Vintage Chicago Tribune: Will ‘Halloween’ ever really end? How the Tribune reviewed each horror flick in the series.

The original “Halloween” — which premiered the same year I was born — is my favorite scary movie, Chicago.

Tribune’s famed movie critic Gene Siskel loved it, too. He called it “one of the scariest films I have ever seen” and ranked it 8th on his list of favorite motion pictures for 1978. The Library of Congress inducted “Halloween” into the National Film Registry in 2006, for its technical innovations including the extensive use of Panaglide from the almost silent, staring, slow-moving killer’s — originally known as “The Shape” — perspective.

The independently released slasher flick was supposedly set in Illinois, too — the fictional Haddonfield, which derived its name from co-writer and producer Debra Hill’s hometown in New Jersey.

Why Illinois? “We were looking for a mythical, small-town America where this whole drama could play out. So we invented Haddonfield, Illinois,” John Carpenter, who wrote, directed and composed music for the 1978 film and has executive-produced the more recent films, told WGLT in September. “The name hit perfectly for us.”

Yet, its modest budget of $300,000, made it apparent the film was shot in Southern California and not the Midwest. It’s been well documented that the mask worn by “The Shape” was not specially made for the production — it was an inexpensive, store-bought depiction of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) from “Star Trek.”

Look, too, for palm trees during scenes that show its prudent babysitter turned hero Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) walking home from school. Or, the majestic mountains visible behind the telephone booth psychologist Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) uses to make an urgent call warning Haddonfield’s police of Michael Myers’ (the killer) escape from a sanitarium — “I’m his doctor. You must be ready for him. If you don’t, it’s your funeral.” Or, the structure that houses a washer and dryer outside the home where babysitter Nancy Loomis (Nancy Kyes) launders her shirt covered in butter.

In fact, Kyes might be the closest Chicago connection the movie has — she graduated from Northwestern University.

With tomorrow’s release of “Halloween Ends” in theaters and on Peacock, there are now an unlucky 13 films in the “Halloween” franchise. Not all of them are worth your time. But feel free to pick and choose your poison by following the Tribune’s summaries and reviews of each below. I recommend doing so by listening to Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper.” Happy haunting!

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Gene Siskel’s review of the original ‘Halloween’ (1978)

Synopsis: “Dressed as a clown, Michael Myers is a trick-or-treating 6-year-old who stabs his sister Judith to death after watching her have sex. After time in an institution, he dons his famous mask and dispatches a number of fornicating teenagers before finding his younger sister Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who stabs him. When he rises to kill her, Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) shoots him but his body disappears, all but assuring a sequel.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: “Don’t see ‘Halloween’ in an empty theater on a weekday afternoon. See it on a weekend night in a packed house. ‘Halloween’ is a film to be enjoyed with a boisterous crowd; it’s an ‘audience picture,’ a film designed to get specific reactions from an audience at specific moments,” Gene Siskel wrote in 1978.

Yet, he didn’t mention Curtis, the movie’s 19-year-old “scream queen” star who was making her feature film debut. And he wouldn’t have known at the time that it starred one of the future “Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”

How many stars did Siskel give the film, which was one of two directed by John Carpenter to play at the Chicago International Film Festival that year? Read more.

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‘Halloween II’ (1981)

Synopsis: “‘Halloween II’ picks up minutes after the first film, with police searching for Myers. Loomis finds Myers at a dark hospital littered with corpses. He shoots Myers; Laurie shoots Myers. When that doesn’t stop him, she unleashes oxygen, Loomis lights his lighter and Myers goes up in flames.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: According to Siskel, the sequel did not live up to the original creepiness of the original “Halloween.”

“The only thing this film has going for it is the presence of the killer. He never speaks. He never runs. He just walks steadily forward, carrying a knife. He just appears — out of nowhere. We spot him with his whitened face. It’s a very creepy effect,” Siskel wrote in 1981. “But we experienced that in ‘Halloween.’ Then new film offers nothing more and a lot less.”

Yet, some viewers liked the continuity of the sequel, which picked up where “Halloween” left off. Read more.

