An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at the final film in the new Halloween timeline, Halloween Ends currently available on Peacock.
Four years after Michael Myers terrorized Haddonfield, Michael’s attacks still loom over the town and a new murder starts a new wave of terror on Halloween
Is Halloween Ends Scary?
Halloween Ends has a few jumpscares and can be pretty gory (but only in a few scenes) but it relies on more on suspense. You might jump a bit but in the end you won’t leave Halloween Ends afraid of the dark unless you have a friend that likes to wear a Michael Myers mask and scare you.
Plots:
Since this is the third sequel in the most recent Halloween timeline let’s get a quick recap of the movies in this continuity. You can click the titles of each section to go to those pages for a full recap.
Halloween (1978) Quick Recap
In 1963 6-year-old Michael Myers kills his older sister Judith. Halloween night, 1978 after not speaking for 15 years Michael escapes a mental asylum and heads back home while Doctor Loomis is on his tail.
Back at his childhood home in Haddonfield Illinois, Michael catches of glimpse of a high school student and babysitter Laurie Strode. Michael stalks Laurie and kills her friends while attempting to kill her. Laurie fights back and Doctor Loomis arrives in time to save her and shoot Michael multiple times causing him to fall off a balcony.
The film ends with Michael disappearing when Loomis checks where he fell and Loomis calls him the boogeyman.
Halloween (2018) Quick Recap
In Halloween Kills (2021) we learn Michael went back to his house and was arrested after he caused Officer Hawkins to shoot his partner.
In 2018, Michael escapes the mental asylum with the help of an obsessed Doctor Sartain who wants to see what happens when Michael sees Laurie Strode again. We learn in the last 40 years Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) had a daughter, Karen, and a granddaughter, Allyson (played by Judy Greer and Andi Matichak respectively).
Michael kills a bunch of people on his way to his house including a bunch of Allyson’s friends. As the bodies pile up, Deputy Frank Hawkins, an old friend of Laurie, wants to shut down Halloween but the Sheriff refuses.
Eventually, Doctor Sartain, Frank, and Allyson capture Michael but Sartain stabs Frank in the neck and attempts to drive the unconscious Michael to Laurie’s home. Before they can get there, Allyson escapes as Michael wakes up and kills Sartain.
Michael ends up at Laurie’s home anyway, kills Karen’s husband, Ray, and has a showdown with Laurie. With the help of Karen and Allyson, Laurie (who gets stabbed) is able to trap Michael in her basement and set the house on fire. The movie ends with Michael presumably dying in the fire.
Halloween Kills (2021) Recap
Michael didn’t die, surprise! Firefighters attempting to put out the fire are killed by Michael and Michael starts his trek back to his house killing anyone in his way. Laurie and Frank Hawkins spend the movie in the hospital with Karen watching over them.
The news reports Michael’s killing and characters from the original 1978 movie, Lonnie, Tommy, Lindsey, and Marion lead mobs including Allyson to find and kill Michael. After multiple deaths including Cameron, Karen saves Allyson and leads Michael into a trap where he is brutally beaten.
He doesn’t die and kills most of his attackers including Lonnie, Tommy, and Marion. The film ends with Karen, who doesn’t know Michael is still alive, entering Michael’s home and getting killed by him. Still the dumbest decision I’ve seen by a main character in some time.
Halloween Ends (2022) Plot Synopsis
The film opens in Haddonfield on Halloween night 2019. We meet one of our main characters Corey (played by Rohan Campbell) arriving at Mr. and Mrs. Allen’s home to babysit their kid Jeremey. Before they leave for a Halloween party, Mrs. Allen tells Corey that Jeremy is traumatized since hearing about Michael Myer’s killing spree in 2018.
Cut to Corey and Jeremy watching The Thing and arguing about who is actually scared. During the scene where The Thing bites the guy’s arms off, Corey tells Jeremy the movie is starting to get inappropriate and it’s almost time for bed. Jeremy becomes a straight dick and calls Corey an “ugly ass boy babysitter”
Corey sternly tells him bedtime is 5 minutes and goes to the fridge to get something to drink. As he’s about to cut a piece of cake, a sound catches Corey’s attention. He finds the front door is open and Jeremy is now missing. Searching a bit, he returns to the kitchen and discovers a kitchen knife is missing.
Hearing more noise from the attic, Corey cautiously walks up the steps, finding the knife on the floor. Jeremy screams for help and Corey grabs the knife as he enters the attic. Turns out it was a prank and Jeremy locks him in the room.
