Yikes! I wish my yikes was due to the scary horror of HALLOWEEN ENDS, but that is definitely not the case. Probably the worst film of the series, although I wasn’t a huge fan of HALLOWEEN KILLS either, HALLOWEEN ENDS lacks any of the intrigue, tension, or scares associated with the franchise.
The final installment of this most recent trilogy has been billed as a spine-chilling climax to the saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). An epic long face-off between these two characters would have been much more welcomed than what was left on screen. Saying the last 10 minute fight is what we’ve been waiting for, would be overly generous. Although that is the best part of the film, the slow build does not earn any scares or excitement.
Maybe director David Gordon Green and his co-writers Danny McBride, Chris Bernier, and Paul Brad Logan were trying to go for some of that HALLOWEEN III SEASON OF THE WITCH vibes by not focusing on Michael Myers or The Shape (James Jude Courtney). Instead the main character is a kid, or young adult rather, named Corey (Rohan Campbell) who after being bullied begins to have a bit of connection to the evil that lies within Michael Myers. He and Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) begin a little romantic comedy dating action. Seriously, what genre are we in? Laurie and Allyson are both trying to get over their daughter and mother being murdered in the last film and the fact that Myers has still been missing from the incident. Spoiler alert, he’s held up the sewer trying to regain his evil strength for the nearly THE ENTIRE RUNTIME. At an hour and fifty one minutes, I wanted HALLOWEEN ENDS to just hurry up and end.
It’s hard to believe Jamie Lee Curtis started these films about 45 years ago. And now in the same year she claims to end her run in the franchise, she puts in an Oscar worthy performance in one of the best films of the year EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. Much like 2002’s HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION, Curtis unfortunately finds herself in a fairly poor sequel.
I love, I mean LOVE, John Carpenter’s original 1978 version. Every time I watch it, even today, I get that sense of dread and fear built inside of me. My score is similar to JAWS in that the theme is part of the character and synonymous with the Halloween films, the Michael Myers character, and the holiday season. But even the music can’t save HALLOWEEN ENDS. I was a fan of the 2018 HALLOWEEN leading off this new trilogy, possibly one of the best. While none of the sequels have ever come close to the original, HALLOWEEN ENDS is in the running as one of the worst sequels in a group of pretty bad Halloween films.
