This review does contain some spoilers.
Halloween Ends is a conclusion to the story between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), however, it becomes something more.
The movie is rather different to both Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills; in that the story introduces us to a new character called Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell)… this late into the franchise, was surprising!
Although, Michael does take more of a backseat for most of this movie, don’t be mistaken that the focus is not about Michael, his evil nature is infectuous throughout. The entire point about this plot being here is to show that evil spreads more than just a town turning on people in fear, it helps build that there’s a further supernatural element to The Shape, with the affect that he can have on people. It’s about a transcedence of evil.
Rohan Campbell as Corey was great in his performance, his character progression was somewhat abrupt due to the writing, yet Campbell handled it superbly. Quite the leap into horror, since the actor has been appearing mostly Christmas and other family genre movies. His demeanor was very calculating and usually scary in the role.
At first, I was puzzled about why Laurie’s daughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and Corey would be anywhere near eachother, until scenes progressed that she feels that she could fix him. Allyson seems to be feeling connected to him by trauma and a town that also turned against her and Laurie. The scenes have a disturbing parallel in that regard.
Michael Myers usually doesn’t have much of a plan when killing, he selects people at random, mostly whenever he can creep up on them. A cold, emotionless, deadly shape! As mentioned in the previous movie Halloween Kills. Laurie was never the focus, she just made it about herself. This is where the difference is between the new killer; this person acts out a vendetta on people who caused them problems… there’s motive there.
The script was comical in parts; a noticeable line to mention that felt out of place, when the girl on the ground is crying for help and then says to her friend “You’re dead too!”. Why would anyone say that? A logical phrase would be to shout: “quick get out of the way!” Or “Run!”.
Found it quite predictable that there was a generic ‘high school bully wearing a college sports jacket’ trope in the movie, as it’s been done so many times for a character like that being an instigator.
There was a moment when the logo and mention of a radio station broadcast kept showing up so much right from the beginning like an 80’s Horror movie such as Trick or Treat. There could have potential here to drum up more paranoia about a killer in the town, that payoff was anti-climatic.
Halloween Ends has some great gory moments, that left me shouting out “Oh my gosh!” a few times, although this was fun to watch, this was not as creatively executed as other Halloween movies.
I don’t think it was necessary for the studio to keep recapping previous movies throughout this one, if you’ve seen the other movies, the frequent flashbacks are not needed like they were when the original actors came back for Halloween Kills, it’s just padding the runtime out.
I did like this one for a few reasons: the plot is built up to be more engaging and character driven. It was a risky move for them to not have Michael be in this much, however the plot does make sense, for where it was heading since Halloween Kills. This movie also finally has a conclusion with a thrilling showdown, although done quicker than I would have liked. They needed to speed up the Corey and Allyson scenes and give the ending more time as Jamie Lee Curtis feels under-used again in this movie.
Final thoughts
Is it one of the best Halloween movies as a slasher? That would be a no! Had a decent time for most of the movie, but for a slasher out of the three new ones, that would be Halloween Kills; where Michael Myers goes on a murder spree, especially that firefighter scene, and the original Halloween movies had a strong plot, plus a great slasher flick at same time that had Dr. Loomis in.