Jeremy teases Corey who is definitely freaking out in fear and trying to break down the door. The Allens arrive just as Corey finally kicks the door open but, it knocks into Jeremy throwing him back and over the staircase railing to his death. They rush over to Jeremy and look up to see Corey standing there with a knife.
Cut to the title card and opening credits!
Three years later Laurie Strode now lives with Allyson in a new home and Allyson now works as a medical assistant. Laurie is writing a memoir of her life and as she narrates some parts of it, we see scenes from the original Halloween and the last two films. We learn that since Michael’s disappearance in 2018 his presence looms over Haddonfield with every death raising the question if it was his doing.
On her way to work, Allyson is pulled over by her ex, Officer Doug, who tells her the muffler on her car is starting to fall off and to get it fixed. Meanwhile, Corey now works for his step-dad or maybe his mom’s boyfriend, Ronald (played by Rick Moose) at his salvage yard and he’s gifted an old motorbike.
Later while on break, Corey grabs some chocolate milk from a local store as a group of high school seniors looking to buy alcohol ask him to do it for them. Corey declines and the teens recognize him calling him a psycho-babysitter. As they harass him we learn they’re from the marching band which blew my mind.
Head asshole Terry, definitely on the drumline, starts calling Corey a pedophile which angers him enough to crush his glass bottle in his hand. The milk splashes on the band kid and he pushes Corey onto the ground as we see Corey now has a huge gash on his hand from the glass.
Laurie arrives and tells the marching band kids to march on but they then start harassing her, calling her a freak show. After the kids enter the store, Laurie helps Corey up and the two slash the kid’s tires. Laurie takes Corey to Allyson’s job to get patched up and there’s an instant connection between Corey and Allyson.
After Doctor Mathis (who is also a dick) leaves the room, Allyson and Corey bond and he offers to help fix her car. Outside, Allyson asks Corey out on a date and he politely declines but tells her she can stop by the scrapyard the following day so he can fix her car.
Later Allyson is at home and alleges that Laurie purposely brought Corey to Allyson’s job to set them up. Lindsey Wallace is also there and now does tarot card readings but somehow her cards don’t see that Michael Myers is totally coming back. Laurie suggests Allyson invite Corey to a Halloween party and she agrees.
At Corey’s home, while he’s having dinner, he gets a text from Allyson and we see that Corey’s mom (played by Joanne Baron) is the definition of an over-protective helicopter parent. She nags him about who is texting him and when Corey refuses to tell her, she says he gets no dessert because he keeps secrets. Corey is 25 years old.
The following day as Corey is practicing riding his motorbike at the scrapyard, Allyson arrives with her car and Corey teaches her how to ride. Also, Allyson makes it very clear she’s interested in Corey. They’re distracted when the marching band asshole Terry arrives with his dad and we see his dad hit him for not knowing how to change a tire. As they say, shit rolls downhill.
At the grocery store, Laurie bumps into Officer Hawkins (played by Will Patton) and it’s clear they have a bit of a love connection. Thirty minutes in, Michael hasn’t shown up, and I’m starting to think I’ve been tricked into watching a romance movie.
As Laurie happily exits the store, a woman blames her for Michael Myers and we learn she is Sondra’s sister. She accuses Laurie of provoking Michael Myers despite that not being what actually happened and Laurie appears frozen at the same.
By the way, Sondra is the woman from Halloween Kills who Michael stabbed in the neck with a halogen lamp, she’s also still alive… but can’t speak. Win some, lose some?
That night Allyson and Corey head to a Halloween costume party at a bar and as Allyson drives, we hear the radio announcer/DJ, Willy the Kid (played by Keraun Harris) spouting some weird conspiracy theories.
At the bar, Corey eventually breaks out of his shell and starts having fun and dancing with Allyson. As he grabs another drink at the bar, Mrs. Allen is there and berates him for having a good time. She continues to yell at him and blame him for her son’s death to the point where Lindsey has to hold her back.
Corey leaves the bar and Allyson chases after him but he snaps at her for bringing her to the party in the first place. She tries to connect with him but he points out that the town look at her as a survivor and him as a monster. He tells her to leave him alone and he storms off.
Later as Corey is passing over a small bridge, the freaking marching band kids show up and start to harass him again. Corey tries to walk away but they trip him, push him around, and break his glasses. Pulling out a knife to defend himself, Corey is quickly disarmed but starts to taunt Terry about his dad hating him. Terry flips out and pushes Corey off the bridge.
The kids drive off as Terry loudly claims that Corey fell. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the bridge, a homeless man watches someone pull an unconscious Corey into a drainage pipe.
