Masked murderer Michael Myers has slashed his way through seven movies, two remakes, and a reboot, but which Originally inspired by Bob Clark's earlier Black Christmas, the simple story of a suburban babysitter besieged on the titular holiday gave rise to the entire slasher sub-genre when it proved to be a massive box office success upon release.
Halloween launched the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, who starred as the resilient final girl blueprint Laurie Strode. The film's huge success prompted not only a slew of rip-offs, but also a string of sequels which got a mixed reception at best. 1981's rushed-but-able Halloween II regrettably revealed Michael and Laurie were secretly related, the third film in the series attempted to abandon Myers in favor of an unrelated anthology story, and the rest of the increasingly convoluted installments saw the Halloween franchise gradually decline in quality.
However, while the quality of these Halloween films steadily dropped, the number of victims per film rose with each installment. Despite its intense suspense sequences and deservedly ferocious reputation as a horror classic, the first Halloween is a relatively bloodless affair. Like the original Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween relies more on build-up than gory onscreen pay-off. And, like both franchises' inferior sequels, the Halloween sequels emphatically do not. It's difficult to tell which of the Halloween movies features the highest body count, as there is both the original continuity films and Rob Zombie's pair of late noughties remakes to consider. Meanwhile, the question of whether to include onscreen deaths or deaths that Michael isn't responsible for further muddles the mix.
All that being said, if the phrase 'body count' is taken at face value, and all dead characters are considered game whether or not Michael Myers murders them, then 1989's critically abhorred Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers is the surprise victor here and can claim the dubious honor of being the original franchise's most violent installment. This lesser sequel manages to rack up no less than twenty kills, beating its immediate predecessor, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, by four deaths. However, due to a technicality, a great many of these killings take place offscreen in the final five minutes, coming from an unseen gunman who has exists only to complicate Halloween's already-hard-to-follow continuity. It's a terrible twist, and one which renders an already murky plot totally impenetrable.
As evidenced by that summary, Halloween 5 has little going for it other than an impressive body count. The movie's lack of scares, memorable kills, or a comprehensible plot all act as evidence that, in horror, sometimes less is more. As if to prove this point, Halloween 5's seemingly impressive score is beaten out by Zombie's loud, grimy, and altogether unpleasant first addition to the canon, the 2007 remake, Halloween. This redo features no less than 22 deaths and, unlike Halloween 5, these all take place onscreen. Two can only be found in the unrated director's cut, but no matter which version is being watched, this much-maligned remake fails to match the original's intensity, subtlety, and eerie atmosphere.
Like all of Zombie's directorial work to date, 2007's Halloween is a brutal and scuzzy film, and it works well as an accompaniment to the director's earlier effort, The Devil's Rejects. Grindhouse exploitation films and slasher movies are separate beasts, and outside of an impressive number of kills, there's not much else to recommend in Zombie's outing. Overall, the franchise's sequels hold fast to what eventually became a tradition in slasher movies — the high body count. Zombie's effort is a cherry on top for those in search of violence and grisly, onscreen character deaths.
