By: Amanda Guarragi
Within four decades of the Halloween franchise adding sequels upon sequels, Laurie Strode’s story finally comes to an end. But was it the ending she deserved? Director David Gordon Green has constructed a trilogy highlighting trauma and one man’s effects on an entire community. The first instalment explored generational trauma, the second film explored communal trauma, and the last instalment explored how to cope with it. Each film’s themes are strong, but the Halloween Ends script will leave you a bit underwhelmed. The story isn’t about Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) or even Michael Myers (Nick Castle), but an entirely new character named Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). For a third instalment to not have the leading characters of the franchise in the majority of the film is questionable.
David Gordon Green did something different, and that is something I can admire him for. He went a different route when developing Corey Cunningham as someone who wanted to be like Michael Myers. Almost like an apprentice in this movie. Cunningham “accidentally” killed the child he was babysitting on Halloween night, and the whole town turned against him. Almost like they were trying to latch onto a new killer for Haddonfield because Michael Myers wasn’t present. Gordon Green also tried to reverse the cycle of the child going after the babysitter, which would have worked if the story had gone in a different direction. The bones of the story are there. It’s the execution of it that didn’t quite work. In the beginning, this third film felt like they needed to fill time to stretch out the final standoff between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. And when that happened in the last fifteen minutes, it didn’t even feel warranted.
The worst thing was that the development of Allyson (Andi Matichak) was ruined over plot convenience and the love for Cunningham. With Allyson being a Strode and seeing what her grandmother went through. The decisions she made in this film felt so out of character. We didn’t see the strong, fearless, and grounded Allyson from the previous two instalments. Instead, we see a young woman desperate to find love and risks her relationship with her grandmother to get it. It’s the most disappointing aspect of the trilogy because she was such a strong character. And her connection with Laurie is what made many audiences connect with her. It almost feels like an entirely different character. And she is only there to connect Cunningham to a Strode for the return of Michael Myers. It became a very convenient way to tie everything together at the end. It felt like Gordon Green did not know where the story was originally going after 2018.
Halloween Ends is probably the most anticlimactic way to end the franchise because of how detached Michael Myers and Laurie Strode was from the story. It had the potential to be a good ending if Gordon Green decided to stick with one direction for Cunningham in the end. People thought Halloween Kills was too graphic and had too many kills. This third film is the total opposite. There was one good kill, and the film lacked the suspense that Halloween (2018) was filled with. It’s an underwhelming finale to a feud that has lasted four decades. Laurie does get some closure, and there are references to Halloween (1978). But it doesn’t deliver anything epic in terms of a final story. The opening of this film felt like an entirely different movie than the other two in the trilogy, and it didn’t feel like Halloween.
Candid Cinema 