Halloween vs Friday the 13th: Which Horror Franchise Is Better?

It could be stipulated that the history of modern slasher horror began in 1978, with John Carpenter’s Halloween. The movie introduced several relevant narratives and structural elements that would be applied to a lot of other future series, including Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street, probably the most famous franchises aside from Halloween. In this article, we are going to compare Carpenteris’ Halloween with Friday the 13th to determine which horror franchise is the better one.

Halloween is certainly the better of the two franchises. Friday the 13th might have offered us fewer weird sequels than Halloween, but Carpenter’s unique vision is simply better and more important for the history of the horror genre than that of Voorhees’ franchise, especially in light of the fact that Halloween inspired all the future franchises.

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 hit horror movie saga focusing on the insane and ruthless killer Michael Myers. The first film of the saga, Halloween, premiered in 1978 and was directed by John Carpenter; it is now considered to be one of the most important films of the horror genre, as well as the progenitor of the slasher subgenre.

The mask that Michael Myers wears to cover the features of his face was created inspired by the face of Captain Kirk from Star Trek.

Friday the 13th: An overview

Friday the 13th is a series of American horror films consisting of twelve films of the slasher subgenre, a television show, numerous novels, and other comics, video games as well as several derivative products. The franchise mainly focuses on the fictional character of Jason Voorhees.

The character was imagined by the screenwriter behind the original film, Victor Miller. Jason was first a drowned child at Crystal Lake Camp at the age of eleven, a fault which was blamed on the negligence of copulating watchers. He reemerged as a serial killer avenging his mother.

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Halloween vs Friday the 13th: 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

Why are we even taking this into account here? Well, when we observe the history of franchises, successful and great franchises have usually had a lot of titles, which doesn’t necessarily have to be an indicator of quality, but it goes to show how popular the movies are. That is also why we are taking this into account. So, let us see how many movies there are in the Halloween franchise:

And now, the Friday the 13th franchise:

Both franchises, as we can see, have 12 titles each so far, but since Halloween Ends is coming out next year, it will become the 13th movie in the franchise, which means that Halloween will have more titles. This is why we can give this point to Halloween.

Ratings

And while critics rarely kill or make a movie successful, their opinions and reviews are often an indicator of the movie’s quality. This is why we have decided to compare the ratings of the two franchises, based on the reviews from three major reviewers – Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and CinemaScore. Here’s how the Halloween franchise was rated:

And here’s how the Friday the 13th movies have been rated:

As we can see from the available ratings, Halloween is the better franchise, although not by much. Both movies had big flops when the ratings are concerned, but Friday the 13th never had a movie as successful as the first Halloween. This category also goes to the latter.

Box office

If a movie earns a lot, that usually means that it is at least somewhat good. It doesn’t necessarily have to be like that, but it can be an indicator of the film’s quality, and that is why we are considering the box office success of these movies. Now, let us see how well these two franchises have done on the box office, starting with Halloween:

And now, Friday the 13th:

The average numbers are as follows: the Halloween franchise has earned roughly $55,834,696 per movie, while Friday the 13th franchise has earned $ 39,020,000 per film. Some of these numbers have to be adjusted for inflation of course, but this won’t really affect the final outcome. Halloween wins in this category as well.

Impact

Comparing the cultural impact of these two franchises is a bit unfair, as Jason doesn’t even come close to Michael Myers. Sure, people know about Jason, but that’s about as much as they know (and, perhaps, even should know) about the franchise.

On the other hand, Halloween has been a cultural phenomenon since 1978 and the franchise is much more than Michael Myers. It also influenced a lot of future franchises and cemented Carpenter’s legacy as a visionary filmmaker.

This is why Halloween is the clear winner here.

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Verdict

The numbers are in and Halloween triumphs in all four categories. This is also obvious if you’ve seen the franchises – the Halloween movies are just better than Friday the 13th, which has had a lot of strange and different iterations over the years. Plus, the latter never even comes near the former in terms of cultural impact, and we cannot forget that Halloween inspired Friday the 13th. This is why Halloween is the clear winner here.