149) Halloween Ends (2022)

"Evil doesn't die. It changes shape."

Director

David Gordon Green

Cast

Jamie Lee Curtis - Laurie Strode

Rohan Campbell - Corey Cunningham

Andi Matichak - Allyson Nelson
James Jude Courtney - Michael Myers

Will Patton - Deputy Frank Hawkins

(Spoilers ahead) 

When it comes to the "Halloween" movies, director John Carpenter's original 1978 slasher flick about serial killer and mental patient Michael Myers, who escapes from a mental hospital 15 years after killing his sister, is certainly one of the most foundational films in the horror genre. In the first film, Myers returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, Ill, to continue his killing spree on Halloween night. Jamie Lee Curtis plays babysitter Laurie Strode who faces off with Myers to protect the children she’s watching over.
While I've only seen the first and second movie, and the most recent movies, "Halloween" (2018), "Halloween Kills" (2021) and this last one, I know the entire series demonstrates how Hollywood can milk one particular franchise for as much money as it possibly can. Hollywood, obviously, is in the business of making movies for profit. Still, the line-up of "Halloween" films after part one is pure confusion. I mentioned this in a previous review, but I'll reiterate. 

Carpenter’s film is followed by the sequel “Halloween II,” released in 1981.
The franchise moves completely away from Myers in the third movie “Halloween: Season of the Witch” which was released in 1982.
This third movie tells a new tale of terror that has nothing to do with the first two movies nor Haddonfield. Part three was to be the first in a series of horror anthology movies, each telling a unique tale centered around the Halloween holiday. Obviously, things didn't go as planned.
Fans were upset with this Myers-less “Halloween” film, so writers brought him back in “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” released in 1988.
Part five, “Halloween: The Revenge of Michael Myers” and part six, “Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers” were released in 1989 and 1995.
In 1998, the series takes a confusing turn as the writers-that-be in Hollywood decided to ignore parts three, four and five with a new direct sequel to the first two movies. They called this flick, “Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.” Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her role as Laurie Strode, which she hadn’t portrayed since “Halloween II.”
It follows a post-traumatic Strode who fakes her own death in order to go into hiding from Myers.
Writers conjured up a sequel to "H20" that was released in 2002 called “Halloween: Resurrection.” The story still follows the same traumatized Strode, now in a mental facility.
Then things get even more confusing as shock-horror director, Rob Zombie, got in on the action with his own remakes – “Halloween” (2007) and “Halloween II” (2009).

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as
Laurie Strode in "Halloween Ends" (2022).

 After Zombie’s remakes, writers went back to the planning table and came up with “Halloween” (2018) which is, yet again, a direct sequel to the original 1978 movie, by-passing all other films. And the aforementioned "Halloween Kills" along with this movie are sequels to that 2018 reboot. How many start-overs can one story have? The answer is however many audiences are willing to pay to see.
But that first film from 1978 put Myers in an iconic spot within the rogue's gallery of other well-known movie monsters. And this time, it's Myers' final confrontation...again. Afterall, this recent installment has "end" in the title so that makes it pretty definite that this really is the final, final end. Or maybe that's what they want us to think.
"Halloween Ends" doesn't quite follow Myers and his on-going killing spree. Rather, the story centers on a young man named Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). 

The film opens with Cunningham babysitting a kid named Jeremy on Halloween night of 2019.

Jeremy plays a prank on Cunningham by locking him in the attic. 

Corey panics and starts trying to kick the door open. He doesn't realize that Jeremy is on the other side of the door when it flies open. It hits Jeremy causing him to fall over the banister down three floors to the hard wood floor below, just as his parents return home. 

Three years go by, and a lot of residents in Haddonfield falsely believe Corey intentionally killed young Jeremy despite being cleared of the charges. 

Residents are also healing from the terror and murders Michael Myers inflicted on the town back in 2018. 

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is still living in Haddonfield, working on her memoir. She lives with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and has let go of the fear and rage Myers left her with after all these decades. Instead, she is living her life and is as fear-free as she can be. However, residents blame Laurie for Myers' murders. They claim she provoked him with all of her frenzy from before. I don't get it. 

