10 Horror Movie Franchises That Wasted Their Perfect Ending

1. Michael Myers' Fiery Demise - Halloween II

A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 Dream Warriors Ending
Universal Pictures

As it stands, we're on the cusp of welcoming the 13th entry in the Halloween series to the silver screen later this month. In amongst those 13 features, of course, there's various different threads of continuity.

Do you follow the trajectory of Halloween through to Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers? Do you follow the canon that features the first two films then ignores everything until Halloween H20 and Halloween Resurrection? Do you somehow discount all of that and see Rob Zombie's duo of pictures as your Halloween? Or do you go with the most recent continuity tweak where David Gordon Green's ongoing trilogy of films discounts everything bar John Carpenter's original 1978 offering?

A brilliant companion piece to the first film, Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II serves as a pretty perfect ending for the then-burgeoning franchise. Picking up the action directly after its predecessor, on the night he came home, this follow-up sees Michael Myers stalk Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode to the hospital. There, we get a fiery climax where Myers is purportedly burned alive while The Chordettes' Mr. Sandman eerily plays over the sight of Michael's flaming body. Added to that, it's also suggested that Loomis has likewise gone down in a blaze of glory to take out his foe and save Laurie.

In actuality, Halloween II was originally intended to bring a close to the tale of Michael Myers, Laurie Strode and Sam Loomis. The plan from here on out was for new entries in the franchise to focus on fresh stories and characters, though the disappointing response to the Michael-less Halloween III: Season of the Witch caused a rethink which saw the Shape brought back into the fold for the aptly-titled Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.