Halloween Ends: My $0.02

Halloween is my favorite holiday and my favorite horror movie series. I’ve been a fan of The Shape since I was old enough to understand what it was. I’ve seen all the movies multiple times (even the ones I hate I’ve seen more than once), and I consider Michael Myers bae, but that’s a whole other conversation for another day. 

I’ve seen Halloween Ends three times. Normally, I do a short review of the movie and post it on my Facebook page for my friends. But I wasn’t able to do that because I have so many feelings regarding this movie. I loved 2018, and was okay with Halloween Kills. I knew going in to keep my expectations within a particular range, and even with that caveat, I was sorely disappointed.

Let me say this: Halloween ended. It fucking ENDED. There is no disputing that. Michael can’t come back from THAT. And let me say this: Somebody will reboot the series in five years, and I will be in the theater when that happens. 

Having said all that, spoiler alert.

There were some interesting ideas in Ends, but the execution left a lot to be desired. Of course it was billed as the final showdown between Laurie and Michael, and we do get that…but it’s more of a whimper than a bang. I expected more…even a passionate hate-fuck on the kitchen countertop would have been preferable to what we actually got. I am going to touch on the things that got my attention, for better or for worse. First thing being that the writers wrote themselves into a corner. Corners, even.

Noob and I discussed this film at length. We’ve always viewed The Shape as being backed by supernatural forces. There is something guiding and protecting Michael, and that something allows him to withstand incredible abuse, including multiple gunshots at close range, stabbings, and body blows with 2X4s, hockey sticks, cast iron skillets, and baseball bats. Then in HK, Laurie talked about how Michael transcends the more he kills, which means he should have been a Super Saiyan after slaughtering 50 people in 2018 & HK. David Gordon Greene and Co. have said that Michael is human, but no human can take the abuse that Michael got over these movies and survive. This is the first corner that they wrote themselves into.

The movie makes a four year jump from the events of Halloween Kills. We are told that Michael disappeared, but I want to know why. If all Michael wanted to do in HK was go home (which is what everyone says) so he can look out of Judith’s window, then what exactly drove him away from said window? And there were cops and paramedics outside of the house, so again…how the fuck did he get away? Who found Karen’s body? Michael was standing victoriously in front of the window, so who ran him off? Who or what made him disappear? Remember, he’s a Super Saiyan at this point and no one would have survived if they squared up with him. I has questions.

Who made him leave? I need answers!

Laurie and Allyson live together now in a house in a nice suburb. Apparently, Laurie got sober, got therapy and got a new lease on life, including writing her memoirs (which has the worst title ever: Stalkers, Saviors & Samhain). She’s choosing not to live in fear anymore. Problem with this is that Michael murdered her daughter and got away, so he’s still out there. Why doesn’t that bother her when knowing Michael was alive and imprisoned kept her in a prison of her own making for 40 years? Could it be because “it” was never really about her, like Frank said in HK? I’m actually not too pressed about this because Laurie does deserve a chance at happiness, even if it’s sugarcoated bullshit happiness.

Halloween Ends introduces the character of Corey Cunningham, who accidentally kills an annoying asshole of a child, and becomes a pariah after he is freed. Corey is the focus of the movie. He’s a 20-something mechanic who tries to stay out of everyone’s way, but falls in the path of a group of 18-year old band bullies. Yeah, you read that right. I wish I would let a bunch of kids bully me, but that’s neither here nor there. Corey is injured during his first run-in with the bullies and Laurie, seeing it, takes him to the hospital to introduce him to Allyson, who is a nurse, and it doesn’t take long for them to start dating. And they fall in love fast. Like literally, they meet on a Tuesday and are deeply in love by Thursday, to the point they want to run away together.

Bitch, please. Lies, all of it.

During one encounter, the lead bully throws Corey over an overpass. We see an unconscious Corey get dragged into a sewer. When he comes to and tries to escape, Michael (who for whatever reason, has been living in the sewer) grabs his throat and chokes him out, but then he looks into Corey’s eyes and we get a flashback of all the shit he’s had to deal with since the death of that annoying asshole kid, and Corey gets away. 

I attribute this to the supernatural force that backs Michael—knowing his time as The Shape was coming to an end—is looking for a new host. Kinda like a new Supreme rising when the previous Supreme begins to decline. Considering that we hear multiple times that evil doesn’t die, it just changes form (hell, even the opening pumpkins montage illustrates this), I was expecting Corey to become the New Shape. The movie attempts to head in this direction, but it shit the bed when it was time to woman up and actually do it. It was all there; they just fucked it up.

