It isn’t often that a film series contains the same characters confronting each other over a span of 44 years.
The Halloween franchise would be the exception. The Halloween “thrillogy” of fans directed by David Gordon Green and starring Jamie Lee Curtis came to an epic conclusion in Halloween Ends.
Ends picks up four years after the 2018 Halloween and Halloween Kills. Both Laurie Strode (Curtis) and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) are trying to live rather normal lives. Laurie has finally gotten the psychological help she needed and is learning to live with her grief, without letting it consume her life. Allyson works a job at a local hospital, though it’s clear she’s still suffering from the grief of losing her parents on Halloween night 2018.
This final film also introduces Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a young man whose life took a tragic turn on Halloween 2019, when he was accused of murdering a young boy he was babysitting. Haddonfield turned against Corey, seeing him as nothing more than another evil person.
While Laurie has seemingly moved on with her life, Haddonfield’s residents have largely turned on her, blaming her for Michael’s rampage in 2018. This blame is reminiscent of the victim blaming we see far too often in real life.
Laurie is also working on a memoir about her experiences with Michael. As hinted at in Halloween Kills, evil isn’t something that can be contained, which is what Laurie writes about in her book. Laurie has realized evil isn’t simply contained in Michael; Michael is simply the vessel through which evil exists in Haddonfield.
Corey starts dating Allyson, but he also starts to show a darker side, which Laurie recognizes immediately as the same aura that surrounded Michael, who has been missing for four years. Corey soon crosses paths with Michael, which leads to a final confrontation with Laurie, one that has been building for 44 years, since Halloween 1978, as depicted in John Carpenter’s original masterpiece.
What sets Ends aside from the rest of the series, and from most slashers, is that it’s not your typical kill ‘em all slasher film. While the film is certainly bloody and gory when it calls for it, the film is also about something deeper. The underlying theme of the film is how evil is present in all of us. What matters is if we let it consume us the way Michael did.
When those who study film look back on the David Gordon Green films in years to come, they should marvel at the brilliance of the man and his writing team. This thrillogy wasn’t simply another round of slasher films. Rather, they were about the effects of trauma and how it affects everyone.
Halloween 2018 was about one person’s trauma and how they coped with it. Halloween Kills showed how trauma can affect an entire community, including leading to a mob mentality. Halloween Ends dealt with the fear mongering and paranoia that can arise after a traumatic event and how victim-blaming becomes all too common.
Curtis discussed Green’s brilliance as a storyteller in an interview with Drew Barrymore, herself a familiar face to horror fans; her character Casey Becker is one of the two first victims of Ghostface in the Scream series. You can watch that interaction below.
Curtis and Matichak both shine as the Final Girls of the series. James Jude Courtney gives a great final performance as The Shape. OG Michael actor Nick Castle provides Michael’s breathing, and he has a brief cameo that you’ll have to make sure to watch out for or you’ll miss it (he also repeats a classic line from the original film).
Halloween Ends is now in theatres and streaming on Peacock.
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