‘Halloween Ends’ Movie Review: Michael Myers and Laurie Strode Fight in Tragic Face-Off
Co-writer/director David Gordon Green finally brings his Halloween universe to an end. The long-promised final confrontation between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers/The Shape (James Jude Courtney) is here. Green takes significant risks by introducing a new lead character and new thematic tones in his final chapter, but they only lead to ruin. Halloween Ends is a major horror misfire.
‘Halloween Ends’ promises a final conflict between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode
Four years after Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), and found her supposed peace. She’s writing a memoir about her journey and fight for survival, but Myers was never found. Laurie decided that she’s allowed her fear of him to rule her life for far too long and finally found a new path.
A local babysitter named Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) is accused of killing a young boy in a horrible accident. As a result, the wounded town of Haddonfield needs a new boogeyman to shun. Meanwhile, Myers continues to lurk in the shadows and isn’t quite done making his rampage through the community.
Evil spreads like a contagion in Haddonfield
Halloween Ends demonstrates how Myers’ rampage affected the community’s peace of mind on Halloween night 2019. Children wet the bed, talk in their sleep, and deeply fear the darkness as a result of the masked terror. The Myers house is no longer standing, but the community is still trying to heal after 4 years. They continue to worry that the ruthless killer could be lurking somewhere, waiting to strike. The death of a young boy under Corey’s watch reignites their fear and a new place to direct their outrage.
Laurie gives the appearance of someone who moved on, but the previous attacks still weigh on her underneath the surface. However, the memoir acts as a form of therapy and release for her. Meanwhile, Allyson is somehow entirely unimpacted by any of the carnage. In fact, the unceremonious death of her mother, Karen (Judy Greer), at the end of Halloween Kills is hardly mentioned. Laurie has a photograph of her daughter as her phone background, yet that’s somehow the only trace that she ever existed.
Halloween Ends introduces a new babysitter lead, but unlike Laurie and her high school friends in the 1978 classic, he’s not perceived as an innocent kid. Allyson develops a connection with him, further placing the Strode family in a controversial place within Haddonfield. The city is searching for someone to demonize, demonstrating on multiple levels how evil has the power to spread when it goes unchecked. Laurie, Allyson, and Corey are varying degrees of social outcasts, but their pain and trauma are appropriated by their neighbors and weaponized against them.
‘Halloween Ends’ concludes this timeline on a disappointing note
Green assumes audiences didn’t already see the two previous installments, giving a full recap to catch audiences up. Halloween Ends takes some big swings that takes the franchise to new places, giving it a distinct flavor. However, the third installment promises a face-off between Laurie and Myers, yet it’s put on the back burner for Corey’s insufferable narrative. It’s too late to switch gears so intensely without making the journey feel tepid. This new character eats up the majority of the screen time, placing its focus in all of the wrong places.
Green shockingly abandons the horror he established over the course of his two prior films in favor of doubling down on the ineffective sense of humor that was once just sprinkled over. These moments didn’t work in the two previous entries, and it’s even less successful here. Green’s conclusion doesn’t embrace the Halloween markers fans are yearning for, utterly abandoning any sort of terror or suspense. There are no chase or stalking scenes, and many of the kills are either off-camera or visually obscured. Mastermind John Carpenter’s score still rocks in full force, but it’s the only fundamental Halloween element left intact.
The Shape is more than a stalking killer here, but a concept of the contamination of evil. It leaves behind an intriguing look into the ambiguity behind the entity’s widespread fear. However, this franchise installment lacks atmosphere, as it tries to replace style with frequent minor nods and visual cues to earlier entries that simply aren’t effective out of context. Several of the ingredients for an epic conclusion are present, but we’re left with a desultory, anti-climactic finale that disregards both Laurie and Myers as unworthy of their own narrative. Halloween Ends is an appalling letdown with blatant disrespect for both its audience and its characters.
Halloween Ends moves into theaters and streams on Peacock on Oct. 14.
