10 Horror Movie Franchises That Overstayed Their Welcome

Halloween II was a perfect way to wrap up the tale of Laurie Strode, Michael Myers, and Samuel Loomis, with the Shape and Loomis going out in a fiery blaze of glory. And that was actually the plan, with the Halloween series to instead veer in a standalone anthology route with subsequent entries, as highlighted by Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

However, horror hounds were hungry for more Michael, and thus Myers was brought back to the fold for the aptly-titled Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers. While Return stands as one of the better entries in the series - introducing Michael's niece Jamie Lloyd - it was followed by the hugely disappointing Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers and the utterly dreadful Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.

Still, Dimension Films and Miramax went hard with Halloween H20 in 1998, bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie and opting to ignore anything bar the events of the first two movies. In this version of the canon, Laurie faked her own death, took on the Keri Tate name, is the headmistress of a private school, and has a teenage son, John.

Much like Halloween 4, H20 is one of the best entries in the franchise, and it ends with Laurie decapitating Michael after he, of course, had managed to track her down. If Halloween was to go out with a bang, this was it.

Instead, that would be followed by the disastrous Halloween: Resurrection, be rebooted under Rob Zombie, and then have David Gordon Green helm an extremely mix bag of a trilogy that ignored all films bar John Carpenter's original.