Halloween vs A Nightmare on Elm Street: Which Horror Franchise Is Better?

When John Carpenter’s Halloween premiered back in 1978, little did the great director know that it would become a pillar of the slasher horror subgenre, laying the narrative and structural foundations not just for its own franchise, but also for all future slasher franchises including A Nightmare on Elm Street. Speaking of the two, how do they compare, which franchise is better?

John Carpenter’s Halloween franchise is the better and more important one than Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, although not by much. Both franchises had a similar path and have had a similar number of ridiculous films, but Halloween‘s cultural impact and historical significance are why it is the better franchise.

The rest of this article is going to be divided into three sections. The first two sections are going to bring you an overview of the two series, respectively, so you know all the necessary information. Finally, we’re going to bring you a detailed analysis of the two shows to determine which one is the better of the two iterations.

Halloween: An Overview

Halloween is a horror movie franchise that consists primarily of twelve films and various spinoffs. Initiated in 1978 by John Carpenter with Halloween, the franchise focuses on the character of Michael Myers, a masked psychopathic killer who commits murders on Halloween night. His victim, Laurie Strode, as well as his psychiatrist, Doctor Sam Loomis, are also main characters in the series.

The original Carpenter film is, upon its release, a real phenomenon in the United States as well as around the world and popularized the slasher subgenre, already in full swing thanks to films like Bob Clark’s Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre by Tobe Hooper. The financial success of the film is such that the script formula of it is taken up by many other films, like the franchise Friday the 13th.

A Nightmare on Elm Street: An Overview

A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror film franchise, which consists of nine films. It has been enriched by a television series, a documentary, novels, and comics. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven.

It is based on the imaginary character Freddy Krueger, first seen in Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), who chases and kills teenagers in their dreams, primarily in the fictional town of Springwood, Ohio.

If Freddy can kill the teens in their dreams, they will be killed in the real world. Freddy tries to murder the children in revenge on their parents, who set his home on fire.

The original film is written and directed by Wes Craven, who went on to participate solely in the writing of the script for the third film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), and the writing and directing of the seventh, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994).

Halloween vs A Nightmare on Elm Street: Which Horror Franchise Is Better?

Now that we’ve given you all the necessary information, we can also give our final verdict. For us, the decision wasn’t all that difficult, as one show has several clear advantages when compared to the other.

Number of Films

Having a lot of films in a franchise is not necessarily proof of the franchise being good, but it usually is a strong indicator of the franchise’s popularity and its impact on the history of cinema.

Some of the greatest franchises in history have ten or more titles, which speaks for itself. This is why we are considering this in our article. So, let us see how many movies there are in the Halloween franchise:

And now, the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise:

As we can see, Halloween has 12 movies so far with a 13th on the way, while A Nightmare on Elm Street has a total of nine movies. These points go to Halloween.

Ratings

What the critics say about a movie is usually – although not always – the best way to assess a movie’s inherent quality, which is why we have decided to compare the critics’ ratings of the movies from three major reviewers – Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and CinemaScore. Here’s how the Halloween franchise was rated:

And here’s how the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies have been rated:

The difference in ratings between the two franchises isn’t that large, but A Nightmare on Elm Street definitely does better and is the winner in this category, getting all the points.

Box Office

While the box office usually is an indicator of the movie’s quality, especially when commercial works are concerned, it does not necessarily have to point to a movie’s inherent quality. That is why we advise you to take these numbers with some caution, but they’re a good indicator and that is why they are here.

Now, let us see how well these two franchises have done on the box office, starting with Halloween:

And now, A Nightmare on Elm Street:

These two franchises have had very similar success at the box office. The Halloween franchise has earned roughly $55,834,696 per movie, while A Nightmare on Elm Street has earned about $52,698,524 per movie. Some of these numbers need to be adjusted for inflation, but regardless of that, Halloween takes this category.

Impact

The cultural impact of both these franchises is enormous, with Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger, the main antagonists of the franchises, becoming a part of modern pop culture. Now, Carpenter’s movie came first and was more of a classical slasher, with the film inspiring all future slasher franchises.

Wes Craven’s work, on the other hand, combined the slasher genre with supernatural horror, thereby influencing a different spectrum of horror movies that would come after it. Also, the franchise has crossed over with Friday the 13th, thereby increasing its cultural impact.

So, who’s the winner here? Well, since Halloween influenced and impacted A Nightmare on Elm Street and not the other way around, we have to give the points to the former.

Verdict

Sure, Halloween does win in three of the four categories we picked, but A Nightmare on Elm Street won in the ratings category, which is basically the most important one, alongside the films’ cultural impact. We had a tough time evaluating the winner, but we still have to give this one to Carpenter’s Halloween, simply because it came first.

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