Halloween Ends
Year: 2022
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Rohan Campbell, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis & Andi Matichak
Runtime: 111 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 18/10/22
Director: David Gordon Green
Starring: Rohan Campbell, James Jude Courtney, Jamie Lee Curtis & Andi Matichak
Runtime: 111 mins
BBFC: 18
Published: 18/10/22
There are few things in Hollywood that are final, and films that indicate it being the final entry are doubly less so. Almost every single film that has indicated in the title that it’s the last one has soon been followed by yet another sequel or a reboot. That is why Halloween Ends, despite being the third ‘final’ film in the franchise is unlikely to remain so for very long. But it does cap off David Gordon Green’s trilogy of films that, whilst flawed, have arguably been the best Halloween sequels of all time.
Four years after the deadly rampage and disappearance of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney & Nick Castle), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) are living with the constant reminder of their losses at the hands of Michael. But when Allyson meets social outcast Corey (Rohan Campbell), the two begin to dream of leaving Haddonfield behind for a new start, something that Laurie disapproves of.
Meanwhile Michael prepares for another blood-soaked return to Haddonfield to finish what he started over forty years ago.
Four years after the deadly rampage and disappearance of Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney & Nick Castle), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) are living with the constant reminder of their losses at the hands of Michael. But when Allyson meets social outcast Corey (Rohan Campbell), the two begin to dream of leaving Haddonfield behind for a new start, something that Laurie disapproves of.
Meanwhile Michael prepares for another blood-soaked return to Haddonfield to finish what he started over forty years ago.
Halloween Ends certainly isn’t the worst film that the franchise has had to offer over the long and storied history, but it is a disappointing ending to Green’s trilogy. In fact, this film would have been so much better had it just not had Michael Myers in it. Controversial opinion I’m sure, but Ends is all about how Haddonfield has created new monsters in the years since Michael’s disappearance, and so to bring Michael back, especially in the capacity in which he appears, feels more like Universal didn’t think audiences would react well to a Halloween film that didn’t have Michael, which en-masse they probably wouldn’t have but those fans wanting to see the franchise actually move forward and try new things would have been delighted with a payoff for what Green was trying to do for the first two acts of this film.
The synopsis I gave is hardly representative of the final film at all, and all of the marketing is misleading; Halloween Ends is not your typical Halloween film; however, it awkwardly becomes one in its final act.
Curtis is of course fantastic in the film and gets considerably more screentime than she did in Halloween Kills, trying to give herself a normal life after Michael, and failing at it because Haddonfield won’t let her. This is a woman at the end of her thread, the only thing stopping her from going over the edge is her granddaughter. I feel like Allyson gets done a little dirty in Ends because she spends the whole film pining after a boy. I get it, because of everything that’s happened this is her opportunity to leave Haddonfield behind, but at the same time what happened to the strong young woman we saw in Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills?
I’d argue the real star of the show goes to Campbell’s performance as Corey. I think a lot of people are going to dislike the character because he’s a newcomer, and he probably should have been introduced before now to make the story of Ends even more effective, but taking that into account, Corey is a really interesting character and Campbell does a great job of selling the transformation Corey goes through in the film.
The synopsis I gave is hardly representative of the final film at all, and all of the marketing is misleading; Halloween Ends is not your typical Halloween film; however, it awkwardly becomes one in its final act.
Curtis is of course fantastic in the film and gets considerably more screentime than she did in Halloween Kills, trying to give herself a normal life after Michael, and failing at it because Haddonfield won’t let her. This is a woman at the end of her thread, the only thing stopping her from going over the edge is her granddaughter. I feel like Allyson gets done a little dirty in Ends because she spends the whole film pining after a boy. I get it, because of everything that’s happened this is her opportunity to leave Haddonfield behind, but at the same time what happened to the strong young woman we saw in Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills?
I’d argue the real star of the show goes to Campbell’s performance as Corey. I think a lot of people are going to dislike the character because he’s a newcomer, and he probably should have been introduced before now to make the story of Ends even more effective, but taking that into account, Corey is a really interesting character and Campbell does a great job of selling the transformation Corey goes through in the film.
But how are the kills? I mean, what’s a slasher movie without good kills? Ends certainly has a couple of memorable ones, but the gore and overall body count has been dialled back significantly from Halloween Kills. Kills was the very definition of a massacre, and it didn’t hold back with the gore, so Ends feels somewhat anticlimactic in that sense.
Even the final showdown between Laurie and Michael kind of sucked. Compare it to the finale of Halloween 2018 where Laurie and Michael had a showdown of truly epic proportions, this final fight in Ends feels subdued and predictable.
There is enjoyment to be had with Halloween Ends, and for the first two acts in particular I loved where the film was going. But everything unravels in the final act when it suddenly feels as though it needs to conform to franchise pressure of having Michael return. I was hoping for some kind of cathartic ending that deconstructed the franchise, and instead I got what felt like a more interesting horror film with a sub-par Halloween finale stitched onto the end of it.
Despite the title I doubt this will be the last we see of Halloween, give it a few years and I’m sure it’ll get resurrected once again for another go around. If Michael Myers is good at anything, it’s not staying dead for long.
Even the final showdown between Laurie and Michael kind of sucked. Compare it to the finale of Halloween 2018 where Laurie and Michael had a showdown of truly epic proportions, this final fight in Ends feels subdued and predictable.
There is enjoyment to be had with Halloween Ends, and for the first two acts in particular I loved where the film was going. But everything unravels in the final act when it suddenly feels as though it needs to conform to franchise pressure of having Michael return. I was hoping for some kind of cathartic ending that deconstructed the franchise, and instead I got what felt like a more interesting horror film with a sub-par Halloween finale stitched onto the end of it.
Despite the title I doubt this will be the last we see of Halloween, give it a few years and I’m sure it’ll get resurrected once again for another go around. If Michael Myers is good at anything, it’s not staying dead for long.