The Best of the Bad Guys: The Many Deaths of Michael Myers

Throughout the Halloween franchise, many have tried to kill Michael Myers with varying degrees of success. He’s been shot. Stabbed. Beaten. In 2009, Rob Zombie tried to kamikaze his entire career at him. But that white-faced bastard is still standing. No matter how many times Loomis screams into the void “DIE, MICHAEL, DIE!” He always comes back for more. The good news is that all this madness has created an entire gallery of violent injury and death for us to peruse at our leisure. Today, we’ll be doing just that. Welcome to Best of the Bad Guys, where we celebrate the best of horror’s worst villains. Today, we’re ranking the many deaths of Michael Myers. Now, when I say “deaths,” I mean it loosely. Real loose. Like screws on a roller coaster in a Final Destination movie loose. Because as we know, evil never dies. Legend even has it that the Akkad family has a rule that no one is ever actually allowed to officially kill Michael Myers. For example, they just made a movie called Halloween Ends, threw that man into a literal meat grinder, and still, not a one of us truly thought it was actually over. And it isn’t. They are currently making a TV show with Miramax. This will be a ranked list of all the times he’s supposedly been killed or even just stopped for the moment. You get the idea. Here we go. From worst to best.

Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

Speaking of the worst. This is an easy one. As if it wasn’t enough we had to watch Busta Rhymes punk Michael out throughout Resurrection. We are forced to end this crime against humanity by watching the “Gotcha all a check” rapper him drop a corn one liner as he finishes the once feared Michael Myers off for good in the garage. Then gloat about it to the news cameras. Oh, me. How the mighty have fallen. Thankfully Michael’s eyes opened in that morgue. Thankfully this wasn’t the end of the franchise. Could you imagine? Gives me the willies. Ugh.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009)

I could wax poetic about all the things I’d like to do to this movie for days. So for now I’ll just say this. Whether you watch the director’s cut or the theatrical cut? Doesn’t matter. It’s all complete and utter gutter trash from Satan’s toilet seat. Whether it’s Laurie stabbing Michael after he threatens her with his embarrassingly stupid-large Fisher Price knife before wearing his too big for her mask out the barn like a drunken idiot…or even worse, the police squad shooting Tyler Mane’s Sabretooth character down after he screams “DIE” at Loomis….it’s all bad and we don’t like to talk about it so moving on! 

Halloween Kills (2021)

Alright, so this one is a little weird because obviously Michael wins in the end. He teleports himself into that bedroom and kills poor Karen in front of his favorite window. But to be completists and get the whole franchise in here… we’ll count the street justice attack against Michael as the thing that “stopped” him in this one. Even if it was for about seven seconds. The moment is a microcosm of what plagued Halloween Kills. For an ultra-slasher that had some amazing Michael Myers moments that rival any slasher movie ever, it also suffered from general weirdness, bad dialogue, and downright corny material at times. There’s some gnarly stuff going on here, obviously. But why does the Marlboro lady have an iron? And why is that guy with the gun dressed like Tigger? I mean, I know it’s Halloween. But Tigger? The f*ck? Don’t get me started on the forced cringe of having Brackett drop this one liner that had nothing to do with the character the first time he said it. And again, even if it weren’t for all that. You have to obviously take points off because Michael literally got up a few seconds later and hate murdered the shit out of everyone.

Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The endings themselves to both the Producer’s cut and the theatrical cut are terrible. But there is a clear winner when it comes to how Michael is stopped in the two movies. And that’s the theatrical cut. Not that it’s hard to beat Michael Myers being frozen stiff by board game runes… but I digress. The entire last act is batpoop crazy but I have to admit that Paul Rudd injecting Michael with the green mystery goo and then literally beating it out of him with a pipe was pretty fun. Especially since he clearly doesn’t know what to do with his face. Originally, Rudd was supposed to suspend Michael in chains after the beat down but they were over schedule and Dimension wasn’t paying for overtime. So they just said “Oh well” and panned down to the mask and the empty needle. Dimension didn’t give a f*ck!

Halloween Ends (2022)

This one hurts my black little heart. In any other Halloween movie, this ending would have been much more favorably looked upon. Michael Myers and Laurie throw down hardcore in the kitchen… maybe a little too hardcore, considering Michael Myers’ actor James Jude Courtney called the moment “erotic” in an interview… but moving on out of choice. It’s a nice, passionate fight scene. You get the gnarly moment of Michael Myers ripping his hand open to set it free before Allyson comes in and judo chops him. Then, they both open his veins and let him bleed out. Gross. Oscar-winning special effects artist Christopher Nelson did an amazing job, as he did throughout the trilogy, during both this scene and the ultimate moment where Michael gets turned into Haddonfield hot dog meat. Here’s the problem. What works for a good ole’ Halloween sequel doesn’t work for a movie that was billed for years as the final, holy shit, hallelujah, octagon throwdown between Laurie and Michael. For better or worse, this trilogy decided to really squeeze the life out of the Laurie vs. Michael “one last time” angle, and this left people wanting more. Not more Laurie—just more out of a movie that spent most of its time focused on spaghetti milk and Corey. It wasn’t a bad ending. It was terrible marketing. Although, I will say there aren’t many cornier moments in the franchise than throwing him on the hood of a car like he’s a f*cking Christmas tree and parading him around town. That was a David Gordon Green awkward special right there.

Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

In this moment in one of the best Halloween sequels, if not THE best sequel (if only they could have fixed that mask), Michael is treated to a shower of bullets that makes Sonny’s death scene in The Godfather look like a kiss from Mother. Sheriff Meeker finally gets to let loose on the author of all his pain when he and a group of fellow marksmen unload a cornucopia of ammunition into him. Michael tries to take it and keep moving forward, but what we get instead is a hilarious, herky-jerky motion out of our over-shoulder-padded, white-faced menace that you could put just about any song to and have a laugh. Finally, Michael goes down and falls into a hole in the ground before he escapes Rambo-style down a river and we all know the rest. Sure, it’s an ending that ends up feeling a bit silly, but it also fits perfectly with the over-the-top, yet fun, nature of Halloween 4 as a whole.

Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007)

Now we’re getting into the real good stuff. I don’t agree with a lot of things Rob Zombie does but here? He absolutely nailed it. After Michael Goldberg-spears Scout off the balcony, she’s able to recover the really big gun and after several empty rounds, manages to pop one off, point blank, right in the mouth he chooses not to speak with. While the reshot chase scene that prefaced this moment went on and on for what felt like forever, the absolute frenetic energy where Scout pulls the trigger here is unmatched. Her scream is haunting and it’s just a strong, intense ending to the movie that made you feel kinda of weird walking out of the theater. Like someone just got hit at the dinner table at Thanksgiving. 

Halloween (2018)

With 2018’s ending it was a story of yet another bout of indecisiveness from David Gordon Green. And a rare occurrence of a test screening audience actually saving the day. The original ending of Halloween 2018 had Michael knife-fighting Laurie in the yard, Karen shooting him with a crossbow, and then Michael just slinking off into the woods to take a seat next to her mannequin. Test screening audiences wanted something more final, and thankfully, we got this badass moment instead. After a few throwdown moments and a chase scene, the ladies eventually trap Michael in the basement and light him on fire. The creepy-ass way Michael just stares at them with no reaction as he’s turned into a supernatural hot pocket will never not be awesome. Not to mention the fact that this decision led us to one of the greatest openings in the franchise with the firefighter Royal Rumble in Halloween Kills.

Halloween (1978)

Look, Halloween purists. If you want to put this one at the top of your list based solely on its historic status, you go right ahead. I applaud you. And it’s hard to match up with classic moments like the world’s most impressive singular sit up or the pure relief for the audience when Loomis shows up just in time to give Michael six reasons to just die already and leave those poor people alone. Then there’s the eerie moment where we look at the grassy knoll and realize he’s gone. The evil has gone from here. And holy shit… is he… supernatural? The pure stroke of genius of Carpenter to ask this question in the very last moment of the movie while we listen to Michael’s hot breath breathing all around us. It’s magical. I can’t imagine what it was like to experience it in a theater in 1978 having never seen anything like it before.

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Look, I know what you’re thinking. That it wasn’t even Michael Myers in the scene we’re about to discuss. Rather it was some poor paramedic whom Michael somehow got enough alone time with to crush his voice box and force his mask on him. Which is true. For me, though, I am doing these on a case by case basis and for this particular movie? It was an amazing ending for Michael. While I have more issues than most with H20, the film handled the supposed ending of the Michael/Laurie arc with absolute perfection. The buildup was white hot, Laurie pacing the campus holding a giant axe screaming for Michael, and there were no moments when a teenager named Corey beat up Michael and stole his mask.  Add to that an exciting moments inside of the van. The fear of just knowing that body bag is going to start moving around that leads to a suspenseful fight in a moving van. Finally the dramatic ending where Michael reaches for his sister desperately and has us all of our minds going crazy wondering what it means before Laurie cuts us all off along with his goddamn head. I don’t really give a flying horse shit why you do what you do anymore, Michael. Just die. Loomis would have been proud. It’s amazing to consider the franchise could have ended with just as many questions around Michael Myers as it began with. T’was not to be. Still a great ending.

Halloween 5 (1989)

You won’t often see many lists where Halloween 5 tops Halloween in anything. But the singular point in the film where Michael was actually stopped is far more legendary than the movie that preceded it. Loomis, wonderfully out of his mind at this point, finally has Michael alone and, even better, covered in heavy chains. The beast is stunned and unable to move about the cabin. Loomis took the opportunity to attempt to beat the rage out of Michael with a 2×4, screaming bloody murder while doing so. It’s an oddly intimate moment where they are almost completely alone, and Loomis is able to take out all his pent-up aggression after chasing this bastard around Smith’s Grove and now Haddonfield Like when your parents put up with your shenanigans in the store, knowing full well you’re going to get it when you get back to the car. It’s made even more intimate when Loomis has an apparent heart attack and may or may not die right then, right there, on top of his nemesis. What a poetic way to end a movie. Should have thrown the credits up there. That’s a way better timeline than goth Tim McGraw busting Michael out of jail a few minutes later. Again, it’s not the best movie, but the beating Van Helsing gives his monster is just so personal. It feels like an important moment between the two.

Halloween II (1981)

Our top prize for Michael Myers getting his has ALL the fixings. Laurie somehow pops off two perfect shots right in each eyeball. The iconic mask bleeding out of each eyehole and the guy still doesn’t go down! But he can’t see either. No explanation for why he’s not blind forever by the way… then Loomis springs into action after choosing a really inopportune time to play “meow” game from Super Troopers. *Get out meow!* Finally Michael (and allegedly Loomis) both go up in a glory of flames. But Michael isn’t done being totally badass yet. He stalks through the hallways completely on fire for a few most frightening minutes before finally giving in to the pain and collapsing. It’s a literal face melter of an ending with amazing cinematography and stunt work.

There you have it, my friends! That’s how I rank the many deaths of Michael Myers! Thanks for watching and be sure to check out our other renditions of Best of the Bad Guys covering everyone from Freddy to Art the Clown! A couple of the previous episodes can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

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