There have been over a dozen Michael Myers masks used in the past 40 years for the franchise, some of which were much better than others.

When John Carpenter wrote the screenplay for the original 1978 Halloween, he envisioned Michael Myers's mask as the central visual component of the movie's horror. From the beginning, he wanted his infamous serial slayer to don an expressionless disguise, one devoid of motivation. With this choice, Carpenter intended to create a true monster, one who lingers in the shadows and only exists to move from one kill to the next.

Halloween managed to bring the slasher genre to mainstream audiences, and it ended up being one of the more popular independent films of its time, earning close to $70 million internationally against its $300,000 budget. Michael Myers and his mask are revered as genre icons, and the Halloween franchise now includes a total of eleven films, with the twelfth, Halloween Kills, being released this year. With the exception of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which veers from the Michael Myers storyline, each film features variations of the original mask, and some look much better than others.

This list ranks each Michael Myers mask in the Halloween universe, going from worst to best.

10 Halloween II (2009)

This follow-up to Rob Zombie's much more gruesome and crazed 2007 remake sees Michael Myers wearing a mask that looks like it's about to fall apart at any moment. While genre fans who enjoy Zombie's frenetic approach to horror find this departure compelling, Halloween nerds do not agree with Zombie's decision to show parts of the killer's face.

John Carpenter and his creative partner in the early days of the franchise, Debra Hill, both see Myers as a ghoulish antagonist who lacks humanity, and his original mask is a reflection of that. Zombie implies the exact opposite with his choice here.

9 Halloween V: The Revenge of Michael Myers (1989)

Director Dominique Othenin-Girard also departs from Carpenter's vision with this installment. Unhappy with the mask from Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers, Othenin-Girard designed a brand-new mask for actor Don Shanks, and the result is one of the most hatest in the franchise.

Othenin-Girard chose to highlight Michael Myers's humanity by giving the mask more refined features and sharper eyeholes, which imparts a strange, confusing expression on the killer throughout the film. It's also obvious the latex piece doesn't fit Shanks very well, and the mask's wide neck flaps around in very unscary ways.

8 Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)

After Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which deviates from the tale of Michael Myers, bombed, Dwight H. Little decided to pick up where Halloween II left off with this feature. Little had to start from scratch with Myers's mask, and many fans detest his choices.

In Halloween IV, the mask is more rounded and white, almost cartoonish. It's marked by thick eyebrows and small eyeholes that generate an odd look of incredulity. This film is also infamous for employing two additional masks in editing and reshoots, one of which is blond.

7 Halloween: Resurrection (2002)

While the mask in this first Michael Myers film of the new millennium is noticeably better than the ones in Halloween IV and Halloween V, the film itself is a total wreck, a found-footage disaster that attempts to parody reality television culture and fails miserably.

Myers's mask here is similar to the original in overall shape, yet it contains more details. Since the movie employs body-cams on the actors, which producer grainier footage, the mask needed sharper definitions to ensure its feature would be visible.

6 Halloween (2007)

Michael Myers's mask in this Rob Zombie remake is much closer to the 1978 version in shape and expression. Zombie wanted to design a mask as close as possible to the original. In the end, though, he decided to deviate in one major way: he added scars to it.

Zombie's goal was to add texture and narrative to Myers's journey, and he sees the scars as indications of what Myers has been through as he becomes further and further detached from his humanity.

5 Halloween H20 (1998)

To commemorate the 20 year anniversary of the original Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis agreed to return as Laurie Strode in Halloween: H20. The film has a reputation for utilizing the most number of masks in any of the films, including an unfortunate CGI mask.

The main mask in the film, though, was recast from the mask used in Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers. Like the very first Michael Myers mask, it contains more ambiguous and vague features. One unique element of this mask is its extra-wide eyeholes, which were chosen to create more eye contact and tension between Laurie and her psychopathic brother.

4 Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)

The only redeeming quality of this film, which reveals Michael Myers's homicidal nature is the result of a Celtic curse, is the mask.

The mask in this film retains many of the original's features, like washed-out contours and large eyeholes. The screenwriter, Daniel Farrands, wanted to preserve Carpenter's blank canvas philosophy for Michael Myers. By creating a mask with few defining characteristics, audiences are left to make whatever they want of the serial killer.

3 Halloween (2018)

David Gordon Green and Danny McBride rebooted the franchise in 2018, picking up where the first film left off in 1978. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Laurie Strode, and Michael is played by the original actor Nick Castle, as well as James Jude Courtney.

Green focuses on the 40-year jump between films, showing how Laurie's life was forever tainted by her near-death experience. When designing the mask, Oscar-winning FX artist Christopher Nelson preserved the original mask's silhouette, yet sullied and dirtied it to make it look as if it had aged 40 years. The result was to have Myers don the same mask from his first sanitorium escape in 1978.

2 Halloween II (1981)

This sequel to the original Halloween, while produced by Carpenter, was directed by Rick Rosenthal. Rosenthal uses the original mask here, but over the 3-year interval between shoots, the mask accumulated quite a bit of grime. The latex mask was also sullied by chain-smoking producer Debra Hill, who kept it under her bed.

Rosenthal had the hair from the original mask replaced, leaving more of Myers's forehead exposed. The actor who plays Myers in the film, Dick Warlock, is chubbier than the original Myers, Nick Castle, and the mask fits his face more snuggly, affecting its shape.

1 Halloween (1978)

This is where it all began, and it will always be the best Michael Myers mask. One of the film's producers, Tommy Lee Wallace, was tasked with finding a simple mask, and he decided upon a Captain Kirk mask made by Don Post Studios. Yes, William Shatner's silhouette is the basis of the Michael Myers mask.

Wallace removed the mask's eyebrows and sideburns, made larger eyeholes, messed up the hair, and painted it white. With these few choices, Wallace created the Shape, the name Carpenter gave the adult Michael Myers.

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