With the spooky season upon us, it’s hard not to find yourself thinking about the tragedies that have become synonymous with Halloween. The multiple killing sprees that rocked Haddonfield Illinois from the ‘70s through just last year are now as associated with the holiday as candy and costumes.
We all know that Michael Myers was the man behind the mask, The Shape who reigned terror on those peaceful suburban streets, but what about the man behind the man? His name is Dr. Samuel Loomis. For 15 years he was Michael Myers’ psychiatrist, and he absolutely sucks at what he does.
Apparently, Michael Myers was neither the first nor last person in Loomis’s care to go on and commit horrific crimes. Here are 30 former patients of his ranked by how many people they’ve killed.
30. Andrew Simms – 3 Kills
Alright, he was a paranoid schizophrenic with a long history of brutal violence, this one probably isn’t on Loomis. Still, it’s perplexing that the doctor recommended driving lessons as part of Simm’s treatment. Pretty much as soon as he learned what the gas pedal did he was gone.
29. David Cain – 3 Kills
Cain had come to Loomis seeking advice to quit smoking, but the doctor became immediately convinced that he was pure evil. He told Cain this repeatedly, but for reasons unknown Cain kept seeing him. Eventually, in the throes of nicotine withdrawal, Cain internalized this message and murdered three of his coworkers.
28. Rebecca Tristen – 5 Kills
Tristen sought Loomis’s advice in navigating communication issues she was having with her husband. The good doctor’s diagnosis? Pure evil. Time and time again Loomis’s go-to move is telling a patient they have the blackest eyes, the Devil’s eyes, and accusing them of being inhuman. In this instance, it turned a suburban housewife with no history of violence or wrongdoing into a jogger-strangling monster.
27. Wilson Clark – 6 Kills
“Tell me about your mother. Was she also pure evil?” Jesus dude, change up your approach.
26. Casey Lorenzo – 6 Kills
In one of his all-time greatest blunders, Loomis meant to write Lorenzo a prescription for Xanax that he could take on airplanes but got his notes mixed up and wound up prescribing pure evil.
25. Bill Maher – 7 Kills
Yes, late-night host Bill Maher is a patient of Dr. Loomis and has killed 7 people. How have we not canceled this guy?
24. Henry Parsons – 9 Kills
During the routine transfer of murderer Henry Parsons, Loomis was twirling around his therapist gun and singing a little song to the tune of “The Muffin Man.” It went like this:
“Here I am with my therapist gun, my therapist gun, my therapist gun, here I am with my therapist gun that I have for some reason.”
The gun slipped from his hand, went off, and destroyed Parsons’s restraints. He killed 3 guards escaping and 6 other people over the course of 5 days. Loomis has since written to several medical journals lobbying for less slippery therapy guns, but has yet to get his paper published.
23. Tommy Aiden – 12 Kills
In his first session with Tommy, then a teen caught doing graffiti, Loomis called Tommy pure evil. Tommy replied “No I’m not,” and Loomis replied, “Oh, what’s the matter, chicken?!”
Nobody calls Tommy Aiden a chicken.
22. Paul McCray – 14 Kills
When Loomis insisted that McCray’s recurring dream about falling wouldn’t stop until his inherent evil was satiated, McCray took matters into his own hands in an incident now known as the Carlsville pitchfork slaughter.
21. Loraine Bacon – 15 Kills
Loraine was a violent psychotic under Dr. Loomis’s care who was set free when Loomis accidentally texted “FREEBACON” to a Smith’s Grove guard. Apparently, this was a promo code for a meal delivery service sent by mistake. How is this man still a doctor?
20. The Gursch Twins – 16 Kills
Samantha and Cindy Gursch were sent to Loomis’s office to test for ADD. The first thing he asked them was “Are you two regular twins, or creepy evil murder twins?” That planted a seed that led to the deaths of 16 people in foster homes across the United States in the ‘90s.
19. Evil – 21 Kills
Yes, this patient had his name legally changed to “Evil.” He walked right into Loomis’s office and said “I am pure evil, I have the devil’s eyes, and I thirst for blood.” Loomis dismissed Evil as an attention seeker, saying “Get back to me when you’ve got some blood on your hands.” Maybe he was, but Jesus man, you shouldn’t call a bluff like that!
18. Andrea Hurd – 23 Kills
In an ill-advised foray into immersion therapy, Loomis escorted an unrestrained serial killer to a crowded fair, put a knife in her hand, and said “Don’t do anything.” She did stuff.
17. Wallace Gissimons – 24 Kills
Gissimons wanted to lose weight, so Loomis made him a subliminal meditation tape to play while he slept. “You are in control of your eating habits. Cheese and cream sauces have no power over you. You are inhuman. Pure evil.”
16. Angel Webber – 32 Kills
When Webber approached Loomis requesting his antipsychotic medication be renewed, Loomis replied “I don’t negotiate with evil.”
Drax is the closest approximation to Elon Musk on this list and thus last. He builds spaceships, he’s into eugenics, and he’s arrogant. Probably thinks he’s funny too, all spot-on Musk attributes. Plus he’s hard to work with—even Jaws quit on him! Still, he’s at least straightforward about his plan to abandon Earth and start a master race on the moon.
This evil media tycoon is clearly based on Rupert Murdoch, but that old Leviathan is finally stepping down, and if Musk has his way Twitter will be the Fox News of the future. His plan to start World War III simply to get more engagement on the platforms he owns feels pretty Musky, but there’s a sense of genuine fun to him that Elon could never replicate.
Killed by piranhas by her boss after she failed to kill Bond, Helga’s fate is too similar to that of the average Musk employee for us to lose all sympathy for her.
Rich, snobbish, and hell-bent on plunging the world into chaos simply because he can, Musk and Khan would get on like gangbusters. He’s not far off from the Boring Company founder at the end of the day, but at least he has a touch of class.
You know what a loser villain you need to be to get outshined by the charisma of Joe Don Baker? Musk does. Next to him Mark Zuckerberg almost seems like someone you could have a beer with. He can, however, land the occasional one-liner, putting him miles ahead of Musk likeability-wise.
A chess master and chief strategist for SPECTRE, Kronsteen is one of many many characters on this list who are genuine, capable examples of what Musk pretends to be.
Not much personality, but when he ripped a sink out of a wall to smash James Bond with he didn’t quip “Let that sink in” so he’s the better man.
You would need to be a real piece of shit to be less likable than the guy who maimed Felix Leiter and killed his wife. You would have to say, accuse a rescuer of being a pedophile just because his plan worked and yours wouldn’t have.
He gave us one of the most iconic death scenes in the James Bond franchise. What has Musk given us, exploding electric cars we can’t afford?
One of many, many blond muscle men in the James Bond franchise and a particularly bland one at that. Still, he would never name a kid X Æ A-Xii.
His overwhelming loyalty suggests a capacity for human connection.
Sometimes, all someone needs to do to be more likable than Elon Musk is to fall off a cliff.
Morzeny runs the training facility on SPECTRE island, hardening the world’s top assassins to kill James Bond. He’s able to work for Blofeld long term, but it’s hard to picture him working for musk more than a month before he says “Fuck this guy” and quits.
You know the bad guy trope of holding the world ransom? Largo invented that. Musk would have hired people to invent it for him and then taken all the credit.
Kaufman specializes in making his assassinations look like suicides. He’s not a nice guy, but he never tweeted “pronouns suck,” so there ya go.
He’s an egotistical, morally bankrupt computer programmer who looks like he would be right at home ironically smoking weed on Rogan, but he does actually know his way around a computer.
Mollaka is as good at parkour as Elon probably likes to think he would be.
He’s got a cool “I bet my sports car in a hand of poker” story at least. Elon would float the idea of raising with an Aston Martin, then take 30 minutes explaining that it’s a very funny joke, then make like he’s actually going to do it anyway, then back out.
Any character played by Mads Mikkelsen and Orson Welles is more likable than Musk, including Hannibal Lecter and Charles Foster Kane.
The laughter of this immortal voodoo priest is sinister but genuine. The laughter of Elon Musk is clearly rehearsed minutes before camera time.
His scars and demeanor suggest a working class background making him worlds more relatable than Tesla’s CEO.