‘Halloween III: Season of the Witch’ (1982)

Synopsis: “As proof of his death, ‘Halloween III’ didn’t feature Myers at all. With Carpenter out of the picture, the plan was simply to release an original horror film exploiting the title on every holiday. But the plan died a lot easier than Myers, who comes back again — he has been in a coma.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: A short, uncredited review gives this Michael Myers-less installment three-out-of-four stars, calling it “a surprisingly juicy thriller.” Read more.

‘Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers’ (1988)

Synopsis: “In ‘Halloween 4,’ Myers finally gets star billing in the subtitle, ‘The Return of Michael Myers.’ He escapes to find a niece named Jamie (Danielle Harris). After hacking his way through more teens as well as a family dog, he finds Jamie and her adoptive sister, who kills him. But Myers has transferred the family curse. Jamie, in the clown outfit, murders her foster mother.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: The Tribune may have lost interest in the “Halloween” franchise a decade after the original was released — no review was published for this movie. But, audiences still were looking for a scare. Its Chicago-area release was the top-grossing film of the week, beating out “The Accused,” “Mystic Pizza” and “Gorillas in the Mist.” Read more.

‘Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers’ (1989)

Synopsis: “From here, Myers’ saga gets seriously skewed, but he is reunited with Jamie (Harris) in ‘Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers,’ where they even share a tender moment. He removes his mask to reveal his twisted face.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: A review by a student at Glenbard West High School, claims this version “is better than Parts 3 or 4,” but its bad acting is a major drawback. “Though John Carpenter’s theme music is still scary,” the student wrote. Read more.

‘Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’ (1995)

Synopsis: “‘Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers’ finally explains that Myers was cursed and given amazing powers of strength and regeneration by a secret cult. At this point, even fans who had forgiven the inconsistencies were nodding off.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: What new, exciting, different thing does this film have that its five predecessors didn’t? Paul Rudd! Rohan B. Preston, the reviewer, says “There are a few internal jokes, such as when Tommy Doyle (Rudd), who survived an earlier Myers campaign ... smashes a pumpkin.” Read more.

‘Halloween H20: 20 Years Later’ (1998)

Synopsis: “Two decades after the release of Carpenter’s 1978 classic, Curtis reprised her iconic role as Laurie Strode in this rousing anniversary chapter. Wisely ignoring the events of parts 4, 5 and 6, ‘Halloween H20′ finds Laurie working as the headmistress at a private boarding school whose students include Michelle Williams and Josh Hartnett. Naturally, big brother Michael decides to pay a visit on his favorite holiday. Slickly helmed by two-time ‘Friday the 13th’ director Steve Miner, the film benefits immeasurably from Curtis’ strength and charisma, and from composer John Ottman’s epic orchestration of Carpenter’s immortal theme music. Few films, regardless of genre, end on a more satisfying note.” (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 19, 2018)

Tribune’s take: Feel free to jump from 1978′s ‘Halloween’ directly to this sequel, the first “decent” ‘Halloween’ movie in 20 years, Michael Wilmington wrote in 1998. He gave it 3 stars (out of 4). Read more.

‘Halloween: Resurrection’ (2002)

Synopsis: “‘Halloween: Resurrection’ reveals Laurie had killed an impersonator. She’s institutionalized and devises an elaborate trap for the Sibling Who Never Stops, but the tables are turned, and this time Myers kills Laurie — for real, or so we hope. Myers is killed too, but his eyes flip open at the end.” (Chicago Tribune, Aug. 31, 2007)

Tribune’s take: Teens win a contest to spend a night in Myers’ childhood home, which is livestreamed — “Oh, that’s a good idea,” Mark Caro, the Tribune’s movie reporter, wrote. Others stars include Tyra Banks and Busta Rhymes. Read more.