Myers, meanwhile, hasn't been seen in a few years. 

Allyson, who works as a nurse, develops feelings for Corey after a group of teenagers attack him. 

The two fall in love but things begin to change after the same group of teens toss Corey over a bridge after a Halloween party.

Knocked unconscious, he's dragged into a sewer by none other than Michael Myers who tries unsuccessfully to choke him. 

But Myers is weak and lets him go. Before he escapes, Corey looks Myers directly in the eyes. 

After this near-death experience, Corey begins developing a connection to Myers. A violent streak begins to grow in him. He finds himself continuing Myer's killing spree around Haddonfield. 

As he and Allyson start growing closer, Laurie starts suspecting something is terribly wrong with Corey, and thinks Meyers is somehow involved. 

Soon, Corey leads Myers to Laurie for yet another faceoff. And that's the most interesting part of the entire more. 

David Gordon Green, who directed the two "Halloween" films before this one, returns to the director's chair. And to his credit, the 2018 film is a decent horror movie which caught the feels and spirit of Carpenter's original film. Then again, why not just watch Carpenter's original film instead? 

The first 40 minutes of this new installment is all about Corey with a few mentions of Michael Myers here and there. When Myers finally show up, he's disappointingly reduced to a side character. Maybe the writers could have gotten away with this had "Halloween Ends" not been the third installment of a trilogy that started with 2018's "Halloween," and, therefore, was a highly anticipated movie. Fans had sat through the first two movies, suffering especially through "Halloween Kills." And this is the payoff they waited to see! Disappointing.

Andi Matichak and Rohan Campbell in "Halloween Ends."

Speaking of which, this movie makes me wonder why, aside from profit, "Halloween Kills" was produced in the first place. Now, after watching "Halloween Ends," it looks even more like a superfluous film. In my review for "Halloween Kills" which I wrote for my local newspaper, I called it "space-filler." Now it looks more like space-filler at its worst. Good job "Halloween Ends" for making a pointless movie even more pointless. That's quite a feat. 

In this final film, the majority of the story is mundane. It all leads up to the finale that fans wanted to see - Strode versus Myers - which is glued onto the overall premise like a kindergartner's art project. 

This is such a conceited film with a frustrating plot. 

Half of me wants to appreciate the attempt to take the Halloween storyline in a unique direction as seen in the early films (i.e. Myers' spirit). 
The other half of me wonders what the hell these writers were thinking. 

In this story, Michael Myers seems like an afterthought. It's as though midway through production, the writers remembered, "Oh, right. This is a Halloween movie. I guess we got to stick the boogeyman in here, somewhere."

The plot of Corey facing Myers right in the eye which somehow influences him to start killing alongside Myers is left to the interpretation of the audience. I thought, perhaps, the story was utilizing the premise seen in "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers" which surrounds an ancient Druid curse called "Thorn" that drives a person to kill their own family on Halloween night goes. If that's the case, I think I missed it. 

Thankfully, in the spirit of the '78 film, Laurie Strode walks away once again as the strong female protagonist against the sadistic and deranged Myers. 

Too many slasher flicks went open season on young girls back in the 1970s, especially girls who conveyed mental strength in some way or another. "Halloween" didn't give audiences such a weak premise as other slashers did.

I was hesitant that this movie would kill off both Myers and Strode. Or worse, just Strode, while Myers would again walk away. I wouldn't put that past Hollywood. I was wrong. Myers dies and is destroyed at the hands of Strode. I'll give the film credit for maintaining Strode as the hero.

Even so, Myers' death strikes me as tacked on and forced. It seems like it's there because writers backed themselves into a corner, and now audiences expect to see Halloween's end. 

According to the various movie news sources, this is meant to be the last of the "Halloween" movies as far as David Gordon Green is concerned.

I hope that remains the case. But Hollywood always finds a way of continuously feeding audiences overplayed franchises again and again. Maybe they'll bring Myers back, or worse, pretend he didn't die. 

While the "Halloween" sequels have their fan base to some degree, depending on the sequel, it's a shame that the whole things ends on such a disappointing note, reducing the monster to a mere afterthought.