Director David Gordon Green plays bait-and-switch with Halloween Ends. Instead of delivering what was promised, an obsessed and intense Laurie Strode hunting down Michael Myers, we’re served a dull, overly-ambitious character piece focused on some guy named Corey.
It is all so frustrating and tedious. Worse still, the final confrontation between Laurie and Michael feels tacked on and obligatory rather than earned and inspired.
For all of its flaws, Green’s Halloween (2018) — the first of his trilogy — was at least a Halloween movie, a Michael Myers movie. Having seen it a few times since my original review, it has grown on me some. Green’s follow-up, the fabulously nasty Halloween Kills (2021), got my blood pumping for Halloween Ends. Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I’ve been this excited about a sequel. I’m supposed to be a middle-aged man.
If you recall, Halloween Kills positions Ends, the third and final chapter, beautifully. Kills closes with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) discovering Michael Myers killed her daughter. She can hear Michael breathing on the other end of the phone, her daughter’s phone, and swears revenge. Then she grabs a butcher’s knife and heads off to finish the job. Cut to black. Cue John Carpenter’s iconic theme. Oh. Hell. Yes.
I gave Halloween Kills a second look just a few hours before Peacock’s Halloween Ends premiere. Still loved it, so I was hyped and ready to go. But five minutes into Ends, a sense of disappointment crept into my chest and grew larger and larger as the trainwreck of a story rolled on.
When Green introduced us to middle-aged Laurie in Halloween (2018), she was awesome: a survivalist, a badass who’d moved to a compound in the boonies to await Michael’s return. For 40 years, she waited and prepared, knowing the boogeyman would someday escape the asylum. Laurie had decided that neither she nor those she cared for would ever again be a victim of Michael Myers.
This is what made the closing moments of Halloween Kills so perfect. This tough, resilient woman knew two things: 1) Michael had butchered her daughter, and 2) Michael was on the loose. And so, she was off to do something about it.
So why would that Laurie stop hunting Michael, much less let her guard down knowing Michael was on the loose?
She wouldn’t.
But four years after Halloween Kills, Laurie Strode Badass has turned into Laurie Strode Homemaker.
Michael’s on the loose, and Laurie’s moved back to Haddonfield in a big, open house.
Michael’s on the loose, and Laurie’s wearing frilly dresses and baking pies.
Michael butchered her daughter, and Laurie’s moved on.
This makes zero sense. The big windows on the first floor of Laurie’s house are not even barred or alarmed. There’s only a chain lock on the front door. She shows no anxiety as the days tick down to Halloween… With Michael Myers on the loose!
We’re told Laurie’s decided not to live in fear. Instead, she’s writing a memoir about her experiences (which gives the movie unlimited opportunities for pretentious voice-over). That’s all well and good, but there’s a difference between choosing not to live in fear and being a fool — especially with your granddaughter living with you. Laurie comes off like a fool, but not a fool caused by her trauma. We’re supposed to buy that she’s healed, moved on, gotten it together. It’s absurd, a total violation of everything we’ve known about this character for 40 years.
What you have here are the (four) screenwriters (including the director) saying, To hell with it. Everyone has to see this one. Let’s do whatever we want.
I understand wanting to change things up, wanting to make a different movie than the previous two, but that has to be done with integrity, not cheating. It has to be accomplished logically, especially when it comes to how you’ve already established your characters.
Speaking of character betrayals, Halloween Ends is such a misfire: Michael Myers is not even Michael Myers. The Michael Myers in Halloween Kills killed off a gang of tough firefighters, a mob of armed citizens. This Michael Myers is bested and then mugged by an angry nerd.
What is going on here?
That’s not even the worst of it…
The worst of it is that Michael doesn’t show up for 40 minutes. He doesn’t start killing for more than an hour. Instead, we’re treated to the story of Corey (Rohann Campbell). Halloween Ends opens with a terrific sequence to explain Corey’s downfall. But then it’s all Corey-Corey-Corey with Little Miss Homemaker Laurie as a minor supporting character.
There are plenty more bad ideas in Halloween Ends, but those would require spoilers. Needless to say, there is a final confrontation between Laurie and The Shape, but it’s not at all satisfying. Part of it is that the disappointment has drained your anticipation by the time this moment arrives (in a movie 20 minutes too long). Part of it is that it feels tacked on. Part of it is that the sequence itself is not all that exciting and nothing close to creative.
Green made the biggest mistake a horror filmmaker can make. He got self-important. Instead of fun and intensity and scares, he decided he’s earned the right to dabble in Big Themes. That’s all well and good if you can pull it off. Unfortunately, Green doesn’t, and his convoluted, confusing, and clumsy attempt To Be About Something Important drains the movie’s creative energy even when it comes to basics, like entertaining kills.
There’s no easier lay in the room than yours truly when it comes to a slasher movie. Don’t bore me. Don’t pull a bait-and-switch. Don’t sideline characters I care about in favor of some guy named Corey. Don’t betray the characters because you’ve run out of ideas about how to evolve the ones you’ve established.
And can we please-please-please bring back gratuitous T&A?
Halloween Ends teases us with a hot girl announcing she’s going to take a shower. She never removes her robe. We’re not even treated to a shot of cleavage or leg!
That’s just prudish and mean, y’all.
These movies are supposed to be fun.
Halloween Ends is worse than not fun. It’s a poke in the eye.
If you want to enjoy a fitting, well-crafted, frightening, satisfying conclusion to the Halloween saga that includes a fantastic Jamie Lee Curtis performance, director Steve Miner’s Halloween H20 (1998) respects what came before, respects the characters, and most of all respects the audience.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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