Scare Value Award Winner – Best Kill
Halloween Ends Review.
Halloween Ends isn’t concerned with what you want. At least, not right away. It’s a bold, different take on the world of the Halloween franchise. Whether it’s the right one or not will be debated until Michael Myers inevitably returns again.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Halloween Ends
Directed by David Gordon Green
Written by Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, Kyle Richards, Rohan Campbell and Will Patton
Halloween Ends Review
The Halloween series is no stranger to divisive entries. Halloween II and Halloween Kills sideline Laurie Strode for stories of people no one cares about. Halloweens 5 and 6 drag out a man in black and the cult of thorn. Halloween Resurrection kills Laurie Strode and gives us Busta Rhymes. Halloween III isn’t even about Michael Myers. And then there’s the whole Rob Zombie offshoot. Halloween Ends isn’t just set to join those movies in being debated among fans of the franchise…it might just top them.
Four years have passed since the night of Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie Strode has done her best to move on from Michael and the loss of her daughter. She is living with her granddaughter Allyson and writing a book about her experience combating and surviving evil. That’s about as much of a plot summary as we can delve into without defeating the purpose of Halloween Ends.
It feels like Ends is interested in redeeming Halloween Kills. It takes an interesting angle that feels like a natural extension of that film’s own divisive diversion from being a Halloween movie. This movie is not about Laurie and Michael…at least not for a long time. This movie is about Haddonfield.
Haddonfield is a town so wrecked by their encounters with Michael Myers that everything becomes the Boogeyman. In Kills this was played up in an angry mob mentality threatening to tear down whatever innocence was left. In Halloween Ends it’s, at least, more interesting than that. Every encounter in this town now creates an archetype. You’re either a monster or a victim. And the town will never let you be seen as anything but that.
Allyson’s character goes on the oddest journey in Halloween Ends. She feels like she can’t escape being defined by her survivor label. It’s an interesting take that could give us a window into what the early years of Laurie would have been like post the original movie. Unfortunately, it just all feels so…underdeveloped. Which is odd since it is given so much screen time. Her choices in the story often feel completely out of left field and contradictory.
A new character, Corey Cunningham, is trapped too. Seen as a monster after an accident he was involved in, the town of Haddonfield has branded him a psycho and pushed him out of their society. The question Halloween Ends is interested in exploring is whether the town can ever let you be anything other than what it says you are. We see this in the town’s reactions to Laurie as well. It was strangely reminiscent of the plot of the underrated Psycho II.
If you’re wonder where Michael Myers is in all of this…you’ll be wondering the same thing for much of your time watching Halloween Ends. I assure you…he is still there. And not just in the effect he’s had on the town metaphorical kind of way. Instead of doubling down on the teased supernatural indestructible version of Michael that Halloween Kills hints at…we see a Michael Myers finally showing his age. In a movie filled with bold decisions, this may be its best one.
The story does take some shots at the mystique of Michael Myers in the process. There are moments where you want to shake your head that this is the Michael Myers you’ve been watching for over four decades. In the context of the story, however, it does make sense. There’s a quiet elegance to the portrayal of the lasting strength of evil vs. the lasting strength of survival. The question is, as it has been too many times in this franchise, is this what people want in a Halloween movie?
As for Laurie and Michael, like Halloween (2018), we eventually do get down to what people want to see. Once again, they are fated towards each other without Michael coming directly for her or caring who she is. One of Halloween Kills’ biggest problems was that Laurie didn’t have any reaction to discovering Michael Myers wasn’t after her as she had believed for 40 years. Here, Laurie is in a much different place, and not only does she no longer seem to believe it…she no longer seems to care. It’s a lazy way to fix Kills mistake…but it’s still a better situation. They only had two options. Either Laurie had to be so consumed with Michael Myers that she refused to accept that truth, or she had to have let her fear and anger go and have truly moved on from the obsession. Halloween Ends chooses the latter.
The main thing Halloween Ends had to get right was Laurie Strode. We all know that Michael Myers will eventually return when the studios deem it time. Jamie Lee Curtis, on the other hand, will not. Her character deserves a proper final bow. Taken as a whole, Halloween Ends isn’t it. Looking at her character arc in isolation, however…it does have some interesting things to say. We get a flashback montage to make it all feel very big and earned in a way that this sequel trilogy itself hasn’t earned.
What the trilogy has been trying to earn may be Halloween Ends biggest problem. It’s wanted to be an epic story of what an encounter with true evil does to the people in the town it leaves in its wake. In the end it also wants to be the ultimate payoff to the original Halloween. So, when we get down to the payoff of 44 years of the specific story of Laurie Strode and her Boogeyman…it feels tacked on and out of place. Even if you find the path these movies have taken to be the right one…that’s the last thing it should ever feel like.
Scare Value
A Halloween Ends review is impossible to do without discussing spoilers…which we will not be doing in this review. It demands further examination that will have to wait for another day. As for the score…well…it’s complicated. You can only judge a movie on what is. No matter how much you care about what was or what could have been. What’s is…is interesting. It’s deeply flawed and seems to revel in betraying some of its characters before remembering it has to deliver the thing people are waiting for. Bold swings are good things, especially in the 13th installment of a franchise. It may not be the Halloween movie you want…but honestly, how many have been? Time will tell us more about how Halloween Ends is perceived than initial reactions will reveal.
2.5/5
See where Halloween Ends ranks in our full Halloween series ranking
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