We come to the end of the recent Halloween trilogy with Halloween Ends. Who will be victorious -former babysitter Laurie Strode or evil Michael Myers? Or is there someone new?
Halloween - 2019: Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) is filling in last minute as a babysitter for Jeremy (Jaxon Goldenberg). When Jeremy locks Corey in the attic as a prank, Corey accidentally kills Jeremy by kicking open the door, sending Jeremy careening over the third floor balcony. Despite being cleared of manslaughter, Corey is still being bullied by the townsfolk in 2022. During one such fight, Corey cuts his hand open on a smashed glass bottle. Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) saves Corey from the bullies and takes him to the hospital, where her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) works as a nurse. Allyson quickly falls in love with Corey, even though Laurie can sense evil in the young man. After another fight with high school bullies, Corey is thrown off a bridge, only to be rescued by Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney). This only brings out more evil in Corey. Can Allyson see the evil before it is too late?
There are thirteen films in the Halloween franchise. I am only familiar with the three in this trilogy: Halloween, Halloween Kills, and Halloween Ends. With that said, I thought that Ends was the weakest of the three films. A majority of this film focuses on Corey’s plight in town and his budding relationship with Allyson. It takes something like 45 minutes before we see the first hint of Michael’s existence and the first murder (excluding Jeremy’s accidental death). Considering the movie is just under 2 hours long, that is almost the halfway point. That is a long time to wait for a death in a slasher movie.
Sadly, instead of murders, the movie is filled with Corey being bullied by teenagers, Corey being screamed at by his mother, Corey at work, Allyson at work, and Laurie writing a book about Michael Meyers. It is all very boring. I understand wanting to giving Laurie and Allyson a bit more of a normal life but it feels very out of character after the events of Halloween Kills. Even though Ends takes place three years after Kills, the sheer body count and terror Michael wreaked should have kept Laurie and Allyson on edge for much longer. I’m not sure there’s enough therapy in the world to cure what they went through.
If you watched the other two movies, you might as well finish off the trilogy. It does give a decent ending to the Laurie/Michael story. But is that the end of the Halloween franchise? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.