Movie Reaction: Halloween Ends

Formula: (Halloween (2018) * Halloween: Season of the Witch) / Halloween (1978)

 

Like most of the Halloween franchise, the legacy of David Gordon Green's Halloween trilogy is going to be mixed. That was unavoidable. One thing no one can deny though is that the trilogy was absolutely made by true fans of the franchise. From the reverence for Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode to the mirroring of the first 3 Halloween movies’ structure, this trilogy was carefully considered if not always wholly successful. The decision to mirror structures though has led to problems. Halloween Kills was hated by so many because, like Halloween II, it sidelines Laurie in a hospital for much of it and had Michael listlessly wandering. In Halloween II, that was because John Carpenter never intended to make a proper sequel to Halloween. So it's a little weird that they decided to use that as the inspiration for Kills.

 

Halloween Ends has an even weirder challenge. It is somewhat inspired by Halloween: Season of the Witch: the at the time reviled and now reclaimed spin-off movie that tried to follow Carpenter's original idea of Halloween as an anthology series. In addition to that, it's intended to be an end to a famously closure-averse franchise. While I wouldn't call the movie a resounding success, I was mostly impressed with how they followed through on their mission.

 

This movie addresses that 4 years have passed in real life since Halloween (2018) and jumps ahead a few years. With Michael Myers on the loose, the town of Haddonfield has gotten a little paranoid. They have a hair trigger for any violent event that happens in the town. The film actually begins with a gruesome accident that makes a young man, Corey (Rohan Campbell), a town pariah. Meanwhile Laurie and her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak) have attempted to find some normalcy by moving into a non-booby-trapped house in the middle of town. Shortly before Halloween, Allyson begins dating Corey, seeing him as a kindred spirit: neither of them can walk into a bar in this town without the whole room staring and whispering. The only difference is that they see Allyson as a victim and Corey as a monster. After a rumble and a tumble, Corey eventually stumbles onto Michael Myers' hiding spot in town and is somehow overtaken by his presence. He either becomes Michael's apprentice or Michael unlocks something in him. It's never made super clear. There are definite echoes to the power of the masks in Season of the Witch though. Anyway, Corey and Michael start killing people around town. You know the drill.

 

I appreciate a lot of the ways Ends kind of undoes choices of Kills. I didn't care for the supernatural explanation of Michael at the end of Kills and it didn't make sense that a guy in his 60s would be so unstoppable. Ends very much confirms that Michael is just a man. And having him employ some help makes it easier to swallow how good his is at killing. Granted, if I'm coming to Halloween for realism, I'm the one in the wrong. The addition of Corey feels like a betrayal of the series, much like the existence of Season of the Witch was. Michael is supposed to be the villain, not Corey. But I kind of liked it. Corey feels like such a throwback 80s invention - major Arnie from Christine vibes - and an ode to that era of horror, not just Halloween. We've seen from all the Halloween sequels and even from just Kills that the Halloween (1978) formula can't be repeated every time. The Corey spin in Ends is something I think will age really well with the franchise.

 

The film finds a happy balance with Laurie. She's not the unassuming final girl of Halloween (1978) yet she's calmed down from Linda Hamilton in T2 from Halloween (2018). It's more Allyson and Corey's movie, but Laurie shows up when needed. It does right by her. They insist on a silly love story between her and Will Patton's Deputy Frank. It's cheesy, but it is nice to see what life after Michael could look like for her. Andi Matichak still doesn't jump out as the next great final girl. She works well in this movie, although it's not shocking to me that her filmography is still pretty thin despite Halloween (2018) being such a hit. I'll be curious to see what her legacy in the franchise ends up being. Rohan Campbell is given a tough role. I think his greatest strength is that Corey feels plucked right out of an 80s movie. I spent most of the movie trying to figure out what 80's celebrity is his parent. It turns out: none. He just looks like the 80s.

 

The most interesting thing about the movie to me was how the audience in the theater laughed at it. Halloween is fun scary, not "ruin your week" scary, so that means there will be laughter from the audience. Either laughter because a jump scare worked on you or laughter at the audacity of a kill. What was interesting about Halloween Ends that I don't remember in Halloween (2018) was that different parts of the audience would laugh at different times. There weren't many communal laughs. Rather, it's like everyone had pressure valves that had to be released at different times. I liked that. Halloween Ends doesn’t have many jokes. Rather, it's made with an ethos of "we know this is fundamentally silly, but we're going to play this seriously as best we can". It's another reason why I think this will age pretty well. Even the ending is funny in the extreme lengths it goes to make this an end.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend