Halloween Ends (2022) Review

Spoilers Ahead, Beware!

David Gordon Green’s Halloween reboot has already been a mixed bag, especially for its main villain Michael Myers.
Green’s 2018 frustratingly named Halloween seemed to initiate a bold new timeline to the franchise. Much like Sarah Connor between Terminator and T2, Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie Strode was transformed by the events of the 1978 original into a fierce survivalist tortured by the past but determined to defeat it.

Green’s Halloween, which ended almost perfectly, was instantly undone in its 2021 sequel Halloween Kills (which at least had the decency to pick up events immediately afterwards). Halloween Kills took Myer’s Halloween rampage to the wider community bringing in some new ideas that worked and others that fell flat.

The climax of that film saw Myers brutally slaying Karen Nelson, Laurie’s daughter and the mother of her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) in the very room he killed his own sister all those years before. It was a poetic moment that not only shocked the audience but potentially pushed the already unhinged Laurie further off the edge.

Green’s Halloween Ends which he also wrote alongside Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier and Danny McBride (yes that Danny McBride!) is set 4 years later. If like me you are instantly thinking ‘what the fuck?’ you would be right. This jump from a linear story set over several days that climaxed in a huge event for the characters and world around it is nonsensical, but then again so is the rest of this mouldy malignant mess of a movie.

Laurie and Allyson have moved home, but not out of Haddonfield. No, that would be the obvious and realistic thing for two people who have been stalked and attacked endlessly by a un-killable maniac who has murder most of their family to do, especially when the rest of the town blames them for everything that happened and constantly reminds them of it.

Laurie is writing a book on her past while Allyson works as a nurse. The new arrival in their lives and ours is Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a pillow lipped outsider who accidentally killed the child he was babysitting on another fateful Halloween night. Branded as a murderer regardless, the townsfolk treat Corey like a freak using him as the latest boogieman, replacing Myers who has mysteriously disappeared.

After helping Corey stand up to some teenage bullies who appear to be half his age, Laurie introduces him to Allyson in a fit of ill-fated matchmaking that quickly comes back to bite her on the arse. The pair hit it off big time, however when the aforementioned teen terrors push Corey off a bridge he ends up face-to-mask with Myers, who has been living hidden in some sewers.

The film implies at this point that either the duo sense the same darkness within them, or Myers infests Corey’s mind, but either way its dumb and Corey begins a new life as a serial killer. After bumping off some shitty Haddonfield locals together, Corey feels he has learned all he can from Michael and on October 31st fights his mental mentor for the mask (surprisingly easily) winning the right to go on his own Halloween murder spree.

Obviously Laurie instantly realises something is up with her Super Psycho Strode Sense, however Allyson is besotted beyond belief and wont hear anything against her insane boyfriend, and so we head for the inevitable ending – but more on that later on.

If you haven’t already realised Halloween Ends is garbage, and there are multiple reasons for this assessment:
Firstly its not scary in any way at all, lacking even the most basic loud noise jump scares that kids TV can effectively employ. Secondly its not gory enough, with only one kill living up to the slasher sensibilities other Halloween films have attained. Most of the time the camera cuts away at the last minute and I can only guess it got an 18 ratting for language because the violence is extremely tame and lame.

Halloween Kills implied Myers had supernatural powers and End’s takes this further, however its constant back and forth between magical mayhem and ultra realism is distracting with the film never really making its mind up what it thinks which shows how weak the writing is.

This leads to the main problem, which is the story and the characters – all of which seem to have slipped further and further away from their starting point in the 2018 movie. Laurie shows flashes of her tenacious hardened self but not nearly enough, and spends most of the movie wandering about like a dizzy old Grandma who has too much time on her hands now she has retired from being the Final Girl.

Allyson has regressed into a bratty kid who is so obsessed with her new beau its stupid and sickening. The concept that they are some star-crossed lovers akin to Mickey and Mallory, Kit and Holly or Bonnie and Clyde is preposterous. Oh and also both her and Laurie seem super okay with their daughter/mum’s death, like totally over it in every way. Sucks for you Karen.

Corey is a terribly written character who will only appeal to troubled pre-teens who like bad boys, depressing music and posting their controversial dark thoughts on social media. Making him the main focus of the film is idiotic, especially as the movie can’t seem to make up its mind if he is a tragic anti-hero or misguided monster.

Constantly attempting to draw parallels between Corey and Myers makes things worse because the film implies that it was ‘Haddonfield that made them monsters’, a statement that simply doesn’t work when applied to Myers, a knife wielding mass murderer whose body count started aged six.

As Loomis says in the fantastic speech from Carpenters original “I met this… six-year-old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and… the blackest eyes – the Devil’s eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply… evil.”

Michael Myers is what makes all the Halloween films great, and Halloween Ends biggest crime is that it sidelines the iconic character. Ironically its almost as if Halloween Ends knows this and its finale feels like its from a completely different film. Taking things back to the beginning Laurie’s last stand against Michael is magnificent and the aftermath which involves all of Haddonfield is a cathartic and wonderfully staged scene.

This ill-fitting and incongruous ending which appears to be well thought out and respectful – unlike the rest of Halloween Ends – would have worked far better at the end of Halloween Kills, and in fact every element of it would have slotted-in perfectly, following on from Myer’s slaughter of Karen even up to the fake-out suicide Laurie employees to lure Corey to attack her. As the ending is the only redeeming feature of Halloween Ends, my hope is that someone will re-edit the last scene into Halloween Kills where it blatantly truly belongs.

Further digging into the making of the movies reveals that Danny McBride and David Gordon Green originally planned out a two-film story arc, but opted for a trilogy after “realising they had more material than originally thought”, which after wasting 100 minutes of my life watching Halloween Ends is perhaps the most inaccurate statement anyone has ever made.

Ultimately Michael Myers is bigger than this pitiful movie and Halloween will never truly end no matter how hard this film tries to stop it.

Movie Rating:

Trailer: