Review: Halloween Ends

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.

The "Halloween" saga may end - allegedly - with a bang, but it takes a whole lot of detours to get there. Those who are paying the price of admission to see Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode face off for the last time - allegedly - against serial killer Michal Myers in Haddonfield will get what they came for, even if the route getting there is a strange one, to say the least. Those who want a typical "Halloween" movie might find themselves scratching their heads.

David Gordon Green's trilogy kicked off in style with the 2018 film simply titled "Halloween," which found Laurie coming face to face with her boogeyman after 40 years - and the film acted as a direct sequel to John Carpenter's 1978 masterpiece, skipping over all of the goofy sequels - remember the one with the cult, or better yet, the third installment with the creepy pumpkin masks, not to mention Rob Zombie's foray into the franchise?

While Green's first entry was a success - and, perhaps, the second best overall "Halloween" movie - the second one, "Halloween Kills," leaned heavily on overstated social commentary and nauseating gore and felt more like some of those mediocre sequels of years past. "Halloween Ends," thankfully, is an improvement on the second entry in this series, even if it makes some curious - and, let's be frank, ballsy - choices.

For starters, the film's cold open leads you to believe that Myers will make an appearance, when in fact it is setting the stage for a new character, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), who is often the lead character in this "final" film in the series. Corey is babysitting an obnoxious brat who, through a freak accident of bad timing, falls to his death. Even though Corey is eventually exonerated, he becomes Haddonfield's second pariah - the honor for first place still belongs to Laurie, on whom the town misplaces its anger about Myers' killing sprees.

A few years later, we catch up with Laurie, who lives with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), now a nurse, and has seemingly gotten over the death of her daughter, Karen (Judy Greer). Laurie now enjoys cooking and writing a book about her experiences with Myers and the nature of evil - and her narration is occasionally a bit too on the nose, at one point noting how evil changes "shape," which I'm sure most "Halloween" fans would recognize as the name in which Myers' character is always listed in the credits ("The Shape").

When Laurie crosses paths with Corey, she sees a lost soul and relates to his anguish. She introduces him to Allyson, and their quickly blossoming romance is, perhaps, the film's most unbelievable turn of events. After being bullied by a group of band students - I'll admit, that's a new one - and generally picked upon by the town's nasty denizens, Corey begins to take a turn toward the dark side, and a somewhat unbelievable run-in with Myers that leads to his becoming the killer's - for lack of a better word - protege in the film's second most unbelievable turn of events. Similarly, Allyson's brief flirtation with darkness is also a little difficult to swallow - and, in fact, her entire character in this film appears to exist only for the purpose of plot mechanics.

The film's middle section spends a lot of time with Corey and Allyson, which will be viewed by some as a mistake, while I can at least appreciate that Green and company are aiming for something a little different than just the umpteenth "Halloween" movie. The final third of the picture kicks off a gory bloodbath in which Corey and Myers team up to knock off a whole lot of characters whose personas are generally unpleasant - the mean old band students, a sleazy doctor and his obnoxiously talkative assistant, a disc jockey who acts like an asshole to Corey and Allyson for seemingly no reason - so that no one will feel sorry for them when they're picked off.

And this all, of course, leads up to climactic fight at Laurie's house between her, Corey and Michael. Yes, of course, the film's final 15 minutes are a whole lot of fan service - but those scenes are intense and long awaited. For a sequel in a genre that often doesn't demand much other than screaming, Curtis really delivers in this film, which combined with her work earlier this year in "Everything Everywhere All At Once" shows how underrated she is. 

Some have questioned - and rightfully, based on many years of "Halloween" sequels - whether this will be the actual final chapter in the series. Without giving anything away specifically, I'd say it'll be difficult to continue this storyline in future installments. Whether movie studio executives with dollar signs in their eyes or horror filmmakers with a sadistic urge to inflict yet another "Halloween" movie on the public get their way down the road, it's hard to say. 

For now, "Halloween" ends - in a series of odd narrative choices, a solid ending and a strong performance from the actress who remains the Scream Queen. As such, it's the second best of this somewhat unexpected - and uneven - trilogy of "Halloween" movies.