Every Halloween Series Timeline Ranked From Worst To Best

Which Movies? Halloween (1978), Halloween II (1981) and Halloween III: Season Of The Witch

It was never supposed to all be about Michael Myers. Once Carpenter and Hill had a hit on their hands and were asked to spin it into a franchise, their plan was to turn Halloween into an anthology series in which each new movie was a completely new story only linked by how they all took place on Halloween night.

Ultimately, however, the relatively muted box office and critical response to the third movie, often from people who were expecting more Michael Myers after having spent two previous episodes following "The Shape" on his killing sprees, put paid to any future Halloween films with any non-Michael focus.

This is a shame because, even though the one separate anthology installment that did get made (1982's Season Of The Witch) is more of a mixed bag than a total success, it would undoubtedly have kept the series interesting going forward, avoiding the repetitive storytelling that we were given from The Return Of Michael Myers onwards.

Adapted from a story pitch by British sci-fi horror icon Nigel Kneale (the man behind Quatermass and The Stone Tape), Season Of The Witch was produced by Carpenter and Hill and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, who had worked on the design and editing of the original film. Although Kneale disavowed the project, its story of cursed jack o' lantern masks, television hypnosis and microchips that harness the power of Stonehenge is straight out of his playbook of sci-fi explanations for horror tropes. The story's a mess, but an interesting one.

You don't have to watch Halloween II for this viewing order to work (just the first one and Season Of The Witch would give you the anthology feel), but I, II and III are the films made by the original production team so still feel in some ways like a coherent whole when taken together.

More of a missed opportunity, then, than genuine brilliance, but this Halloween series is still worth watching.