Who won the movie
Michael Myers
Roger Ebert
Just one Oscar
Tentatively, the score
Cruise or Hanks
Hanks as Jimmy
The Stephen A. Smith Hottest Take Award · 1:11:30
Van Lathan: The argument excludes Nurse Alves because her death is offscreen and imagines 1990s court-TV and late-night coverage changing Michael’s politics.
Van Lathan: Later films’ Black victims are presented as the invented evidence for the transformation.
The Coach Finstock Award for Best Life Lesson · 1:42:06
Bill Simmons: When a homicidal maniac is loose, find your children, check in, and organize a phone chain.
Selected cast credits · Film reference
In the order the hosts got to it. Open a row for the discussion.
Ben Tramer’s mistaken-identity incineration
Leo Rossi
The Datsun truck
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
The razor-blade apple edges the huge midnight sandwich as best use of food.
Michael stepping into the light behind Nurse Jill as she finds Dr. Mixter
“Mr. Sandman”
Bud Scarlotti
Loomis’s “you don’t know what death is” and the score kicking in
Flex pick · Chris Ryan
Yes: Pamela Susan Shoop’s reported experience with an inadequately closed set and pressure for more nudity establishes the need.
Flex pick · Chris Ryan
Laurie’s drugged incapacitation
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
The elderly ER doctor’s inexplicably drunk performance
Yes: a Halloween-night homecoming football gathering could let Michael attack players and even suit up as an unstoppable tight end.
Flex pick · Van Lathan
Michael Myers did not kill a Black person on screen until 2002 and was therefore jokingly radicalized by the O.J. trial.
Laurie’s absent adoptive parents may be worse than the Home Alone parents; Brackett and every Haddonfield adult also fail to protect children.
Marion Chambers becomes three times hotter when she lights a cigarette after confronting Loomis.
No
No casting what-ifs found
Ben Tramer
Tom Hanks as Jimmy; Heather Thomas as the blonde nurse; Catherine Bach as Karen (no final vote)
The paramedic making injured Laurie take a “big step” into the ambulance
Flex pick · Craig Horlbeck
An abandoned high-rise sequel, Carpenter’s sibling explanation, the demolished hospital, Shoop’s ear infection and cold set, Carpenter’s reshoots, Warlock’s dual role, and the TV ending
No affirmative selection
Hanks as Jimmy
No selection
Philip Seymour Hoffman would play Bud, with a Talented Mr. Ripley–style creepiness.
The elastic timeline, Michael’s bodily needs and unexplained skills, unguarded Laurie, odorless burned body, Karen’s attraction to Bud, workplace rules, scalpel physics, scalding water, and survivable headshots
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 Garrett; Byron Mayo as Bud
Tentatively, the score
Brackett’s marriage, police consequences and Ben Tramer litigation, Laurie confronting her parents, unused Dana Carvey comedy, hospital youth, and Michael’s impossible knowledge
The original nicotine-stained Michael Myers mask
When a homicidal maniac is loose, find your children, check in, and organize a phone chain.
Michael Myers
