I hope that Halloween Ends really is the end of this rotten sequel trilogy that plays as a direct continuation to John Carpenter's influential 1978 horror classic, Halloween. However, this trilogy has made money, so unstoppable killer Michael Myers will probably rise again.
I must warn you right now that this review is full of spoilers, so if you plan on seeing the film and don't want to know any major plot points, please stop reading now.
Halloween Ends takes place four years after the events in Halloween Kills (2021) in which Myers murdered the crap out of the residents of Haddonfield. After that night, Myers (James Jude Courtney) disappeared and his arch nemesis, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is now living a quiet life with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). Apparently, Laurie has gotten over the murder and mayhem of four years ago which included the death of her daughter. Enter Corey (Rohan Campbell), a troubled young man who, because of a horrible accident several years before, has been branded a "freak" or a "psycho" by many of the townspeople. An improbable romance blossoms between Allyson and Corey, but Laurie is leery of this guy.
Thanks to an all-inclusive teen gang of bullies, Corey goes over the edge - literally. He then happens upon a broken and disheartened Michael Myers living in the sewer, and wants the once superstar maniac to teach him the ways of murder. In turn, Corey's descent into darkness has revitalized Myers and his quest to kill Laurie. I'm reminded of Miguel Ferrer's lines to Charlie Sheen in Hot Shots! Part Deux, "I can kill again! You've given me a reason to live."
I will give some credit to director/co-writer David Gordon Green (The Sitter. Your Highness) and his three other writers for attempting something different, but there were several "high concept" slasher sequels in the '80s with an impostor or a person under the influence of the original killer/monster, like A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge and Friday the 13thPart V: A New Beginning, so this is nothing new. Still, it could have worked if the screenplay for Halloween Ends wasn't so stupid and illogical. The ham-fisted direction doesn't help either.
On the positive side, Curtis is good, and she's actually playing the character of Laurie Strode that we know from Carpenter's original, and not the gun-happy Sarah Connor type character from the first movie in this trilogy, 2018's Halloween. The negative is that Laurie and Michael are on the sidelines for much of Ends while the relationship between Allyson and Corey takes center stage. There is no chemistry between actors Matichak and Campbell and the characters they play. Allyson's mother was killed by Michael Myers, so it makes little sense that she would be smitten with the dangerous Corey. In a scene that should be pivotal, Corey confesses to Allyson that he has killed someone - and there is no reaction from her.
Strode and Myers do duke it out in the finale, but we saw this all before in the 2018 film, and it's even more underwhelming here. It doesn't make sense that in the previous film, Myers was ridiculously superhuman and took out an entire crew of firefighters and a large mob of angry citizens, yet here he gets his ass handed to him by a grandmother.
I hate all three of Green's Halloween pictures. I find them ugly, mean-spirited in the kills, and poorly conceived, and I don't care that they are John Carpenter approved. However, if you are a fan of the first two in this reboot trilogy then you may find enjoyment with this concluding chapter, but I thought it was a long hard slog to sit through.
Halloween Ends has pissed on the legacy of Carpenter's original classic, and has deconstructed the evil incarnate Myers - "The Shape" or 'The Boogeyman" with "the blackest eyes, the Devil's eyes" - into simply a rundown man who can easily be defeated. That is the biggest sin of all.
Halloween Ends is in theaters now, and is also streaming on Peacock.