Let’s get it: Unfortunately for the cast of “The O.C.,” A Static Lullaby were LET GO from major label Columbia Records after the also underrated and oft-disrespected “Faso Latido” failed to connect with a larger audience via radio, MTV, Friendster, and Tom Anderson. Honestly, it’s a low down dirty shame! Sigh. Still, ASL signed with Fearless Records shortly after and released a self-titled follow up just one year later to more acclaim. Something about its heavy tracks must have been contagious and eager for cannibals from all over the world and Chino Hills, and we’re not complaining that the LP shared lovers in lovely Antarctica and not-as-lovely Orange County. ASL’s third album is this particular record, and oftentimes a third or fourth release is either a return to glorious form and/or a self-titled one. This is both!
Bigwig formed in the universally known SARS and toxic chemical-ridden wastebasket of New Jersey in 1995, and their third studio album “An Invitation To Tragedy,” which came out just six years later, might be named for such. We don’t know but kind of do. Anyway, this one may be your favorite LP here, firming your appreciation for us as you are counting down to our extinction, but we’re not complaining. No frills; just melodic and biting pop punk. Also, Bigwig have a song called “Moosh” on “An Invitation To Tragedy,” and we love that word and the fact that said tune appears to be the highest streamed song from this particular record on both Spotify and an AIM away message. While the band hasn’t officially broken up, their next LP “Reclamation,” also released via Fearless Records in 2006, is their last… for now!
Fearless has been putting out quality records for the majority of this century, and Orlando’s Capstan not only exemplifies such despite being Floridian, but this particular record is not only the most recent release listed, but it showcases a strong musicianship and knack for melody not often showcased in “the scene” or the particular scene from “Forrest Gump” wherein young Forrest impersonates the creepy sounds that his eventually-disgraced principal, Mr. Hancock, makes while having coitus with his mom, Mrs. Gump, who is such a saint that her legal name is “Mrs.” Still, we’ll always have Greenbow, ALA-BAMA! Anyway, Capstan originally signed with Adventure Cat Records, and Fearless snagged the group shortly after using a combination of stars and suns, and this LP was the band’s first release with the label.
Fun “fact”: Austin, Texas’ band that put “un” in “pop punk” known as Dynamite Boy, and not the World Wrestling Federation’s now-disgraced wrestler Dynamite Kid, opened up the current six-hundred-and-sixty-six volume “Punk Goes Pop” series with their sterling cover of ‘NSYNC’s acoustic track “Baby Got Back”; we’re very, very trustworthy. Honestly, it’s surprising and saddening that this particular album didn’t catch on to the massive Drive-Thru Records pop-punk heights showcased by such DTR bands as New Found Glory, Allister, The Starting Line, and Morbid Angel around this time. Perhaps there was too much assembly required here, but regardless, this catchy LP is a deep cut Fearless Records, uh, record, and deserves both your attention.
Tonight the sky is painted. Tonight the sky is painted melancholy: Seattle, Washington is widely known for making the word “grunge” a word for music, fashion and “creative” journalists. However, it should also be a footnote to all as the city that birthed the esoteric and unique unit known as Gatsbys American Dream. Despite the band not having an apostrophe in the correct spot like underrated label mates Yesterdays Rising and Canadian megastars Marianas Trench, the group is a literate bunch of rockers that spout verbiage unheard of before in the Warped Tour world… And don’t even get us started on their tight and complex musicianship! Sadly the band made only one more full-length, their sharp self-titled LP which was also released via Fearless Records, before hanging their collective hats. Happily, they’ve had several reunions since then, and continue to be discovered by dorks clamoring for AP English to rock.