Corey is corrupted by the supernatural force and makes his first kill moments after escaping the sewer. It doesn’t take long for the corruption to permeate him completely. When he has an encounter with Doug Mullaney over Allyson, Doug—who is obsessed with Allyson—follows Corey into the sewer and runs up on Michael (who is clearly injured, decrepit, and struggling) and gets stabbed. Doug falls back into Corey, who holds him and tells Michael, “Show me how to do it!” Michael obliges and stabs the shit out of Doug, and with each stroke, he gets visibly stronger and more upright. Why the fuck Michael is in the damn sewer in the first place is NEVER addressed, and this is the second corner DGG & Co. wrote themselves into. 2018 & HK Michael would never.

Not. Ever.

Corey soon finds out that murder is like Pringles and kills Allyson’s boss. While this is happening, Michael kills her co-worker. Corey looks like he’s full of regret for not having done it himself. Was this collaboration planned? Did Michael follow Corey to the doctor’s house or did he ride bitch on Corey’s motorcycle? I has questions.

Anyway, Corey convinces Allyson to run away with him. But instead of meeting her at the agreed-upon spot, he goes back to the sewer, squares up with Michael and steals his mask. Take a moment, let that sink in. After killing a couple of people, Michael was clearly at functional strength, but he allowed some raggedy-ass kid to beat his ass and STEAL!HIS!FACE!!!

Someone who got jumped by some teenagers was able to rob Michael Myers?!?!

Whew chile, the ghetto!!! 2018 & HK Michael would never. Make it make sense!

Bae would NEVER!

So Corey becomes the new Haddonfield boogeyman and goes hard in the paint on anyone who treated him wrong, including the local DJ (he has a gnarly death!), and even his annoying-ass mama. The best kill by far is Corey blowtorching the mouth of the main band bully, but it’s done partially blurred, so we can’t even fully enjoy it. Utter fail on the part of the director.

Allyson and Laurie have an argument and she leaves to meet Corey at the diner. Corey shows up at the Strode house to kill Laurie, but Laurie’s never been a full-blown idiot and shoots him. Allyson returns to the house to find Corey dead and Laurie holding the knife that he—for whatever fucking reason—killed himself with. Allyson leaves again and Laurie is left alone…but not quite, because Michael is in the house with her. When and how that happened is never addressed. 

This leads to the final showdown in the kitchen between these two, and it’s anticlimactic as fuck. Their fights in 2018 were far more interesting and fun to watch. With this one, Laurie bleeds Michael and drops a fridge on his legs. Allyson returns when she gets a call from Frank about Laurie, sees Michael flailing on the island like a damn trout, and helps her grandmother finish his ass off for good.  

Then Allyson announces that Michael isn’t dead enough, which leads to a bizarro town funeral procession led by the police to the dump where Corey worked. Who coordinated this? Is there a Haddonfield group chat or something? We see residents from the previous movies in the processional. How did they organize this shit so fast?

At the dump, Laurie throws Michael’s body into the metal grinder and that is it for Michael’s iteration of The Shape. The movie cuts to Allyson leaving Haddonfield for good to start a new life elsewhere, and Laurie finishing her memoirs and linking up with Frank.

"That's it, Amaya???"

Dassit, bae. You deserved better. I'm mad for you.

Questions I have:

1. Lindsey, who survived HK, shows up in Ends as a tarot card reader and bartender. That’s all. She does nothing. Taking her out of the movie would not have affected the outcome in any way, shape or form (pun not intended). What was her purpose?

2. Omar Dorsey was woefully underutilized as Sheriff Barker. He literally has ONE SCENE and ONE LINE containing 3 words. He was about as useful as an asshole on a kneecap. Why even include him?

3. They make it a point in HK to make sure the audience knows who the Mullaneys are, so I thought that would factor into Ends, and all we get is an obsessed cop with maybe a total of 5 minutes on screen. What was the point of this?

4. I thought Frank would make more of an impact in Ends. He was so convincing in HK when he said he had to be the one to end Michael because he was the one who saved him from Dr Loomis in 1978. This would have made for a nice change of pace, but they didn’t use him like they could have. A waste of Will Patton. What was the point?

5. Why did Laurie keep Michael's mask? When the movie closes, we see into all the rooms of Laurie's house, which has been cleaned and repaired--so it is definitely not the day after Michael's death--and the mask is on a coffee table in Laurie's living room. It should have been ground up along with Michael's body. Why keep it?

Biggest issue I have:

Corey should have been introduced back in 2018 as a classmate of Allyson’s, and his story should have been told in small increments over the course of the trilogy, and show his evolution into the Neophyte Shape and Michael’s heir. I could have accepted this better than what Ends gave us. It would also have given the Halloween series a shot in the arm and a new direction to go in. But like I said earlier, they punked out. For Corey to off himself wasted all that buildup. What was the point? What was the fucking point?

Anyway, that’s my $0.02.  Rating: 1.5/5