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Halloween Ends

When Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the HALLOWEEN franchise in 2018, I don’t mind telling you that I didn’t really care one way or the other. The franchise, I thought, had been bled dry. How much more could they possibly do? Aside from the litany of sequels, it even received the reboot treatment courtesy of Rob Zombie. Michael Meyers had been killed a million different ways, and, aside from being the embodiment of evil, he wasn’t even that interesting of a character anyway. Sure, he was terrifying, but what was the point of seeing him grotesquely slay yet another unsuspecting victim?

Imagine my surprise, then, when HALLOWEEN was a pretty fantastic movie. It served as a direct sequel to the original, ignoring all other chapters that came before it. Curtis revisited the role that made her a star and brought with it a refreshing take on a familiar tale. Two further sequels were shortly confirmed, promising to bring the saga of Laurie and Michael to a thrilling conclusion.

Though HALLOWEEN was a knockout, HALLOWEEN KILLS barely packed a punch. Relegating Curtis to the sidelines, it reintroduced plenty of characters from the original, but reverted back to the same ol’ tediousness that had bogged down the franchise for years. There was some hope that this was just the middling precursor to the spectacular finish, but HALLOWEEN ENDS is far more “meh” than “marvelous.”

Four years after the events of HALLOWEEN KILLS, Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) are now living together and trying to get their lives on track. Allyson is working as a nurse at a physician’s office while Laurie plays the role of doting grandma. She is also attempting to write a book about the tragic events that have befallen her and her community. It is a community, as it turns out, that really kind of can’t stand Laurie. They blame her for Michael’s rampage and will occasionally accost her in public in order to lay a guilt trip on her for the actions of a homicidal giant in a Captain Kirk mask.

Laurie isn’t the only person constantly harassed in the quaint little town of Haddonfield. While babysitting one night, Corey (Rohan Campbell) inadvertently causes a kid to tumble over the railing of a large staircase. This results in one of the few genuinely shocking moments in the film, along with lifetime of scorn for Corey. Laurie sees him being harassed by some local punks (I’ll let you guess whether or not said punks make it through the entire movie) and takes pity on him. When Allyson and Corey end up dating, Laurie thinks all as well, until she sees something unsettling in Corey’s eyes.

The perceptive Laurie was correct, of course. The reason Corey seems a little off is because he has forged a random and weird relationship with Michael Meyers, who is apparently just chillin’ in the sewer system of Haddonfield. Meyers has entered the mentoring phase of his murdering career and wordlessly forges a maniacal bond with Corey. Corey gets a taste of the good ol’ Meyers bloodlust, and starts teaching lessons to those who have wronged him.

What was built as an epic conclusion to the story that began in 1979 is largely misleading, as Corey is far more of a focal point than Michael. Whereas Laurie had very little screentime in KILLS, Michael is largely vacant this time around. The film ends up being more of a weird psychological horror romance than anything else, which may have worked, had it not been billed as a HALLOWEEN movie. There are a couple of superb sequences, and credit should be given for an attempt at some genuine character development, but this creates plenty of loose ends and scattered scenes that never quite come together. HALLOWEEN fans will delight in the opening credit sequence and some of the more gruesome elements of the production, and admittedly, the hyped (and obligatory) Laurie vs. Michael showdown will satisfy some, though even that has a highly questionable decision attached to it that fans will no doubt have opinions over. Whether this is truly the end of the road for the franchise remains to be seen, but given what we’ve seen over the past three decades, I find it very hard to believe we’ve seen the last of Michael Meyers.