10 Franchises That Made It To Episode 7 Before Star Wars

6. Halloween

What's the story?

An insane asylum inmate turns bogeyman when he escapes and returns to the town where he murdered his sister to stalk and kill babysitters, of whom the surviving one turns out to be his other never previously mentioned sister. After a brief witchy interval, he returns in a series of very similar, if not always big on continuity, slasher scenarios involving some family member or other.

What's in Part 7?

1998's Halloween H20: 20 Years Later essentially ignores four of the last six movies and goes for being a straight sequel to John Carpenter's original two stories. Jamie Lee Curtis is back (and back from the dead) and now has a teenage son who predictably gets caught up in another killing spree from her masked psycho brother. At the end she finally decapitates him.

How does it compare to the previous six?

While it doesn't come close to the classic original, very few horror pictures ever have. As far as the sequels go, the post-Scream take on the Halloween story feels slight but works better than most and effectively and satisfyingly wraps the story up.

Did it go beyond seven?

Despite a pretty solid ending, people couldn't leave things alone and Michael Myers' death was retconned in order to make Halloween: Resurrection. The absolute worst instalment in the entire franchise, the film finally did what Curtis' Laurie couldn't and killed off Michael... At least until the Rob Zombie prequel-cum-reboot five years later.