Halloween poster

Halloween

Underdog Below average but still in the conversation
1978 · Horror, Thriller · John Carpenter

Halloween is below average at 44% across 491 head-to-head matchups, but it's not out of the conversation. No round offers a foothold — below average at every stage. John Carpenter proved that restraint is scarier than excess, and that thesis still holds. Michael Myers is terrifying precisely because there's nothing to understand, which makes this a pick voters can defend on pure craft. It ranks behind the other John Carpenter film tracked here.

Synopsis

Fifteen years after murdering his sister on Halloween Night 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again.

Round 1
49.7%
Semifinals
31.8%
The ceiling
Finals
44.7%
21/47

Below average across the board: 50%, 32%, 45%. The opening are the closest thing to a bright spot, but even there the record is uphill.

A Nightmare on Elm Street at 49% is as close to a dead heat as the platform produces. Every vote matters in this one. Halloween dominates Rosemary's Baby at 83%. Night Carnage at 25% is the one matchup where that confidence disappears.

Closest Rival

John Carpenter has 2 films on BingeBracket — Halloween trails The Thing (64%) in their head-to-head filmography comparison.

The Thing 64.3%
BingeBracket Record
44%
Win Rate
#24 of 39 in Horror #11 of 13 from the 1970s #2 of 2 John Carpenter films
Scores based on real fan votes in head-to-head brackets. 50% = wins as often as it loses — perfectly average.
Featured Tournament

Featured in All Time Horror Classics.

Cast your vote.

A Nightmare on Elm Street #1
Halloween #2
The Shining #3
The Exorcist #4
Rosemary's Baby #5
Hereditary #6
Psycho #7
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre #8
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About These Rankings

BingeBracket ranks films through head-to-head matchups in 8-film brackets — no star ratings, no reviews, just direct comparison. Browse tournaments, try Discovery mode, or explore the leaderboards. You can also .

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