Halloween Ends review

Halloween Ends is a disappointing conclusion to an otherwise really good trilogy. The first two films of the reboot/remake are stunning renditions of both the franchise and the character. Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills are two of my favorite slashers, so it’s disappointing that the finale to an otherwise very good trilogy was fumbled.

Halloween Ends takes a much different approach than the previous dozen entries from the franchise. Ends introduces Corey, a new main character to the trilogy, who the film bypasses Laurie to focus on. Typically, I’m open to films, especially reboots, taking creative risks. However, I thought it was an odd decision – one that ultimately didn’t pan out - to wait until the third film of the trilogy to introduce a new main character.

The opening scene is all about Corey and is an introduction to him and his story. The crux of the film is based off of this opening scene. I have issues with the decision to direct the story this way but this opening sequence was very strong and could ultimately be memorable. There was a great misdirection during this opening sequence which works very well. The scene is incredibly tense and anxious and its culmination is unexpected. This opening scene does a good job of perplexing you on where the film is headed. I really enjoyed this opening act of the film.

Unfortunately where Ends takes us isn’t particularly good. Corey takes the center stage of the story. Him being the main character is a distraction from the central story of the trilogy. It introduces a new character to the franchise but that’s all his story adds. Also shown are the side-effects of Michael’s exploits on the citizens of Haddonfield. I thought this was a nice touch that hasn’t been explored in any of the prior dozen film entries. I would have much rather had seen even more focus on various residents and the psychological damage that Michael has inflicted upon them. We know what Mike has done to Laurie but seeing even more how he has impacted the entire town could have been a great case-study on PTSD, grief, and actively living in fear. Unfortunately, Corey’s plot took away from this potentially interesting side plot.

There is a romance in the film that feels contrived and unnatural. An argument can be made that it is a trauma bond, but even accounting for that, the pairing feels illogical, rushed, and forced. This is bad writing more than it is an accurate depiction of how trauma can have a magnetic effect for psychologically damaged persons. Lastly, I don’t think it is necessary to dedicate significant runtime to a romance subplot in a Michael Myers flick. Again, I’m very hospitable to taking creative chances in cinema but it needs to make sense. From a cinematic standpoint I don’t think that it did.

Corey getting so much screen time relegates Michael Myers to second fiddle. Even Laurie takes a backseat to Corey. The film shows Corey’s transition from leper to monster. The film theorizes on if someone can be pushed to evil by those around them. It’s implied in the film that Corey’s ostracization planted the seeds of evil inside of him and meeting Michael fermented them. In this era of ostracized (either actual or imagined) white males being indoctrinated into violence, there is a poignant discussion to be had on the Coreys of the world. However, I think this would have been better suited as an independent film.

This is still a Michael Myers and Laurie Strode story, so at some point it had to get back to them. This ultimately stretched the film too thin, disallowing it from telling a good story in either direction that it wanted to go in. In short – it did too much.

Ends is tense at times but not particularly scary. This is due to Michael hanging in the background for the majority of it. The kills in Ends were violent and creative but not quite as innovative as the ones from Kills yet still really nice, nonetheless. It was graphic but not gratuitous, which I enjoyed.

Kills worked itself into a corner with an ending that it could only successfully get out of by going the supernatural route. Halloween Kills established Big Mike as a superpowered being so the only way he could be killed in a satisfying way is by going supernatural too. Admittedly that would get ridiculous so I figured that the writers wouldn’t go that route. The finale kept it grounded in reality which story-wise is a prudent decision but is inconsistent with the conclusion of the second film.

{SPOILERS}

My biggest gripe with the film are the inconsistencies and illogic nature of major plot points. The first is the romance between Corey and Allyson. I want to say that they knew each other for a week tops, yet homegirl was ready to quit her job and leave her last living relative to run away with a guy that she knew for at most 7 days. Even accounting for a trauma bond these two are moving at light speed. Of all the points in this section this is probably the lease offensive which says a lot.

Next, is the initial meeting between Corey and Michael. It’s unclear if Mike sees the underlying darkness in Corey or if he just recognizes a kindred spirit but they develop some sort of psychological bond. This isn’t explained which is frustrating because it’s a major point that contradicts Michael’s mythos. Mike has never willfully let someone live, so it should have been more fleshed out on why he did so with Corey.

Their bond is so strong that Mike lets Corey drag him along to show him the ropes of murder. This completely contradicts Michael’s entire mythos. Michael’s central characteristic is that he is void of any humanity and is completely unable to form a connection with anyone or anything. Having Michael form a partnership completely contradicts this.

Characters don’t have to be static, so I’m open to change, but there has to be a plausible reason for a complete 180 in their characterization. Not only is there not a reason given but the writers seem to forget their own movie as Michael inexplicably murders Corey after teaming up with him. An argument could be made that Michael put Corey out of his misery but again, that would take sympathy which Michael is ostensibly void of.

Another head-scratching decision is how Corey was able to not only successful tussle with Michael but was able to steal his mask. Days before, he was getting punked by 12th graders but almost quite literally overnight was able to go from losing fights to sassy seniors to successfully going one-on-one with Michael. On a good day this is inconsistent storytelling at best.

Overall, I would say that Ends is a miss. The film took some questionable chances that all fell flat. I don’t feel that I wasted my time and money (watched in theatres) but I’m a pretty inquisitive person so my desire to see things through is sometimes greater than my hope that it delivers. I still feel that it’s a good trilogy but there was an opportunity for something truly special in Ends that didn’t come to fruition. Too much runtime was given to a newly introduced character whose plot wound up being a distraction. I get the sense that the film didn’t have much left in the tank following Kills, so Corey’s story was used to help fill the runtime. I’m totally hypothesizing here but it’s not totally farfetched considering what we got with Ends. I liked that the film took place over an extended period of days, instead of just on Halloween. This allowed us to get a more in-depth look at characters than what we’ve previously seen. This would have been an excellent opportunity to give an in-depth analysis on how Michael’s murderous exploits psychologically impacted Haddonfield’s residents day-to-day, yet this was sacrificed to tell Corey’s origin story and to show his and Allyson’s romance.

Ends fails because it incorporated too many unrelated elements into the movie. This is a slasher flick that became a bit of a soap opera and an episode of Mindhunter with how they attempted to explore Corey’s psyche. Things became muddied, convoluted, and overcomplicated, ending up with a film that didn’t meet expectations.

----4.3/10