By Luis Lopez
Horror movies are an overlooked genre and are often left out of the conversation when discussing movie genres and movies in general. The horror genre is nothing to scoff at, as horror movie franchises and standalone movies have had their fair share of limelight. The 1970’s-1990’s was an important time frame for horror movies, as a lot of the more iconic horror franchises found their way to the big screen during that time. None more prominent than John Carpenter’s 1978 cult classic “Halloween”.
The Halloween franchise is one of the longest ongoing franchises, the first film entitled “Halloween” released in 1978, and the most recent film entitled “Halloween Ends” released this year on October 14th, 2022. According to IMDB The original Halloween film had an estimated budget of $325,000 and grossed $47,160,000 worldwide. In 2018 a direct continuation to the original Halloween entitled “Halloween” was released and had an estimated budget of $10,000,000 and grossed $255,614,941 worldwide. This film was so successful that it was able to start a new trilogy of films, with the release of “Halloween Kills” in 2021 which had an estimated budget of $20,000,000 and grossed $131,647,155 worldwide. “Halloween Ends” had an estimated budget of $20,000,000 and grossed $67,420,758 worldwide. According to BuzzFeed News and the graphic below, when pinned against each other the most successful film in the franchise is Halloween (2018), and the least successful film in the franchise is “Halloween 5: Revenge of Michael Myers” from 1989.
Each of the entries in this franchise has its own significance and varied in box office success. IMDb pinned all the movies in the franchise against one another and concluded a lot of interesting data, regarding box office numbers and worldwide gross. The movie with the best opening weekend, and the most financially successful movie in the franchise was the 2018 Halloween movie, “Halloween.” This film had a lot of expectations when it was released, not only was it the first Halloween movie in nine years, but it was also a direct sequel to the original Halloween film from 1978. Halloween (2018) has the highest gross to date amount from the entire franchise and grossed $159,342,015. The film remained #1 for two weekends which is the longest any of the films remained number 1.
The Halloween franchise has an extensive catalog of films, and all of them tend to be categorized as slasher films, and that is an accurate description of what is depicted in the movies. The website studiobinder defines the slash film genre as the following “The Slasher film is a horror sub-genre that meets certain criteria, including and effective killer, a high body count, and non-firearm weapons. These criteria can sometimes be open to interpretation or debate but those are the basic requirements for a Slasher.” The Halloween films fit that description due to their iconic killer, Michael Myers, and his common use of a knife, and the movies tendency to have a moderate to high body count with every entry in the franchise.
The Halloween franchise has a long and complicated history. The following graphic via Adam Hlavac serves as a good simplification of the franchise and its complex timeline. Hlavac’s article does the franchise justice and explains how the movies are related, and the differences in the timelines.
Horror movies will remain as a sometimes movie genre for some, but to others it will always be the go-to genre. The Halloween franchise serves a good introduction into traditional horror and offers a lot of films with varying levels of horror elements and experimental fun. Each entry offers a relatively new experience when watching for the first time, and non-horror fans and horror fans alike can find something to like in this long catalog of horror films.
Data Journalism 395 