In 1978, filmmakers John Carpenter and Debra Hill released Halloween. The independent horror film starred Jamie Lee Curtis, then-unknown, and told the tense story of an escaped murderer named Michael Myers hunting babysitters on Halloween night. Incredibly successful, the film inspired a deluge of imitators and spawned four sequels (five, if you count the unconnected Halloween III: Season of the Witch). With a premise as simple as the original, it was inevitable that further entries would start to muddy the waters with changes to the mythology that robbed Myers of his mystery, thus turning him into just another movie monster. As a result, in 1998, an attempt was made to reboot the franchise with Halloween: H20, a sequel that ignored everything after 1981’s Halloween II. It brought things back to basics and focused on Laurie Strode living in California under an alias and facing her serial killer brother one last time.

It wasn’t long until this new timeline came to an end, however, with the abysmal reception of Halloween: Resurrection killing the series. Rob Zombie started over from scratch with his own Halloween and Halloween II, but his sleazier, grindhouse-inspired take on the material did not progress beyond the surreal sequel. So, in 2018, director David Gordon Green rebooted everything — again — with Halloween. This time, the decision was only to honor the original film and ignore everything else. Although the film was a hit (leading to Halloween Kills in 2021 and Halloween Ends in 2022), it doesn’t manage to deliver the same catharsis as Halloween: H20 did two decades previous. Here's a look at why Halloween: H20 was the best reboot in the franchise.

Keeping It Simple

Michael Myers Stalking
Dimension Films

Halloween: H20 is so lean that its runtime is less than 90 minutes. With that staggeringly short amount of time, the storytellers were able to update us on everything that transpired since 1978 (the year the first two films take place) and provide enough details on Laurie’s life to get a sense of how far she’s come and the trauma still following her. The limited cast of characters also allowed for a more focused and engaging story since, unlike the 2018 film, we don’t have several subplots to keep track of. Everything in H20 is centered on Laurie and her battle with Michael to protect her son and put her past to bed.

Related: Halloween Ends: Fan Theories on How the Trilogy Concludes

Honoring the Halloween Legacy

Laurie facing Michael
Dimension Films

Even though Halloween: H2O refuses to acknowledge everything set after 1978, it doesn’t go out of its way to say those things didn’t necessarily happen. There’s still a chance that Laurie had a daughter named Jamie, whom she let her family take care of while she fled Haddonfield in a futile attempt to keep her safe. It is entirely possible (although very unlikely) that she never heard that Michael came back and eventually killed Jamie. This means the diehard fans who love the discarded timeline can still imagine in their headcanon that the “thorn trilogy” still counts. Since Rob Zombie’s films, per CBR, are literal remakes and Gordon Green’s films actually do actively disavow the later sequels, it’s impossible for fans to pretend Jamie ever existed.

Tales of Two Lauries

Halloween H20
Miramax Films

We’re focusing heavily on H20 and the 2018 film because they’re very similar. The former is set 20 years after the original films and deals with Laurie trying to protect her child from Michael Myers. Green’s film was released 20 years after H20 and also depicts Laurie Strode protecting family. However, these are two very different versions of Laurie. The Laurie in H20 is a woman who is trying to start over, trying not to let her trauma rule her life, but struggling. She feels like a natural progression from the kind, shy girl we met in the first film. 2018 Laurie is a survivalist recluse (which is kind of like being shy), who is so consumed by what happened to her that she’s ruined her life. Both are valid choices — everyone deals with trauma differently — but Laurie’s status as an outcast is undone in Halloween Kills when, suddenly, the entire town of Haddonfield also fears Michael Myers and is willing to take extreme measures to kill him. Wait, is she an outcast who everyone thinks is unstable, or not?

Related: Jamie Lee Curtis Would 'Of Course' Star in a Marvel Movie

Halloween: H20's Closure

Laurie Strode calling
Dimension Films

If you ignore Halloween: Resurrection, Zombie’s Halloween II, and Green’s Halloween Kills, and just focus on the first movies in each timeline, the only one that offers definitive, substantive closure for Laurie and the franchise, in general, is Halloween: H20. By keeping the familial connection between Laurie and Michael, H20 adds an extra dimension to Laurie’s fight than in 2018. As great as it is to see three generations of Strode women take on “The Shape,” nothing beats Laurie Strode walking out in the darkness with an ax in her hand, screaming with 20 years’ worth of rage, “Michael!” She is calling the monster that has haunted her for so long, her own brother out of the darkness to face her once and for all. That moment and Michael’s decapitation (which was retconned later) are so deeply satisfying on an emotional level that no other reboot could compete. Perhaps the goal is to seek that kind of closure in Halloween Ends, but Halloween: H20 managed it in one film instead of three.