Gob’s fantastic record “How Far Shallow Takes You” is the oldest Fearless Records album here, proving that what is shallow always ages in a manner that is popularized and renowned. Released in the US just after the third wave ska craze ended with horns taking a backseat to glossy keyboards, Gob’s sophomore LP likely was the gob-way drug for many fans of the Canadian band, and proved that they were a mainstay in the aggressive and rock world, and that more incredible efforts were to come. We are making no low hanging “Arrested Development” jokes here, but everyone reading this piece is a sad clown that plays “Magic: The Gathering” at least once per month; tools. In closing, try to find a succinct and better opening song for a punk record than “236 E. Broadway,” of which other Canadian heroic band Silverstein covered to perfection on their “Short Songs” album.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s Grayscale sounds nothing like they did then, right now. Change is necessary unless it isn’t; carry on my wayward son. Anyway, whether you’re a fan of 2017 Grayscale and/or where the band is at in 2023, “Adornment” is a perfect pop-punk record from start to finish. We don’t want to even know how many people misspell the band’s name with an “E” instead of an “A” but before “Y” except after “Grrrr”. If you previously slept on this studio album or haven’t slept in days, this LP is for you. If not, it still is, as said album is chock with beautiful things for your mum in Manchester. Since DSPs aren’t removing this album, this effort is forever yours, and will never slip away from your consciousness.
Numbered bands may have gotten lost in the shuffle in the plethora of numerical acts in late-90s/early-00s, especially with Turin, Italy’s cream dripping cannoli known as Eiffel 65, the most hardcore of hardcore punk acts of all time, but Abington, Massachusetts’ Junction 18 truly warrants your love, but Abington itself absolutely doesn’t, all the cops in that town are no longer allowed to get their coffee at Mary Lou’s, look it up. Anyway, we’re still quite upset that this act never really took off, and we’re repaying their debts with this particular underrated album ranking mention, which will likely bring the band to Imagine Dragons’ heights via saccharine, sweet, and another adjective beginning with the letter s’ steps. Haters need to be taken down with a “West Side Story”-esque granite street knife fight, and Bernardo and Tony both still need to perish via a butter knife with margarine slice wound.
Subsidiary FR labels count here, so The Static Jacks’ Old Friends Records/Fearless Records LP “If You’re Young” deserves a mention here, but not just because its hipster status warrants a set at Coachella or the People Magazine offices, but because TSJ are the second of two groups referenced with the word “static” here; we can’t work it out. It’s a shame that this fantastic off-brand Fearless Records album reminiscent of The “Poor As Hell” Strokes’ songs never catapulted the band, but happily, vocalist Ian Devaney is still doing the thing with the cooler-than-you-but-not-your-lying-parents’-portfolios, Nation of Language. Speaking of The Strokes, Devaney also plays in machinegum with Strokes drummer Fabrizio “Fab Four” Moretti, likely fulfilling a Will/Aaron Eisenberg dream for both him and particularly their drummer Nick “Sports and Arts Center at Island Lake Rules” Brennan, who beats the drums so well, it serves as mercy/hallelujah to 2001.
In the aughts and beyond it was very commonplace to have a band member playing a four, five, six, or eleven-stringed instrument whilst singing, as a screamer, rather, unclean vocalist, yells at the hot, hot sun and bites a coiled, coiled cable sans instrument in hand. Los Angeles by way of Dallas, Texas’ TWN combined melody, grit, and a love for Anthony Kiedis’ property known as California in an incredible manner. Sadly, the band hung their hats just over one year after this album’s release, but happily, they referenced a classic Jawbreaker timekeeping album on their way out; dear you, they ARE punk and we’re telling everyone.
Speaking of the word “Go,” go may be the last two letters in a popular H2O cry, but this major label release was their first and last LP with such a conglomerate, accidentally succeeded at making many longtime fans whimper. The songs here aren’t that bad but the band sounds sterile, and that isn’t typically how water tastes. Fun opinion: The band’s Madonna cover here, which is a hidden track on “Go,” is enjoyable for fans of any genre, and said tune truly deserves your attention. Sadly this album was their last full-length from the band for just over seven years, as H2O released an EP called “All We Want” in 2002, and nothing else until 2008.
Todd Morse, brother of H2O vocalist Toby, still joins the band on stage on guitar and backing vocals for select shows/tours, but this cover LP is his last with the band… For now! Todd currently moonlights as the full-time bassist in a little-known punk band from Southern California known as The Offspring. Anyway, the group’s sixth album “Don’t Forget Your Roots,” an obvious nod to getting old whilst still listening to Warzone, is fun front-to-back and serves as a solid introduction to many of the band’s influences including Bad Brains, Embrace, and early Tony Bennett, but falls short of the rest of what’s yet to be listed. Still, someday we’re more than down for another studio album like this, at least we suppose, as times are changing… We wanna live!
It’s been almost eight years since the last H2O album “Use Your Voice” hit cool indie rocker stores, and from the heart, we’d like another one STAT! The black sheep father figure of hardcore known as Chad What’s Eating Gilbert of Shai Hulud, New Found Glory, Hazen Street, and Bang Tango produced this one and its former that wasn’t a cover LP, “Nothing to Prove,” and Gilbert must still be dreaming about recording such a credible, noteworthy, and legendary band in the fun, fun, fun world of punk rock; honestly, we think that everyone wishes that they were from New York, especially Floridians who have a true romance for anything outside of a swamp except for your grandma. Through thick and thin, NYHC, which means New York Happy Club, skate punk, aggressive music, and doo-wop all owe a lot to H2O and their mantra: “Little. Yellow. Different.”
At just under twenty-four minutes over the course of ten tracks, it isn’t much of a time investment to listen to “Nothing to Prove” from its Bamm-Bamm Rubble beginning to the critically charged end, but this record STILL isn’t the band’s shortest album, which is nutty in the best way; the aforementioned newest H2O record “Use Your Voice” is slightly shorter and thus, slightly better, obviously. Anyway, “Nothing to Prove” is the band’s fifth studio album, and it served as a sort of return to form to showcase that the band is aware of what happened and that they’re still here whilst unconditionally loving hardcore punk. We know that we’re wearing our hearts on our sleeves by saying this, but we feel that without hesitation this is the best H2O album from this century. What happened? Well, they were quite inspired after the blowback regarding their previous LP, “Go”. Maybe?
You may want to flip this ranking with what is listed below at number two, but you’re wrong day by day, chance by chance, life by life, in every which way, hey hey hey, that’s what I say. Can you overcome? Yep. “F.T.T.W.,” the last H2O LP to be released before the new millennium, and also the band’s final of two records for Epitaph Records, is a hard-hitting nearly twenty-track set of songs that almost knock you off your feet as quickly as “Thicker Than Water” did before it… Almost. Still, by the time this record came out, H2O went from a side-stage Warped Tour band to a main-stage headliner powerhouse group literally moving so much faster than many in their world… And deservedly so! The band were road warriors at this point, showing that the five-piece’s forcefield helped much more than it hoped for in the late nineties.
H2O signed with rock powerhouse Epitaph Records after their Blackout! Records album debut, and released “Thicker Than Water” shortly afterwards, which was a part of hardcore punk briefly affecting American aggressive mainstream culture, with peers like CIV leading the charge two years before. H2O provided a transition from that sound into the eventual aughts Drive-Thru Records blend of pop-punk/mall punk which combined the aggression of H2O with saccharine choruses. Also, “Thicker Than Water” definitely had a part in making cargo camo shorts a mainstay of a band’s stage show whilst angry audience members joined a circle pit pointing their supportive index fingers at the stage while screaming particular lyrics and crowd killing those that couldn’t sing along to hardcore’s now universal language. In closing, T-shirts with a specifically badass hard-hitting lyric on the back, and a black and white live band shot were popular in this world as well.
Our curse, but we know why: There are no “skip it” tracks on this super self-titled debut from H2O, which, like all of the band’s albums, consists of a beyond killer opening song; we love chants, being surrounded by Gen-Eric, well-cited book reports, family trees, and Jim Carrey’s “The Mask.” In addition, the album features here are noteworthy in that Dicky Barrett of ska-core, the devil, and plaid suit-wearing eight-hundred piece, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Armand Majidi and Pete Koller of the like-minded Sick of it All, Tim Shaw of New Jersey’s hardcore punk act Ensign, and Buddy Holly of the metalcore act of all metalcore acts, The Crickets, all appear prominently on “H2O.” Recorded at Brielle Studios in NYC, this record was made quickly, and even mixed in a rapid timeframe, at just three days. Anyway, we are confident that you like this ranking, unless you don’t.