In the morning, Corey wakes up in the drainage pipe and is grabbed by a weakened Michael Myers who chokes him. They stare into each other’s eyes and Michael seems to see everything Corey has been through as we see quick flashbacks. Michael lets him go and Corey stumbles out of the pipe. Oh, so this is a love story.
In a jumpscare, the homeless man grabs Corey and questions why Michael let him live. He says that over the years Michael has taken people but Corey is the first to be let go. The man then pulls out Corey’s knife and claims he is Michael Myers. Corey is able to grab the knife and stab the man, killing him.
Corey rushes home and while his mom yells at him, questioning where he’s been, he runs into the bathroom. Remember in Spider-Man (2002) where Peter wakes up after being bitten by the spider and looks at himself confused in the mirror while Aunt May asks if he’s okay? Yea, that’s basically this scene.
At her job, we see that Allyson, who was trying to get a promotion, lost the promotion to her co-worker, Deb, who is totally sleeping with their boss, Doctor Mathis. Later, Corey drives his motorbike over to Laurie’s home and when Laurie looks outside, Corey is being a creep.
Laurie rushes outside and, in a jumpscare that is pretty impossible, Corey appears from behind Laurie and scares her. He apologizes and says he’s just waiting for Allyson. Allyson walks out and he tells her about being jumped and the two go for a walk.
Corey and Allyson go to the abandoned Allen house where he tells her what happened that night and the two bond over their past trauma. Meanwhile, Laurie goes to visit Corey’s mom and she learns that the town harassed Corey after Jeremy’s death. Corey’s mom blames Laurie for that since the town needed another boogeyman scapegoat after Michael disappeared in 2018.
Later that night at a diner, Allyson tells Corey that after her parents’ deaths she wanted to “burn it all to the ground” and start over but she couldn’t leave Laurie. Corey takes her up on her offer to burn it all down as he believes Laurie is just making Allyson her project to help her own guilt.
The two are then interrupted by an intoxicated Officer Doug who questions why Allyson didn’t call him back. She tries to get him to leave but Officer Doug can’t take a hint. Corey demands he leave and Doug recognizes him. He starts to taunt Allyson for being with a killer and Corey jumps up, staring down Doug.
Doug backs down and leaves. Allyson tells Corey she wants to burn it all down and he agrees to light the match, whatever that means. Corey drives Allyson home and kisses her goodnight as the two are watched by someone. After he declines to go inside with her, Corey drives off fully aware someone is following him.
At the drainage pipe at the bottom of the bridge, we see it’s Doug following Corey. Doug spots a tent by the drainage pipe and opens it thinking it’s Corey but it’s actually the homeless guy Corey killed.
Corey runs up behind Doug, wrapping his jacket around his head, and the two struggle. Doug throws Corey off but loses sight of him. Following his taunting laughter into the drainage pipe, Doug finds a wall that looks like a face… so I guess we know what Michael has been doing to the bodies of his victims.
Michael attacks Doug but gets knocked pretty quickly. Corey joins in and fights Doug knocking him down, he then turns to Michael and asks him to show him how to kill. Michael grabs his knife and together with Corey, they kill Doug. The kill seems to give Michael some power, either that or he’s having an orgasm.
Corey leaves and goes to visit Allyson clearly conflicted about what he’s done. Since the fight with Doug left him bruised Allyson asks who did it to him and he changes the subject. Allyson never brings it back up for some reason. Doesn’t even ask “what happened to the person who attacked you? Are they still alive?”
Outside Laurie arrives, and sees Allyson and Corey head upstairs but doesn’t notice Michael watching her from behind a tree. The following day Laurie is at the bar talking to Lindsey and says she recognized the look behind Corey’s eyes as the same one she saw in Michael.
Lindsey introduces Laurie to Mr. Allen who is conveniently at the bar at the same time. He tells them he knew Corey was a good kid and that Jeremy’s death was an accident. The previous day he saw Corey walking along the street and pulled up next to him to talk to him but, the person staring at him back wasn’t Corey anymore.
Meanwhile, Doctor Mathis brings Nurse Deb back to his place, I knew they were sleeping together! Deb heads to the bedroom to get changed and hears loud crashes. Going out to the pool she finds Corey in a mask killing Doctor Mathis.
Deb screams and runs inside, locking Corey out but gets attacked by Michael Myers. Michael easily drags her across the room and pins her to a wall with his knife, killing her.
