Note: This post spoils the stories of the 2018 film Halloween and its two sequels: Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. It also contains videos depicting fictional gore and violence that is not safe for work. It also contains a clip of a fictional character killing themselves.

It’s spooky season once more, and you know what that means: horror movies, slasher villains, and buckets of blood and gore. We’ve gotten a lot of horror franchises over the years, but only the classics endure, and the granddaddy of them is the Halloween franchise. While quite tame by today’s standards, the original was groundbreaking when it was release back in 1978, introducing the seemingly unkillable Michael Myers to silver screens everywhere, and beginning one of horror’s longest-running franchises.

Two years ago, David Gordon Green’s sequel trilogy – which acted as a direct followup to the original 1978 film – came to an end with Halloween Ends. Although the trilogy has gotten a mixed reception from fans, I think that, despite some narrative inconsistances, there’s a lot to like about the films. Here are eleven of my favorites:

11. Michael Meyers, Child Killer

While horror films can get away with a lot that other genres can’t, killing children is one of the things normally frowned upon. But Halloween, Kills, and Ends has no problem with Michael killing children.

While Michael was never even remotely a good guy, having him kill children in painful ways (I don’t even want to know what happened to the poor kid who wore that blood-drenched skull mask) shows viewers that he’s one killer who doesn’t mess around and is willing to kill anyone he comes across. Yet, even then he spares an infant in the first film, and we never find out why, further cementing that he’s a force of evil that doesn’t bother to explain itself to his victims.

10. Laurie and Michael’s Reunion

Throughout the first film of the sequel trilogy, we get to see how Laurie prepared herself for an inevitable rematch with Michael, and what follows isn’t so much a fight, but a one-man siege:

What I like about this even though Laurie has been preparing for this fight for years, she still can’t kill Michael with guns or brute force, and has to resort to trickery and help from her daughter and granddaughter, and even then it’s still not enough to kill Michael (who, at this point, is 61 years old).

One little thing that makes this scene even better is the moment when Laurie calls out for Ray: you can almost hear Michael thinking, “Wait a minute… I know that voice.” And then, turning his head, he sees Laurie through the door, recognizes the girl who got away so long ago, and decides to finish what he started back in ‘78.

9. Old Man Michael

One of my favorite things about the Halloween sequel trilogy is that the films acknowledge Michael’s age. Instead of trying to make him an eternally youthful man, Michael has aged to the point where he could collect social security checks and get senior discounts at the grocery store. By acknowledging that the bogeyman is getting old, it makes Michael’s kills all the more unique because we rarely get to see a senior-citizen slasher villain in stories, much less one who has three movies to play around in.

8. The Innocent Inmate’s Suicide

Though the trilogy is focused on horror and kills, it’s most emotional moment is when one of Michael’s fellow inmates from the asylum realizes that an enraged mob – who believes that he’s Michael – is going to tear him limb-from-limb. They can’t be stopped, they can’t be reasoned with, and the man – who is harmless and terrified – decides that the only thing he can do is jump to his death rather than face an even worse death at their hands.

Afterwords, the shock from all those present drives home how they’ve realized that their fear, paranoia, and desire to kill Michael have turned them into monsters on par with Michael himself.

7. Michael vs the Mob

The climax of ‘Kills’ sees Michael’s bloodiest, goriest, and highest body count in any of his films when he’s attacked by dozens of Haddonfield’s citizens.

He’s shot, clubbed, hit, beaten to the ground and seemingly defeated; it’d be a perfect ending to the series to have ordinary people unite and take Michael down for good… and then he lashes out, gets right back up, and kills everyone in the crowd.

Though the trilogy flip-flops on if Michael is supernatural or just a man, this scene proves that while Michael may look human, he is anything but.

6. Michael’s Evil Infecting Haddonfield

Though Michael is and always will be the face of the Halloween franchise, an idea that’s been brought up again and again is that evil always changes shape, and that killing Michael will mean that someone will eventually take his place. However, there’s another aspect of this that is subtly implied throughout the trilogy: that the evil within Michael corrupts everyone around it. When Michael returns to Haddonfield, the people there start to become paranoid and act violently to try and stop him, only succeeding in killing innocents and themselves, until Corey is seduced and corrupted in Ends, almost becoming Michael’s successor.

Michael may be a remorseless killer, but he is also a tumor that infects, corrupts, and destroys everyone around him. He’s a prime example of how evil can create a cycle of fear, death, and revenge that is almost impossible to stop.

