Spoilers Included

I found it hard to sit through David Gordon Green’s most recent film of the “Halloween” franchise, “Halloween Ends.” As a fan of “Halloween,” it was really a challenge to appreciate this recent installment for various reasons. The movie is trying desperately to balance on a tightrope between playing it safe and bringing out new and unconventional horror plot points. For a movie tied to the “Halloween” franchise, we barely got 15 minutes of Michael Myers on the screen. 

There is the shell to a particularly good movie in here, but the combination of the elements provided made it a hapless mess. This movie’s attempt to balance new and innovative horror concepts with original slasher tropes was met with failure due to the clunky nature of the editing and pacing of the story. There was an unnecessary amount of voiceover from Laurie to try and compliment the idea that “Halloween Ends” as a whole is a retelling from her memoir. It was redundant and did not move the plot forward in any discernible way. 

There was a particularly underwhelming performance from Rohan Campbell, playing newcomer to the franchise Corey Cunningham. Corey didn’t feel like a necessary character to “Halloween Ends.” His character, in theory, seemed like a conduit for Michael Myers but that was not conveyed well at all during the runtime. I could see Corey’s character development from the first kill in the movie. He’s the nice guy turned ostracized loner turned psychopath. If David Gordon Green had attempted his character in its own stand alone movie, this could have been completely different and dare I say, better? There is too much transparency in this movie with most, if not all, aspects. Attempted plot twists could be seen from miles away. Overall, this left little for the audiences to guess on and be surprised by. This concept of intentional (or unintentional) transparency made “Halloween Ends” a contradictory installment to Carpenter’s classic from 1978. 

A problem I continued to face during the movie was the lack of kills. The execution of the minimal kills didn’t help out this installment either. “Halloween” is a historically gory and fun franchise for the kills and the suspense. The problem in “Halloween Ends,” is that a majority of the kills were condensed into a 20 minute segment of the movie. This forced Gordon to try and rely on suspense to move the supposed plot.

There is a confusing and underwritten love story between Allyson and Corey that feels overwhelmingly unnecessary. Realistically, with the information we have on the Strode family, Allyson should’ve been able to see through Corey’s facade from the get go. But, because it’s a movie, there has to be this absurd example of suspension of disbelief. It didn’t move the plot forward in any way or benefit either character. Corey’s decisions throughout the last 45 minutes of the movie unravel the fruitless attempt at humanizing him. Corey felt like a caricature of what his personality was actually supposed to be. He’s a husk of the image David Gordon Green had. 

There was too much of Corey and Allyson and not nearly enough Laurie and Michael, who audiences paid to see. The movie’s ending felt like a cliche and undeserving of a franchise such as “Halloween.” Corey ends up killing himself because of this absurd devotion he has developed for Allyson. But this is not before an iconic rising from the dead for one final jump scare moment. His death felt detached from the plot, just like his character overall. Michael and Laurie have one final showdown, Allyson jumps in to help end Michael’s life. The final moments of the movie show Laurie and Allyson driving to the junkyard to get rid of Michael’s body with the rest of the town following in suit. After Michael’s body is placed into a metal grinder, the movie ends and the credits roll. 

I wish I could’ve left the movie more satisfied. But sometimes there are inevitable problems that rise when keeping horror icons alive for as long as Michael Myers has been. After seeing “Halloween Kills,” I felt like there wouldn’t be many satisfying or plausible endings for fans or general audiences in “Halloween Ends.” But we can only hope there will probably be another “Halloween” movie to pop out in the next few years and try to redeem this one. 

Overall Rating 1.5/5.