER doctor’s inexplicably drunk performance wins.
Michael Myers did not kill a Black person on screen until 2002 and was therefore jokingly radicalized by the O.J. trial.
In the discussion (2)
- The argument excludes Nurse Alves because her death is offscreen and imagines 1990s court-TV and late-night coverage changing Michael’s politics.
- Later films’ Black victims are presented as the invented evidence for the transformation.
Ben Tramer wins for roughly 45 seconds culminating in the movie’s funniest death.
In the discussion (1)
- Ben Tramer wins for roughly 45 seconds culminating in the movie’s funniest death.
No person peaks here; mistaken-identity car crashes, same-night sequels, the early slasher era, and hospital horror are considered and rejected or left unresolved.
In the discussion (1)
- No person peaks here; mistaken-identity car crashes, same-night sequels, the early slasher era, and hospital horror are considered and rejected or left unresolved.
Hanks works for Jimmy; Cruise is test-driven and rejected.
In the discussion (1)
- Hanks works for Jimmy; Cruise is test-driven and rejected.
The franchise has exhausted sequel and remake forms; Halloween: Resurrection is rejected as an adequate mostly Black version.
In the discussion (1)
- The franchise has exhausted sequel and remake forms; Halloween: Resurrection is rejected as an adequate mostly Black version.
Samuel L. Jackson as the marshal or Loomis, Cris Collinsworth as security guard Garrett, and Byron Mayo as Bud are the strongest additions.
In the discussion (2)
- Jackson’s Loomis turns the inhumanity warning into a profane comic monologue.
- Collinsworth calling Laurie and Michael’s reunion and Mayo reassuring Karen about the hot tub are distinct commentary pitches.
The score is the only proposed recipient, but the panel remains unsure.
In the discussion (1)
- The score is the only proposed recipient, but the panel remains unsure.
The original nicotine-stained Michael Myers mask is the overwhelming choice and is speculated to be worth millions.
In the discussion (2)
- Its fragility and value require a safe rather than allowing visitors to wear it.
- A cited 2012 asking price of one million dollars is treated cautiously because the page’s authenticity is unclear.
When a homicidal maniac is loose, find your children, check in, and organize a phone chain.
In the discussion (1)
- When a homicidal maniac is loose, find your children, check in, and organize a phone chain.
Michael Myers wins two ballots; Donald Pleasence receives one for Loomis’s dominant comic commitment and character arc.
In the discussion (2)
- Two choices go to “Big Mikey” for relentless presence and survival.
- The dissent chooses Pleasence because Loomis dominates the movie, commits to every warning, and survives an arc nearly as indestructible as Michael’s.
Podcast choices
- Speaker not identified
- Michael Myers
- Speaker not identified
- Michael Myers
- Speaker not identified
- Donald Pleasence / Dr. Loomis
Most Rewatchable Scene
