'Halloween Ends' is not a Halloween movie (and that's a good thing) | movie review

Forty-four years after Laurie Strode survived Michael Myers’ massacre, she goes up against a familiar enemy in Halloween Ends.

Halloween Ends shouldn’t work—and almost doesn’t. It’s an absurd and deeply weird interpolation of the Halloween lore that feels less like another installment and more like a story within its world—like Halloween III: Season of the Witch. However, the audacity to take a risk with its story—and to go so far as making it closer to a drama than a horror—is both admirable and surprisingly entertaining. “Fanboys” looking for the movie to up the gore and kills will be disappointed—and perhaps those looking for a satisfying conclusion to Laurie Strode’s saga will too. However, some, like me, will tune into its off-the-wall wavelength and find the good in it. Halloween Ends will divide audiences. However, it will also get people talking—for better or worse.

Halloween Ends is so absurd and deeply weird that it’s impossible not to at least appreciate its audacity—something that so-called “fanboys” of the original are going to detest. However, as a critic that lists the original 1978 Halloween as one of my favorite movies of all time, I can say that I’m kinda obsessed with how Halloween Ends feels nothing like the rest of the series—like an interpolation of the story rather than a continuation. That’s no more apparent than the movie’s bold 10-minute cold open that begins a year after the events of Halloween Kills as we follow Corey (Rohan Campbell), a directionless young man babysitting the son of a wealthy family in Haddonfield, Illinois. After a few callbacks to the original—including a late-night TV showing of John Carpenter’s The Thing, dark closets, and a wide shot of Corey investigating outside the house—something happens. Something even more shocking than all the unnecessary gratuitous killings in the previous installment.

Spoiler Alert in 3… 2… 1…

When the child he is babysitting locks him in the attic, a panicked Corey attempts to kick down the door. What he doesn’t realize is the kid is just on the other side. When the door finally gives it flings the child over the banister crashing down three stories below just as his parents walk in. Cue the title sequence.

Spoilers over.

It was always a fool’s errand to continue Laurie Strode and Michael Myers’ saga in a way that respected John Carpenter’s vision for the original.

That was no more apparent than with 2018’s “just fine” Halloween and 2021’s actively terrible Halloween Kills (evil died that night and so did all my hope). That’s because it’s a movie that was always successful in a vacuum and as an allegory. It was never meant to be a story that continued on—and it famously didn’t with the third installment Season of the Witch, which didn’t even feature Myers. It’s only appropriate that Halloween Ends use the same font for the title card as the third film since, although this does feature Myers, it feels more like its own self-contained story in the same world.

Another couple years after the events of Corey’s babysitting mishap we catch up with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) sitting at a desk typing what sounds like a soliloquy about her life fighting Michael Myers—I couldn’t help but think of Diane Keaton crying at her laptop as she wrote her newest play in Something’s Gotta Give. She’s settled down in a house with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and attempts to live a normal life. But a city won’t quickly forget the murderous rampage of a supernatural-like serial killer. They also won’t forgive the woman that brought him into their town. Laurie, now labeled as the town “freakshow,” can’t go anywhere without somebody bringing Michael up in the same sentence. The same goes for Corey, who was acquitted of any wrongdoing, yet is still labeled a “psycho” by the town folk. Especially a group of cartoonishly unpleasant teens—who knew band geeks could be so vicious. However, Laurie sees more in him and after an altercation involving Corey, she orchestrates a meet-cute between him and Allyson.

For nearly half of the runtime, other than the cold open, Halloween Ends plays like a family drama—and even a quirky romantic comedy—about misunderstood people navigating their trauma.

We watch Corey and Allyson get closer as they bond over the feeling of being unwanted in the town but unable to leave—like Terrence Malick’s Badlands or Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde. However, at the same time, we also see a change in Corey as a series of incidents—another altercation with the group of teens, a Halloween party gone wrong, a run-in with Allyson’s ex—start to drive him to resent the town and its people. As Norman Bates infamously said, “we all go a little mad sometimes.” In a way, Halloween Ends is a villain origin story.

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned two things: Michael Myers and murders. That’s because the movie is more tactful in its approach to both—almost the polar opposite to Halloween Kills and more reminiscent of the original where the body count remained in the single digits. The marketing hasn’t hidden that Myers makes his return and faces off against Laurie, however, he isn’t the main focus of the movie. Instead, his influence (or shape), is the real villain of the movie. Or perhaps, what happens when you call someone a monster enough? Eventually, they become one.

Halloween Ends shouldn’t work—and in some ways doesn’t. As a conclusion to the 40-year Halloween saga it leaves a lot to be desired, even if Laurie does get her moment to face Michael.

However, I’d rather a huge swing and miss than more of the same. Clearly that didn’t work in the last movie. At the very least, I was never less than entertained—whether intentionally or unintentionally—by the lunacy of it all. Did I ever expect there to be a Hallmark-channel version of a Halloween movie about shared trauma with a central romance plot? Definitely not.

More movies, less problems

Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter here. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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Karl Delossantos

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Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.