Later we see Corey and Allyson on a ride and the two sit on the roof of the radio station. Corey tells her he wants to leave Haddonfield but doesn’t want to do it alone. As the two climb down (Corey jumps off), Willy the Kid comes out and recognizes the two. Unsurprisingly he’s also a dick.
Though this is the first time we see him, Willy the Kid has been a constant in the background of the movie, playing music, saying Michael Myers is coming back, and in the latest theory, he says Michael died in 1978. He claims the Michael from 2018 was actually the same guy who poisoned a pope.
Willy claims Laurie teased Michael who had brain damage until he snapped. What the fuck? Did no one watch the first Halloween? Anyway, after Willy threatens to fuck them up if they don’t leave his property, he goes inside and Allyson agrees to leave Haddonfield with Corey. Across the street we see Laurie watching the two.
Back at home, Corey’s mom yells at him for being with a girl that will take him away from her and she kicks him out of the house. The next morning is Halloween and Corey, who is sleeping at the abandoned Allen house, is woken up by Laurie.
Laurie demands Corey stay away from Allyson and he flips out correctly pointing out that Laurie is the reason they even met. Corey then says if he can’t have Allyson, no one can; dude, chill. After Laurie leaves, Corey calls Allyson, says that they need to leave Haddonfield tonight, and adds that Laurie wants to kill him.
Allyson, who is at work and doesn’t appear to notice or care her boss and co-worker are missing, agrees to meet with Corey that night at 9 pm. Corey drives to the drainage pipe where he attacks Michael who was probably pretty shocked at the turn of events. The two struggle and Corey takes Michael’s mask and leaves.
That night, Laurie catches Allyson packing for her trip with Corey and confronts her, telling her there is evil in Corey. Allyson tells Laurie that she is obsessed with Michael and then blames her for her friend’s deaths. Did she not watch Halloween Kills? Evil dies tonight wasn’t Laurie’s motto.
Meanwhile, Terry and his marching band gang leave a store to find their car has the word “psycho” scratched into it. Looking over they see Corey and they chase him to the salvage yard where Ronald is watching a movie with headphones on.
Terry finds Corey’s bike and decides to wrap some chains around it to tie it to his car. When he walks back to his car, he finds the body of one of his friends stabbed in the face. As the rest of the band gang freak out, Corey drives a tow truck through a gate and pins one of the band underneath.
In a jumpscare, Terry alerts Ronald of what is happening. Ronald grabs some guns but tells Terry to stay inside which means he definitely won’t. Outside, Corey kills another of the group with a wrench. Ronald finds the girl pinned under the gate still alive and tries to help her but sees Corey with Michael’s mask watching him.
Terry, who doesn’t know how to listen to instructions, sees Corey and shoots, accidentally killing Ronald. Corey disappears and Terry runs up to help his friend pinned under the car but is attacked by Corey. Corey then uses a blowtorch to kill him as Terry’s friend look on. Corey puts on Michael’s mask and stomps on the final girl, killing her.
Corey next heads home and kills his mom in a kill that everyone called from the start. Next Corey, still wearing Michael’s mask, heads to the radio station. There, he kills Willy the Kid’s assistant (?) and Willy by bashing his head in and cutting off his tongue.
Meanwhile, Allyson heads to the diner to meet with Corey but since he’s off murdering he’s a bit busy and doesn’t show. Laurie attempts to call her but Allyson ignores the call. At home, Laurie lights a pumpkin in her office and continues to write.
After writing a bit, she pulls out a gun, pours herself a drink, and calls the police to report a suicide. All the while we see someone, Corey as Michael, is watching her. Laurie puts the gun to her head and hesitates. We switch to Corey’s POV as Laurie walks behind the door and we hear a gunshot with something splattering on the walls.
Corey opens the door, it’s revealed Laurie shot the pumpkin and knew Corey was there. Laurie aims the gun taunting him for believing she would kill herself and she shoots him multiple times. Corey falls back and down the stairs, removing the mask as he struggles to breathe.
Laurie approaches him, empties her gun into the wall, and tells Corey to try to kill her. Corey grabs the knife but they both hear Allyson approaching and Corey starts to laugh. He reiterates what he said before; if he can’t have Allyson, no one can, and he stabs himself in the neck.
Laurie pulls out the knife as Allyson enters the house and sees what looks like Laurie having killed Corey.
Laurie drops the knife and doesn’t explain herself as Allyson asks what she did. She doesn’t even try! Allyson screams, leaves the house, and drives off. In the house, Laurie sees the back door is open and we see Michael grab his mask.
