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With: Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle, Will Patton, Rohan Campbell, Kyle Richards, Jesse C. Boyd, Joanne Baron, Rick Moose, Omar Dorsey, Michael Barbieri, Destiny Mone, Joey Harris, Marteen, Michael O'Leary, Michele Dawson, Keraun Harris, Jaxon Goldberg, Candice Rose, Jack William Marshall
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Written by: Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride, David Gordon Green
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Directed by: David Gordon Green
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MPAA Rating: R for bloody horror violence and gore, language throughout and some sexual references
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Running Time: 111
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Date: 10/14/2022
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Flat Myers
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
An improvement over Halloween Kills, but still falling short of the 2018 Halloween, the supposed final chapter Halloween Ends plays with some intriguing ideas, but fails to cohere them in any meaningful way.
It's Halloween night, and Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) agrees to a last-minute babysitting job. When the child locks him in the attic, he panics, kicks open the door, and accidentally sends the child falling to his death. Now the whole town of Haddonfield spurns him, or ridicules him, except Allyson (Andi Matichak), the granddaughter of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis).
Laurie and Allyson are now living in a new house, trying to make the best of things; Laurie is even writing a book. Allyson convinces Corey to come to a Halloween party with her, but the night ends badly when some bullies throw him off of an overpass and leave him for dead. There, Corey has an encounter that somehow changes him. And before long, the killings begin again. However, this time, perhaps they may also end?
Director David Gordon Green's visual palette is positively dystopian here, with the bright Halloween decorations unable to distract from a landscape of trash and clutter, everything worn-down and worn out. The most interesting idea behind Halloween Ends is the introduction of the Corey character. He's a good guy, maybe a little meek (he likes chocolate milk), and suffers an unbelievably bad turn of fate when he causes the accidental death of a child. The movie makes him sympathetic, letting us in on how he feels about this life-changing moment, and how he deals with the mob-mentality reaction to it.
Unfortunately, things turn on an unexplained, even lazy, supernatural moment wherein Michael Myers somehow "transfers" his evil, killing tendency to the young man. So, if Corey isn't responsible for his own transformation, what does it mean? Weirdly, his character arc is similar to that of another John Carpenter movie, Christine (1983), in which a mild-mannered nerd falls under the influence of a classic car, but this retread doesn't even have that much of an idea.
Corey's character eventually takes time away from Laurie, who has flipped 180 degrees since the 2018 movie into a happy homemaker (she bakes pies), and from Michael himself. And poor Allyson seems positively delusional for being attracted to the troubled Corey. Laurie has dialogue about the various kinds of evil and whatnot, but, sadly, the pieces of Halloween Ends rarely seem to click together. It's less an ending than it is a series simply running dry.
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