Halloween Ends: A New Stab At The Slasher
The saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode comes to a spine-chilling climax in the final installment of this trilogy.
David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy has been a messy bloodbath that has consistently made peculiar decisions and offered a mixed bag of thrills, chills, laughs, and frustration. Each entry has suffered from its own set of problems — some more than others (here’s looking at you, Halloween Kills) — but their biggest issue by far is how they struggle to connect as a whole. With wild tonal shifts and strange inconsistencies from film to film, the trilogy is sorely lacking in narrative cohesion, which gives it a disjointed and slapdash feel, especially the saga of Laurie Strode, which it churns into one jumbled and bumpy ride full of mixed emotions.
It began by retconning the franchise to omit everything but Carpenter’s original, resurrecting the Shape to make Michael Myers an imposing figure once again, and giving Laurie Strode’s character some added depth and dimension. Then, it devolved into a strange campy delirium of mob-mentality madness that put Laurie in a hospital bed and pitted the whole town of Haddonfield against the infamous evil incarnate. Now, with its final installment, Halloween Ends, Green (and co-screenwriters Danny McBride, Chris Bernier, and Paul Brad Logan) interestingly decide to sidestep Laurie almost entirely to offer something thematically new and surprisingly different. Needless to say, it’s bound to cause division and ruffle some feathers with the diehards, but at that point, we wouldn’t expect anything less.
If you’re looking for a fitting close to Laurie and Michael’s story, you’re bound to be disappointed by Halloween Ends, as it pretty much opts to go in an entirely new direction — one that’s vastly more interesting, in our opinion. The film puts both Laurie and Michael on the back burner and introduces a new character, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), who serves as the central focus and our stand-in Myers — sort of. The film combines transferable curse with the reverse metamorphosis of Carpenter’s Christine to make Corey slowly and steadily transform from a bullied and pathetic guy with a troubled past into cold-blooded killer out for revenge. It mixes tragedy and romance in a very Twin Peaks kinda way, which we mostly were into, bathing its characters in neon and sentimentality more so than horror and bloodshed, and it interestingly blurs the line between victim and villain. It also makes the town of Haddonfield into a character in ways the franchise never has before to craft a film that’s ultimately about their collective journey towards healing.
Green leans into metaphor and symbolism more than he has in the previous Halloween films, which makes Ends a more rewarding and complex watch. The film’s messy brilliance is only ever tripped up by its need to tie a blood-soaked bow on Laurie and Michael’s story, which feels shoehorned and out of place. Even though Ends has some glaring issues, it feels a bit more clear-headed and cohesive by comparison, but the fact that it pigeonholed itself with Laurie’s story causes it to shoot itself in the foot. Its more inspired ideas clash with the need to give Laurie and Michael’s story a definite end, and it results in a laughably stupid conclusion that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
As a conclusion to a trilogy that built itself around Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Halloween Ends certainly leaves more to be desired, but if you can view it more as a standalone film, you might be pleasantly surprised with what you get. Unlike other Halloween films, Ends gives viewers something meaningful to chew on. We think it's commendable for taking a bold new stab at the tired, done-to-death slasher, and while there’s things we’d definitely alter, its unique slant might just make it the best offering out of Green’s trilogy in our eyes.
The real question is, will Halloween actually end?! The answer is probably not, but now a Halloween film can be anything it wants, which pushes it closer to the anthology series that John Carpenter and Debra Hill always wanted it to be — and that’s pretty damn exciting in our book.
Recommendation: If you’re looking for a new take on a Halloween film, you should definitely give Halloween Ends a watch. If you’re looking for a satisfying end to the Laurie Strode story, you won’t really find that here and should just avoid the heartbreak. If you’re interested, you can peep the film right now on Peacock.
Murderous for more?! Stab into the links below:
Halloween (2018) review
Halloween Kills review
Halloween (1978) drinking game
Five Fun Facts About Black Christmas (1974)
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!