First off, let's not get caught up in semantics: "Halloween Ends" doesn't mark the end of the "Halloween" movies any more than your favorite artist's "farewell tour" means they're never going to hit the road again. Horror movie icons never die, it's way too hard to create lasting ones, and Michael Myers is arguably as popular now as he's ever been. Why kill him off for good?
But "Halloween Ends" does mark the closing of a major chapter in the Michael Myers saga. And it's a hugely satisfying one, smartly written and bold enough to take sizable leaps with the Michael Myers myth. It plays with weighty themes of trauma — within both families and communities — and the very notion of evil, all while delivering a rousing climax nearly 45 years in the making.
In short, it not only sticks its landing, it stabs it dead.
"Halloween Ends" is the concluding entry in director David Gordon Green's "Halloween" trilogy, which kicked off with gusto with 2018's "Halloween" and then cooled off considerably with last year's "Halloween Kills."
Green's premise was fresh: his "Halloween" was a direct sequel to 1978's John Carpenter-helmed original, and it ignored all the interminable sequels that came after, bringing the story back around to Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her battle with the demonic masked killer who stalked her in the night all those Halloweens ago.
"Halloween Kills" was a space filler, and it's clear now that Gordon didn't have enough meat for three stories, so he filled "Kills" with gratuitous violence and found new ways for Michael Myers to dispose of people, while baking a half-hearted political allegory into the story. It didn't hold its own and it made you want to fast forward to Pt. 3, but it at least satisfied gore hounds by giving them the requisite (and bloody) Michael Myers kills they crave.
"Ends" differentiates itself from the previous two right from the beginning and has the confidence to stay its course throughout.
It opens not with Michael Myers but with Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell, Frank Hardy on Hulu's "The Hardy Boys," making quite an impression), a babysitter in Haddonfield, Illinois, on Halloween night 2019. He's taking care of a precocious child when things go horribly wrong, and an accidental death makes him the town's new pariah.
Corey tries keeping to himself and moving forward but he's constantly reminded of the incident, which can only haunt him so much internally before those feelings start to manifest themselves externally. (We see the ways his unbalanced home life leads to his emotional stiltedness.)
Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode is also unable to escape her past, and as much work as she's done on herself — she's writing a book as a way to come to grips with the effect it has had on her — she can barely have a good day out in the world without being reminded of, and blamed for, the terror Michael Myers has wrought on the town. She's a walking symbol of Haddonfield's suffering, and the townspeople don't let her forget it.
Corey and Laurie's worlds intersect when Corey meets Laurie's granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), and Allyson has eyes for him. She meets Corey at an interesting time in his life, as his personal pain is giving way to something deeper and more sinister, and a chance encounter with a sewer-dwelling Michael Myers (played underneath the mask by James Jude Courtney) flips a switch in him and turns him into something of Michael Myers 2.0.
Green, who co-wrote the screenplay with a team of three others including actor, comic and his frequent collaborator Danny McBride, takes an audacious step in transforming Michael Myers past the human realm and into an idea, whose evil can be transposed onto others. Throughout the "Halloween" series, which is now 13 films deep, Michael Myers has always been Michael Myers, a guy behind a mask, who is somehow able to evade death in nearly every situation imaginable, but remains mortal nonetheless.
Here, Green turns him into a symbol and he ponders what he represents, questioning if Michael Myers has to be Michael Myers, or if he can be anyone who strikes fear in the hearts of others and carries out heinous acts with his face hidden beneath a blank-faced mask.
It's a big leap to make, especially in a film that is promised as the final showdown in a long-simmering feud. But it works, and it allows "Halloween Ends" to become bigger than the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, and makes it more about evil, moving forward from tragedy and ultimately catharsis, on both a micro and macro level.
It also, as promised, culminates in a big main event showdown that is wanted and needed, and leads directly to the unambiguous conclusion the title points towards. And Green is able to turn it into something meaningful that can be projected onto real life instances of pain and healing, and communities that have dealt with catastrophes. It's fantasy fulfillment, in a sense, and it's placed in a real world context, of taking something that is broken and attempting to make it whole again.
The 63-year-old Curtis, already having an outstanding year thanks to her role in "Everything Everywhere All at Once," does fun, fierce work in the lead role — this ultimately strengthens the argument she should be recognized for "Everything Everywhere," which would be her first Academy Award nomination — and Campbell comes on strong as a new kind of face of evil.
All of which is to say that "Halloween Ends" achieves a lot within the frame of a horror sequel, making it more than a monster movie, but a human story as well. Never count out Michael Myers, he will surely be back in some form. But as far as this ending is concerned, he goes out with a bang.
———
'HALLOWEEN ENDS'
MPAA rating: R (for bloody horror violence and gore, language throughout and some sexual references)
Running time: 111:00
Where to watch: In theaters and on Peacock
———
