Halloween (film)/YMMV

• Ass Pull: The Man In Black of Halloween 5. Word of God claims that they didn't even know who he should be before the sixth film was made.
  • John Carpenter himself admits that while writing Halloween II, the idea of Laurie being Michael's sister came to him "at 2:00 in the morning in front of a typewriter with a six pack of beer."
  • The whole "Michael replaces an ambulance worker for himself at the end of H20" move at the start of Resurrection. Even hardcore fans of the series didn't buy that one.
• Awesome Music: Take a wild guess.
  • Also, The Shape Stalks Again.
  • The main theme is considered one of the most bone-chilling pieces ever put on screen.
• Non Sequitur Scene: In The Curse of Michael Myers, the lead pipe wielding Tommy Doyle begins beating the crap out of Michael in a scene involving a near seizure inducing strobe light effect. Tommy hits Michael over and over again, eventually causing some kind of viscous green slime to begin oozing out of Michael's mask. Later, when Michael's mask is found abandoned, its completely clean, with no weird sludge coating it.
  • Several of Michael and Laurie's fantasy sequences in Halloween 2 (2009) border on this, especially the one with the pumpkinheaded aristocrats.
  • Season of the Witch is one giant BLAM for the series since it has absolutely no relation to the rest of the franchise other than something evil happening around October 31.
• Complete Monster: One of the alternate titles of this very trope was "The Devil's Eyes," a reference to Michael's evil.
  • During the commentary for Freddy vs. Jason, the director mentioned that the studios were in talks to include Micheal in a possible sequal(said talks didn't go anywhere). The director suggested the plot would involved Freddy Kruger and Jason Voorhees teaming up to beat Michael, implicitly saying that Michael is worse than either of them. To put that in perspective, Freddy is a child rapist and Jason has the highest body count of any slasher movie villain.
    • Unlike Freddy or Jason, Michael doesn't have any reason or motivation for his killing, or a life outside his murders. Killing people is all he does.
• Contested Sequel: The second movie, though it's certainly one of the better received sequels.
• Evil Is Sexy: When he's unmasked in the first film, Michael is surprisingly attractive.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Many fans prefer to regard Halloween: H20 as the ending to the original series, and because of Halloween: Resurrection's failure, they try to ignore it.
• Faux Symbolism: Rob Zombie's Halloween II is LOADED with this.
• First Installment Wins
• He's Just Hiding: Jimmy of Halloween II.
• Hell Is That Noise: The main theme. Seriously, after watching the movie, try listening to it without getting the chills. Just try it.
• Magnificent Bastard: Oddly (and infuriatingly) enough, Dr. Loomis was turned into one of these in the Halloween 2 remake.
• Motive Decay: Inverted: Michael's motives are actually fleshed out in Rob Zombie's reboot. However, it turns out the fans liked it more when Michael was a soulless, mysterious psychopath, probably because the "motive" explained in the remake pretty much boils down to a Freudian Excuse.
• Narm: In the original film, Laurie runs across the street with Michael stalking her. She runs up to the door of the house and reaches into her pocket to find the keys. Her line?

Laurie: The keys? THE KEEEEYS?!

• • The theme is a bit overplayed in the beginning of the movie as well.
  • In the Zombie remake, we have Michael bursting through a car windshield followed by Dr. Loomis shouting "MICHAEL! JESUS CHRIST!" as if he were reacting to someone spilling coffee on the floor. The line even became a meme in the Dread Central podcast and forums, usually used whenever Malcolm McDowell is mentioned.
  • There's a bit in Halloween 5 where Jamie screams out Cookie Woman after gaining a vision of Tina in trouble. The line wouldn't the narm, but its the fact Dr. Loomis, being half-crazed, pretty much is forcing Jamie in screaming out where Tina was, leading to the Cookie Woman line.
• Narm Charm: The original film has equal measures of Idiot Plot, Purple Prose, and Mundane Made Awesome Rule of Scary overshadows them so much that they're all excused.
• Nightmare Fuel: Let's start with the creepy floating jack-o-lantern in the original's opening credits and go from there...
• The Problem with Licensed Games: Covered by The Angry Video Game Nerd in his review of the video game version.
• Retroactive Recognition: The original Michael Myers would become a director and made films such as The Last Starfighter and Dennis the Menace US.
• Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Even though Michael Myers came first, in the later sequels, he ends up seeming like a rip-off of Jason Voorhees. Also since all the cliches Halloween created (or in some cases popularized) have now become cliches they are no longer frightnening.
• Sequelitis: Most of the sequels are generally regarded as low quality with Resurrection and the Rob Zombie directed reboots getting the most flack.
• Special Effect Failure: When Michael smashes one of Marion's car windows in the original, he obviously has a wrench taped to his hand.
  • He's just Crazy Prepared. Would YOU use your bare hands to smash glass?
  • Michael's CG mask, in the scene where he confronts Charlie in H20.
• Squick: The implication in The Curse of Michael Myers that Baby Stephen is the result of Michael raping Jamie, his young niece.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: IV and H20. Both came after two lackluster sequels, both showed the influence of the slasher trend of the day.
• Tear Jerker: Annie's death in New II, especially Sheriff Brackett's reaction to it.
  • YMMV, but Laurie's Dying Dream from the director's cut of the same movie.
    • Also possibly Nightmare Fuel, because of Laurie's Psycho Smirk.
• Tough Act to Follow: Subverted with the original for John Carpenter. Most of his films released afterward (The Thing, Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China among them) were not critical or commercial successes but have had second life on home video and cable going on to become classics and Vindicated by History.
• Villain Decay: Some felt the revelation that Laurie was Michael's sister took away the menacing mystery that made Michael such an effective villain.
  • Your mileage may vary, because it's not unheard of for slashers to have somewhat of a redeeming quality in their love for their family members, and Michael's obsession with killing his family members may make him out to be one of the more brutal or irredeemable slashers. Besides, it gives a reason for him targeting Laurie, but not a reason for being a Complete Monster.
• Villain Sue: Michael in the Devil's Due comics.
• The Woobie: Never mind that he is one of the few characters who doesn't get horribly murdered, does anything good ever happen to Dr. Loomis?
  • Jamie Lloyd.
    • Laurie, especially in Zombie's 2. Not only does she lose her friends but, going by canon, she loses her daughter to Michael (Thorn canon), loses her family (H20/HR canon), and either ends up becoming that she is a Myers or becoming crazy and getting shot dead by the police (Zombieverse).