They ran out of Halloween decorations, so Michael had to improvise.
- Jimmy's death. Marion Chambers comes into his room to make sure he's okay, only to find his corpse in a chair with an ice skate in his face.
- The rather unnerving scene early on in which a mother and her young daughter stop at a remote location to use a public restroom, and are forced to use the men's room. The mother hears someone else enter and peeks through the crack of the stall and sees Michael. The situation itself — being in a vulnerable position in the middle of nowhere with your child only to be confronted by an eerie stranger in a mask — is scary enough. Especially when Michael looks in the mirror, clearly sees the mother watching him, and watches her for a moment. It's easy to see why the mom freaks out when her daughter starts screaming after she loses sight of Michael. Luckily, it was only spiders and all Michael does is steal their car.
- It's actually quite freaky seeing how often Laurie hallucinates seeing Michael, particularly in reflections, and getting scared shitless over the course of the day because of it, especially if you know what PTSD feels like yourself.
- One especially tense and frightening scene is when she's preparing to head back to her home that night and sees what looks like Michael coming towards her, the audience fully aware that Michael has made it to the campus and is inside the gates. He's still coming when she keeps closing her eyes and trying to clearly tell herself internally that it's just a hallucination, yet he isn't going away...and then she's spooked by Will. It feels like the whole thing was yet another fake-out due to her PTSD, but as soon as they agree to meet up later at her place and Will turns to prepare his rounds checking on the remaining students, he catches the faintest peripheral glimpse of a figure walking off to the side...
- Charlie reaching into the garbage disposal to get the corkscrew while Michael lurks in the background. The scene milks the suspense, making the audience think he's about to lose his hand in a scene of spectacular gore, only for him to finally pull the corkscrew loose, Michael has vanished, and everything's okay. Then he turns to leave and runs right into Michael. We're treated to a crazy shot of Charlie's startled reflection trapped in Michael's eye as he stares daggers into him.Charlie: ...Hi.
- What Michael does to Sarah. He repeatedly stabs her in the back, and then strings her up for the others to find. To wit, when the lights are turned on, you could see directly through her body.
- Sarah's attempt to escape Michael in a dumbwaiter... which contains her dead boyfriend, Charlie. As soon as she gets upstairs, Michael slashes the rope, bringing the dumbwaiter down on Sarah's leg as she gets out, horrifically twisting it. She tries to feebly crawl away, but only makes it a few feet before Michael is already upstairs and advancing on her.
- As they're being chased by Michael, there's a very suspenseful scene where John and Molly are trapped in the very narrow space between a locked gate and a door that won't open. As soon as Michael gets to the gate, he reaches through with his knife and starts aggressively slashing at them, their faces just inches out of reach as they flatten themselves against the locked door. Then he finds the ring of keys they dropped...
- The iconic scene is also a touch of terrifying when Laurie saves John and Molly and winds up staring out the door at Michael. The moment of frozen horror on her face as it becomes obvious that Michael has finally found her again, 20 years later and as far away from their old home as she could get in the country, is chilling.
- The last 15-20 minutes of the movie, when it drops the Scream-like tone and becomes a true-blue horror film.
- The scene where Laurie hides under a table, with Michael on top and ready to strike as soon as she emerges from underneath.
- The scene where Michael begins to wake up while in the back of Laurie's van.