‘Halloween’ (2007)

Synopsis: “The most divisive installment in the franchise, Rob Zombie’s ‘Halloween’ works best when it focuses on material not previously found in Carpenter’s original film. In particular, the early scenes depicting 10-year-old Michael torturing pets, murdering a school bully and receiving psychiatric treatment at an asylum for the criminally insane are authentically disturbing. Things become less interesting, however, once the familiar babysitter storyline kicks in. Though Zombie’s meat-grinder aesthetic is the polar opposite of the less-is-more approach that made Carpenter’s original so terrifying, this controversial remake isn’t the mess that some expected.” (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 19, 2018)

Tribune’s take: Musician and director Zombie reimagines Carpenter’s original “Halloween,” but fills in the back story to explain why Myers turned into such a bad dude — “his horrible home life with a stripper mom (Zombie’s wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, also featured in his horror films ‘House Of 1000 Corpses’ and ‘The Devil’s Rejects’), bratty older sister, and grotesquely abusive stepfather,” Tasha Robinson wrote. 1.5 stars (out of 4). Read more.

‘Halloween II’ (2009)

Synopsis: “Freed from the burden of having to rehash Carpenter’s original story, Zombie transforms his blood-drenched sequel into an audacious three-ring freak show filled with pulverizing violence, bizarre surrealism and pitch-black humor, all of it captured on gritty 16 mm film stock by inventive cinematographer Brandon Trost. By far the goriest entry in the series, Zombie’s ‘Halloween II’ depicts Myers as a humanoid wrecking ball who doesn’t so much stab his victims as he does punch knives straight through their fragile bodies. For the complete stomach-churning experience, watch the superior unrated director’s cut and prepare to be rattled.” (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 19, 2018)

Tribune’s take: “Halloween II” and “The Final Destination” premiered at the box office at the same time in late summer 2009. It never fails, Tribune reporter Christopher Borrelli wrote:

“Every August, about this time, as the days grow shorter and the awful meaning of Labor Day sets in, Death, whom one would think would take a holiday, camps out in the multiplex and chews up perfectly good screens that could be showing a Juliette Binoche picture. Instead, the most disposable horror flicks, the ones that cast limb removals the way other genres cast actors, the ones that haven’t already been slated for January or April, turn up, only weirder and nastier than what’s found in those other seasonal landfills.” Read more.

‘Halloween’ (2018)

Synopsis: “A deft mixture of horror and humor, David Gordon Green’s sensational franchise reboot is a loving homage to the original and a perfectly crafted slasher movie in its own right. Obsessive Myers fans will find a wealth of clever callbacks and in-jokes to enjoy, while moviegoers who’ve never seen a ‘Halloween’ film before will discover just how cool Curtis can be when pitted against a masked maniac. Dialing Laurie’s seasonal paranoia up a few dozen notches from where it was in the unrelated ‘H20,’ Curtis elicits well-earned cheers from the audience when she makes her final stand against the relentless boogeyman.” (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 19, 2018)

Tribune’s take: Forty years after making her screen — and scream — debut in the original “Halloween,” Curtis revisits the role again, Tribune movie critic Michael Phillips wrote in 2018. “Laurie has lived with the traumatic baggage of the ‘babysitter murders’ (the film’s original title) through failed marriages and a drinking problem. She has spent her adult life in fear, and resolve, transforming her home into a booby-trapped wonder of justifiable paranoia. Her grown daughter (Judy Greer), semi-estranged, doesn’t get why Mom can’t just move on. Meantime it’s Halloween again, and the Greer character’s daughter (Andi Matichak, shrewdly cast and a welcome presence) is dealing with a straying boyfriend and a sense that the jolly goblin holiday won’t go as planned.”

Phillips gave it 2.5 stars (out of 4). Read more.

‘Halloween Kills’ (2021)

Synopsis: “The new movie picks up right after teenage babysitter-turned-crazed-survivalist grandmother Laurie Strode (Curtis); her daughter Karen (Greer); and her granddaughter Allyson (Matichak) stabbed, burned and dispatched Haddonfield’s masked nemesis for good/whoops/not dead yet. The movie served as a solid showcase for Curtis, and it delivered in its climax, even if wobbled some en route.” (Chicago Tribune, Oct. 13, 2021)

Tribune’s take: “The new film’s a comparative mess,” wrote Phillips, who gave it 1.5 stars (out of 4). Read more.

‘Halloween Ends’ (2022)

Tribune’s take: “Haddonfield, Illinois, does not exist. It has never existed. It is arguably the most famous place in Illinois that is impossible to visit. But I have been there,” Christopher Borrelli writes. Is “Halloween Ends” the last time we will check in on Haddonfield? Read more.

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