Halloween Ends (2022)

“I thought you were the Boogeyman. But you're only a man!” – Laurie Strode

Trepidation? Check. A tinge of sadness? Check.

To explain, I was concerned that this film wouldn’t live up to the massive promise of the previous two entries. I was a little sad, because this was going to be the final time that I’d see Michael Myers and Laurie Strode in a new movie - a journey I had begun 41 years ago when John Carpenter’s classic was shown on TV.

Again, as with director David Michael Green’s previous two movies, we have a pre-title sequence followed with a disturbing Halloween Pumpkin theme, this time we see a series of increasingly more disturbing Jack Lanterns growing out of each other – which is eerily prophetic and a tip-off to what lies ahead. And what lies ahead is not what you’d expect – but then, Halloween Kills defied my expectations and gave me much more than I anticipated as well. What about the pre-title scenes? Well, we’re in 2019, on Halloween. The year after Halloween Kills concluded the evening and events shown in Halloween (2018). Michael Myers/The Shape hasn’t been seen since, but Haddonfield has been changed by the killings, and legend has it that he’s still out there. We see the effect he’s had on the townspeople, including suicide, despair and mistrust. The townsfolk seem to have closed in on themselves.

Enter a kid in his late teens (I guess) named Corey (Rohan Campbell) who’s earning some extra money by babysitting perhaps the brattiest little s**t of a kid ever to infest a cinema screen. What makes it worse is that Corey genuinely seems a nice kid. He really doesn’t deserve what happens to him. (The kid, however...)

The kid torments Corey by hiding from him, luring him to the attic and locking him in, in the dark. Corey succumbs to panic and kicks at the door, which soon flies open, knocking the taunting little larva over a stairway railing, to his death – at the exact moment the kid’s parents arrive home and see Corey with a kitchen knife he’d picked up earlier when he thought the brat had been abducted by an intruder. This is as shocking and unexpected a beginning as John Carpenter gave up in 1978. We’re on the right path!

Post credits, we’re right up to date.

Catching up, we see Hawkins (Will Patton) is still enforcing the law. Allyson (Andi Matichack) is working in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, Lynsey Doyle (Kyle Richards) is working at a bar, and Laurie Strode has finally managed to settle down, bought a house in Haddonfield – which is not a fortified compound, lives with Allyson, and is writing her memoirs.

Michael Myers is still missing, and the people of Haddonfield are still affected by the Halloween Murders. As for Corey – the kid’s death was deemed accidental and he was cleared. But people in a small town don’t forget, and he’s become a recluse. His plans of attending college abandoned, he works in his stepfather’s workshop fixing cars. He’s also the target for bullying. And it’s during an encounter with bullies that he meets Laurie, who herself is shunned by a lot of people who reckon she brought the murders on the town by bringing attention to herself.

It's Laurie who takes him to the hospital to have his wounds tended to which leads to his meeting Allyson, and a romance begins.

There’s a darkness to Corey. And this is the meat of the story. Laurie spots it. She sees it in his eyes, but nobody else does. She sees the same darkness that Myers had.

Corey has encountered Myers in a storm drain and it seems Myers has seen that same darkness, and is feeding from it. Having hidden in the drains since Halloween Kills, he’s weakened – but is gathering strength from Corey.

But where does this darkness come from? He seemed such a nice, wholesome kid.

His treatment after being cleared by the courts, the accusing glares, the name calling and the alienation have all played their part. Essentially, in Haddonfield’s eyes, Michael Myers the Boogieman was gone – and so they created another one. It has been their ill treatment and their ostracization of Corey that has caused the evil in him to fester, expand and take over – to the point that he “becomes” Michael Myers, mimicking his behaviour after luring victims to him and watching him kill.

Last time out, Halloween Kills gave us a shockingly accurate and unflinching look at how quickly we can discard the veneer of society and become a feral mob. This time, we see how we as a society often create our own monsters by our own behaviour – and really, doesn’t that make society the REAL monsters? Perhaps what’s even scarier is the implication that this darkness was always within him, and its society that brings it out into the open. And if it’s within him, then surely, it’s hidden deep in all of us. Either way, without getting into a deep discussion about the id and the ego, it doesn’t paint society in a good light.

Much of the film is taken by the story of Corey, his descent, and the blindness of Allyson in failing to notice what’s happening despite Laurie’s repeated warnings. As the 31st approaches, Corey succumbs to the irredeemable level of actually challenging Myers in the storm drain, telling him at one point that he’s just an old man in a Halloween mask, before actually removing the mask and taking it with him.

The mask seems to be Michael’s identity. It’s almost a talisman, because as soon as Corey puts it on, he seems to grow in stature and confidence as he goes looking for more victims, and in particular on lone survivor of an evening in 1978. It’s not all that easy though, that survivor is wily, tenacious and prepared. Another factor Corey hasn’t considered is that Myers, the ORIGINAL “Shape” wants his damn mask back.

But the film is called Halloween Ends. Do we get what’s been promised for four years? Well, I’ll keep it vague but I’d say so. (Come on – the fact that they’re ending it is in the title! This is not a spoiler!)

Without going into too much detail, there’s a fight that’s every bit as downright dirty as The Bride and Vernita Green in Kill Bill. It’s nasty.

As a means of signing off a horror franchise, I’d say this is easily the best I think I’ve seen. It’s an intelligent and thought-provoking horror movie at its core, with a strong and well conveyed message about society as a whole as I’ve mentioned, and this has been a hallmark of this latest trilogy. And from that point of view, I think Michael Myers has been put to rest in as satisfying and final a way as was possible. (Freddy and Jason should’ve been as lucky!)

But is it really REALLY the end? Previously, they’ve “killed” Myers (or allowed him to just fade away out of audience disinterest) only to have him pop up years later. Apparently so – BUT, the Halloween movies might continue. The word is that they’re finally going back to John Carpenter’s original concept of the ongoing theme moving forward being the day itself. Something, somewhere happens on Halloween. I can live with that, but I hope NOT to see Myers popping up again.

So, now having watched them, the timeline I prefer and recommend is Halloween (’78), Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. As a second preference, I’d watch Halloween (’78), Halloween 2 (1981) and Halloween H2O (1998). I really don’t plan on watching Halloween 4, 5, The Curse of Michael Myers, Resurrection or the Rob Zombie reboots again in the near future.