Halloween Ends

This concluding chapter to the legacy sequel trilogy is likely to divide audiences, but it certainly can’t be accused of playing it safe by simply repeating what’s come before. And while opinions on some elements of the film may differ, the long-awaited final act does deliver a satisfying conclusion to Laurie Strode’s story.

Premise: Four years after the events of the previous two films, Michael Myers has seemingly disappeared, and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has found some semblance of peace with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). But when Allyson beings to fall for the town’s pariah, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), it sets in motion a deadly chain of events.

Review:

It’s been clear from the start of this legacy sequel trilogy that director and co-writer David Gordon Green is a huge fan of the original Halloween films. But what perhaps none of us realised when his first Halloween film came out in 2018 was that his trilogy would so closely follow the structure of the original Halloween movies.

Both 1978’s Halloween and the 2018 film of the same name are centred on Michael Myers escaping from custody and returning to Haddonfield for a Halloween night killing spree, and both culminate in Michael Myers finally reaching the house where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is. Then 1981’s Halloween II and 2021’s Halloween Kills both pick up immediately from where their predecessors ended, showing the events of later the same night, and both feature Laurie Strode largely side-lined in hospital while Michael Myers goes on an even more violent rampage with an even higher body count.

“…Michael Myers is not really in the film much at all…”

After Halloween II came Halloween III: Season of the Witch in 1982, which controversially didn’t even feature Michael Myers, and instead focused on an entirely new protagonist and villain. Halloween Ends isn’t quite as massive a departure as Halloween III was, but it is fair to say that the Michael Myers story takes much more of a backseat in comparison to the last two films, to the extent that he’s really not in the film much at all.

This shift in focus away from Michael Myers must have been an intentional decision on the filmmakers’ part, presumably in tribute to Halloween III’s unexpected left-turn. Halloween Ends even mimics the blue typeface of the Halloween III title sequence in its opening, confirming that this third instalment in the legacy sequel trilogy is intentionally echoing the third of the original films.

“… Laurie Strode’s storyline is taken in an interesting & satisfying direction…”

Unlike Halloween III, however, Halloween Ends does at least continue its focus on the stories of Laurie Strode and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) from the earlier films. Jamie Lee Curtis gets more to do in this film than she did in Halloween Kills, and Laurie’s storyline is taken in an interesting and satisfying direction from where we first met her at the start of 2018’s Halloween. Andi Matichak, meanwhile, arguably gets more screentime in this film than the previous instalments, but while her storyline does unfold in some expected ways, I couldn’t help but feel her character development in this movie was a little underwritten given where it goes.

Perhaps most unexpected is the fact that arguably the main character in Halloween Ends is an entirely new character, Corey Cunningham. Corey is played by Rohan Campbell, and while I can’t say too much about his character’s storyline without giving away what happens in the film’s pre-title sequence, I can say that Rohan Campbell gets to play lots of different facets to Corey’s character, particularly as the Corey we first see in a flashback to 2019 is very different from the Corey we meet again in 2022.

“…it’s probably fair to say that fans of Michael Myers will be disappointed…”

For the most part, Halloween Ends is focused on Corey, Laurie and Allyson’s storylines, and even Will Patton gets precious little to do as returning character Deputy Frank Hawkins – to such an extent that I do wonder why the writers brought the character back from the dead in Halloween Kills if they ultimately weren’t planning to do anything particularly memorable with his story arc. In fact, most of Halloween Ends doesn’t appear to have much of a connection to the events of Halloween Kills, other than – spoiler alert for Halloween Kills – the fact that Karen’s murder is referenced and there are photos of her around Laurie’s house. Even though the climax of Halloween Kills finally seemed to confirm that Michael Myers was (or had become) a supernatural entity rather than a human serial killer, Halloween Ends seems not to have been interested in picking up that plot thread, given that Michael Myers is barely in it.

So it’s probably fair to say that fans of Michael Myers will be disappointed by Halloween Ends given how limited his appearance in the film is, but I do have to give the filmmakers some credit for having made a trilogy where each film is very different and distinct from the others, and no one can accuse them of simply having rehashed the same slasher-killer plot three times. Unfortunately, how you feel about the directions that the filmmakers took in Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends may vary – I know some viewers who have loved Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends more than their predecessors, but for me, I’d say each film in the sequel trilogy has progressively been less enjoyable than the one before.

“…the last 20 minutes deliver the final showdown between Laurie & Michael that was promised…”

That’s not to say that there isn’t plenty to enjoy in Halloween Ends – and I have to say, it’s arguably worth sitting through the less effective sections of the film to get to the final act, because the last 20 minutes of the movie deliver the final showdown between Laurie and Michael that all of the marketing was promising. But to get there, you do have to get through the preceding hour-and-a-half which neither feels like a Halloween movie nor stands on its own two feet as an enjoyable standalone horror movie.

But maybe, just maybe, rewatching Halloween Ends in years to come without the weight of expectation on it may allow viewers to re-evaluate it on its own merits … just as audiences have done over the last 40 years since Halloween III: Season of the Witch first opened to disappointing reviews, before it became considered a cult film in its own right.