Michael puts his mask back on and goes for the knife but a barely alive Corey grabs his arm. Michael takes care of that problem by snapping Corey’s neck ensuring he’s completely dead.
Meanwhile, Allyson spots the radio tower on fire and gets a call from Hawkins asking where Laurie is since they got a call about a suicide. Why are they calling her instead of, I don’t know, showing up at the house?
Now with his mask and knife, Michael searches for Laurie in the home. She distracts him with the microwave and attacks him with a fire extinguisher knocking his knife to the ground.
Michael gains the upper hand banging Laurie’s head against the fridge and almost forcing her hand into the garbage disposal. Laurie headbutts him and grabs a large sewing needle. She attempts to stab him with it like in Halloween (1978) but Michael’s seen this trick before and grabs her hand.
He then tries to jam the needle into Laurie’s head but she fights him off, grabs his knife, and pins his hand to the table. Hey, where are those cops? Climbing on top of him, Laurie pins him down, grabs another knife, and stabs him in the freaking heart. Michael then gets back up like it was nothing with a force that throws Laurie back.
Laurie pins his other hand down with her knife, drops the fridge onto his leg, grabs another knife, and stabs him in the armpit. No cops yet by the way. Laurie removes his mask and slices his neck open. Michael somehow breaks an arm free and grabs Laurie by the neck.
As we see flashbacks to the previous films Laurie tells Michael to kill her. The cops then finally arrive! Oh, wait no it’s Allyson! She removes Michael’s hand from Laurie and bends his arm back, breaking it. Laurie slices Michael’s wrist and the police finally arrive.
Hawkins, Laurie, and Allyson all agree that Michael is not dead enough. As the crowd gathers and more police arrive, the three tie Michael’s body to the roof of their car. The sheriff arrives and as one officer tells him that this is not how it works, the Sheriff says “it is tonight.”
The three, now leading a procession of cars filled with the town of Haddonfield, enter the scrapyard. A crowd gathers around the car and lift Michael’s body throwing it into a large shredder. Laurie pushes the body onto the teeth and Allyson turns on the machine, shredding Michael’s body completely.
The next day Laurie and Allyson reconcile their relationship. Allyson leaves Haddonfield for good and Hawkins and Laurie sit together on her porch. The film ends with a shot of Michael’s mask laying on Laurie’s table.
Review:
Halloween Ends is good. I would put Halloween Ends above Halloween Kills since I feel the story has actual movement for the world of these characters as a whole. Someone could skip Halloween Kills and jump right to Halloween Ends and they would barely miss a beat. Halloween Ends does a better job of telling it’s story.
The acting by everyone was great, nothing was off. Even the actions of Corey’s mom, who at first felt over the top, made sense as the movie went along and we saw her as the overprotective helicopter parent who fears someone taking her child. She treats Corey as a child, taking away his dessert, because she wants him to still be her little boy. It’s why she loses it completely when Corey starts dating Allyson.
Surprisingly the movie had great characterization for all its characters which is not often that happens. Every character felt real, even the ones who ended up as Michael/Cory fodder. Willy the Kid, Terry, Corey’s mom, Ronald, etc all of them had character traits and weren’t just kills to get the body count up.
Unfortunately one negative for characterization comes with Allyson’s. Her character starts off strong but then falls apart when even she blames Laurie for Michael. That didn’t make a lot of sense because she was in the movie, she knows what actually happened. She was in the car with Doctor Sartain when he revealed he orchestrated the whole thing.
Another minor nitpick is how the movie wanted us to feel like Laurie was hated by the community but this literally happens only twice for her. The band kids and Sondra’s sister. At no other point do we actually see Laurie being treated differently, even when she’s in the grocery story, no one is staring or whispering behind her back.
The handling of Michael Myers story-wise is where I have a few complaints. I could see some people not liking this movie because Michael isn’t a huge part of it but that’s not where my complaint is.
Michael spends most of this movie in a pipe recovering from his wounds, leaning towards him being human. Great, that makes sense since it could be argued he needs four years recovering from his wounds.
But he then gets stabbed in the heart and can still choke out Laurie? He’s not human. This is further complicated when the director of this sequel trilogy, David Gordon Green, goes on record saying that Michael is human and “doesn’t do anything supernatural”.
Going into the movie thinking Michael is human and then watching him do superhuman things throws you out of the movie. Just say he’s superhuman, there’s no need to beat around the bush.
Overall Halloween Ends is still good. I recommend giving it a watch especially if you’re a fan of horror movies and a fan of Michael Myers.
Cast IMDB