Being Halloween season, there are a lot of horror movies to catch up on. Even if someone just chose one franchise to follow for the season of the witch, that could still take days to accomplish (there are nine Hellraiser films? Seven Leprechaun movies?). For those that just want an overview of one hallmark of the horror genre, Cinefix has created an animated video that summarizes all nine films in the Halloween series (including the Rob Zombie remake and its sequel). While The A.V. Club’s own A.A. Dowd watched the entirety of the Shatner masked slasher series, most people simply don’t have the time for it. Luckily the video only hits the highlights of each film, so it’s all accomplished in a little over two minutes (with some extra seconds given to cursing Zombie for the films he made).
Most people have seen the first Halloween film, but with each entry the numbers fall off a bit (except for H20 and Zombie’s remake). This video provides a concise way of seeing what viewers (didn’t) miss out on. Cinefix gives the bulletpoint version of Carpenter’s brilliant original and its less than great follow up before completely jumping over the unfairly maligned third film (if nothing else, that film has one of the best scores that John Carpenter—with Alan Howarth—has ever made). And while the theatrical ending to The Curse Of Michael Myers is goofy, with Paul Rudd stabbing the festive boogeyman, the producer’s cut version is even goofier as it involves stones and a magic word. All of this plus a sweet Busta Rhymes shout out delivered in under three minutes? Not too shabby.