Slasher franchises habitually tease the demise of their murderous fiends, only to then renege on that promise. Thus, if you’re counting on Halloween Ends—the (unlucky) 13th entry in the series, including Rob Zombie’s two excellent remakes—to be the definitive resolution to the Michael Myers’ saga, I’ve got some prime Florida swampland to sell you.
The third Halloween outing helmed by David Gordon Green, all of which—chronologically speaking—directly followed John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 original, Halloween Ends provides the umpteenth showdown between the masked marauder and Jamie Lee Curtis’ perpetually stalked Laurie Strode, who continually tries, and fails, to kill the killer who’s turned her life into one long traumatized nightmare. This time, though, things may turn out differently! (Just kidding.) Green’s purported closer is more of the same scare-free nonsense gussied up with blather about evil, survival, and suffering. So dreary is this latest go-round that the film’s title resonates less as a guarantee than as a cruel taunt, tantalizing audiences with finality despite the fact that everyone naturally assumes another reboot (Halloween Reborn? Halloween: The Next Generation?) is only a few years away.
Nonetheless, pretending that it’s forever wrapping up Michael’s reign of terror, Halloween Ends picks up four years after its predecessor with Laurie living in a new Haddonfield, Illinois, home with granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), who continues to work at the hospital that was overrun by an angry mob in the limp previous installment Halloween Kills. Laurie is writing a book about her Michael-related experiences as a means of coping with her emotional scars, and when she sees Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) at the supermarket, she’s stable enough to flirt. Haddonfield, alas, remains a spooky place that’s “infected” with some sort of lethal plague that results in countless tragedies, the most notorious of which is a 2019 incident—depicted in a prologue—in which babysitter Corey (Rohan Campbell) is taunted by the kid he’s watching and, through a confluence of unfortunate twists of fate, accidentally kills the boy, thereby making himself a local pariah.
Corey now works at the mechanic shop run by his weirdo mom’s boyfriend, and after Laurie protects him from a group of high school bullies, she sets him up with Allyson. The speed with which Allyson takes to Corey is whiplash-inducing, and Halloween Ends wants to cast them as a couple bonded by the bloody pain of their past and the ostracism they still endure in the present. Yet Green’s script (co-penned with Danny McBride, Chris Bernier and Paul Brad Logan) fails to persuade on that count; Allyson and Corey primarily feel like an item because the film needs to get unhinged Corey into Laurie’s orbit. It’s the sort of sloppy writing that’s defined Green’s series efforts, and in this case, it extends to just about every lame line of dialogue uttered by these characters, who fume, mope and grieve with uniform woodenness.
[Minor Spoilers Follow]
Things take a turn for the homicidal when Corey is shoved off a bridge by his tormentors and dragged into the underpass’ giant storm drain pipe by none other than Michael, who’s apparently been hiding out in the rat-infested sewers for four years. At the very instant that Michael is going to choke Corey to death, they lock eyes and, well, somehow Michael’s brutal spirit is sorta-kinda transferred into the young man. Before long, Corey is reveling in his darker impulses, which winds up being quite easy since Halloween Ends introduces a variety of characters whose sole purpose is to be mean to Corey and, consequently, to become a target of his wrath. Laurie eventually senses that not all is right with Corey—in large part because he starts lurking around her front-yard hedges à la Michael—but given that she introduced him to Allyson, she finds that breaking up the pair puts her relationship with her granddaughter at risk.
Halloween Ends indulges in a moderate amount of gruesomeness, if only one notable kill involving the severing of a tongue. Wholly absent, though, is actual horror. Green can’t go two minutes without trying to jolt viewers with some excessively loud noise, but when it comes to building suspense or delivering startling payoffs, he completely flails. There isn’t a single frightening moment here, just a grab bag of ho-hum murders committed by individuals other than Michael, who at outset is in a weakened state and aiming to rejuvenate himself by stabbing innocents. Michael’s fear factor has been dissipated by numerous lousy sequels that all exploited the same tricks (i.e. having the masked boogeyman materialize behind his unsuspecting victims), yet that’s hardly an excuse for the sheer dearth of set pieces striving to rattle the nerves.
Curtis broods in the identical manner that she did in 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills (except here with blonde hair), and just like Michael, her routine is stale to the point of parody; when people accuse Laurie of secretly wanting Michael to find her, it’s difficult to see the error in their logic. Allyson is a bland presence and Corey is the sort of wannabe madman that’s all surface—a situation exacerbated by a repeated back-and-forth in which he’s labelled the “psycho” to Laurie’s “freakshow.” Continuity lapses prove as common as clichés (no surprise that Allyson’s highly sexual coworker is doomed), lending the proceedings an overarching slackness that neuters any flickering potential for tension.
Worst of all, Halloween Ends’ ultimate face-off between Michael and Laurie is so anticlimactic that its supposed conclusiveness plays like a joke. Moreover, following two hours of talk about how evil is akin to a poison—this after previous installments described Michael as an “idea” rather than a man—it’s impossible to take its finale as a serious ending. Consequently, the only relatable part of this entire affair is the sight of one character ignoring the rote mayhem right outside his window in favor of watching Jean-Claude Van Damme kick ass in Hard Target.