5. Michael’s Supernatural Abilities

There’s been many theories on why Michael is so durable and hard to kill, and while Ends says that he’s just a man, I don’t think that’s true: Michael takes damage throughout the trilogy that would kill a man half his age and demonstrates endurance, durability, and strength beyond anything any normal person could endure: name any other man in his 60’s who can beat someone to death with their fists, he can crush a man’s head into pulp by smashing it with his boot, take a firehose of water to the chest without flinching, and hit someone with a baseball bat so hard that the bat itself is broken into two.

I’m of the theory that while Michael himself is human, the evil he contains makes him so much stronger and durable than any man could ever be, and while that power fades with age, it’s still always there, always driving him on, always giving him what he needs to continue his killing spree.

4. Michael vs the Firefighters

Michael gets into a lot of fights throughout the trilogy, but in terms of sheer ‘cool’ factor, this is my favorite:

Not only does this fight have a fantastic setting (taking place in front of a burning house), it demonstrates just how inhumanly strong Michael as as he takes down nine firemen who are armed with axes, firehoses, and even saws. But this fight is also a moment of awesome for the firefighters themselves: the moment they see Michael step outside, they instantly know who he is, but they don’t panic, run, or call for backup: instead, they stand their ground and fight. And while they all die, at least they go down fighting.

Fun fact: The house burning down during the scene? That was done for real, which meant that the filmmakers had about an hour to finish filming before the house collapsed. Thankfully, they did!

3. The Final Confrontation Between Laurie and Michael

The first sequel had a fight to the death between Laurie and Michael, but in my opinion, the final battle between the two in Ends is so much more gripping: Michael – now worn down from years of untreated injuries – comes to Laurie’s house and realizes she’s nearby. Laurie – who has given up on being a highly-trained survivalist – has no time to prepare as Michael comes for her, ending in a final, no-holds-barred beatdown between the two.

While the fight isn’t flashy or filled with fancy choreography, I love its atmosphere: this fight really feels like a final confrontation over 40 years in the making, both in-universe and out. Predator and Prey – both of whom are past their physical prime – fight to the death with nothing to lose and throw everything they have at each other, all backed with a near-apocalyptic soundtrack that makes things so much more intense. This is the last time Laurie and Michael will ever fight, and they give it their all. Many a fan has decried how Michael should have been able to kill her easily, but having Michael be old, worn out, and worn down from all the injuries he’s accumulated makes things more evenly matched between the two, and makes Laurie’s final victory all the more satisfying.

2. Michael is Killed For Good

There’s a saying in the world of comics: no one ever stays dead (except Uncle Ben), and the same can be said for slasher franchises: no matter how many times a villain is supposedly killed off for real, box office profits ensure he or she will always come back, no matter how convoluted the explanation may be. But while Michael will return for the inevitable reboot of the Halloween franchise, this timeline ends him in the most concrete way possible: by throwing his body into an industrial shredder and tearing him into bloody pulp.

There’s no way, NONE, that Michael can come back from this, and there’s one aspect of this scene that makes it so satisfying beyond seeing an evil man finally getting his just deserts: Throughout the series, Michael always comes back from every injury he takes. Whether it’s immediately, in a minute, a few hours, or even years, he always comes back, and I believe that Michael did not actually die in the fight with Laurie. Instead, he was so weakened from the loss of blood and his accumulated injuries that he couldn’t move, and while the evil possessing him was working to try and heal his body, the process couldn’t be completed when he was thrown into the shredder. Thus, Michael Myers truly died when the shredder tore him apart, and he felt all the pain that came with it: a far more just and deserved ending after all the lives Michael took, the fear he spread, and the suffering he inflicted on so many.

1. A Hopeful Ending

One reason I generally avoid horror films and franchises is the constant trope of downer endings where evil wins and nothing good comes from all the sacrifices, struggles, and suffering of the protagonists. Thankfully, Ends avoids this with a bittersweet, but hopeful ending:

After so many decades, Laurie finally kills Michael and frees both herself and Haddonfield from his reign of terror. While she cannot get back all the years and loved ones she’s lost, Laurie can now heal and create a new life for herself, complete with a new relationship with officer Hawkins. And best of all, in the final shots of the film, there’s no sound of Michael breathing. His mask remains, but the man – and the evil he carried – is truly gone, and it’s a great way to end the original Halloween timeline.