Halloween Ends (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

It's all over. Forty years after the original masterpiece, David Gordon Green revealed his revamped vision of what happens to the archetypal Final Girl after a lifetime of dealing with her trauma. And while designing a trilogy isn't groundbreaking these days, his approach to this franchise was certainly different than the onslaught of reboots, remakes, and requels of classic slasher horror that has dominated the genre for the last decade or so. As a planned trilogy, he could plan out exactly his brilliant steps: first, to fashion a Halloween that ensnared fans of the original due to proper character development and a straightforward and highly effective plot, and second, to then push the franchise to the edge of the possible and completely shock everyone with awe (and gore). And then, finally, to end it all. But how? Surely going into this film I wondered if it would be an all-out, balls-out brawl between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. But certainly that isn't sustainable for a feature film, not least because the characters are much older than most horror protagonists. So what to do?

In what I think is a genius turn, here the writers continue their spin outward from Michael. First, we saw his evil firsthand and its impact on one woman and her family in a tightly wound exploration of generational trauma. Then, in Halloween Kills, we got the consummate slasher film about Michael, in which his evil is at its peak and radiates throughout Haddonfield, infecting others and leading them to mob violence and chaos. No doubt partly due to the pandemic, the final installment feels detached. While it would have been nice to have all three taking place on the same night, or even having this one take place on November 1, I'm okay with the bit of a break because it allows the characters to actually demonstrate growth and development. So this film picks up four years later as Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) are fully settled into their new life together. But instead of just making yet another slasher in which Michael escapes, arrives, hunts, and disappears, here the filmmakers decide to pull the most unexpected and -- crucially -- realistic ending for these characters they possibly could have.

If Michael is pure evil, as several characters in the franchise have exclaimed over the years, then it stands to reason that he cannot die, try as Tommy and his mob did to prove otherwise in the previous film. You can't just have another installment where they fight and maybe finally Laurie figures out a surefire way to kill him. I mean, in some ways, that does indeed happen in Halloween Ends, and their final fight is pretty brutal to watch. But the bulk of this film, by far, is about the nature of evil and how something like Michael happened in the first place. Thankfully, they didn't go back in time and try to create an origin story for him or try to explain his motivations, his methodology, or even his uncanny ability to bounce back from deadly injuries.

Instead, we're introduced to a new character, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), who in the first scene is babysitting on Halloween night in Haddonfield. The year is 2019, a full year after Haddonfield's cozy neighborhood streets ran red with blood, and the town has not recovered. Fears of "the boogeyman" are more gripping than ever, yet the parents Corey is sitting for are unwinding a different way, heading to a party nearby. Corey's charge is a spoiled little brat who wants to watch inappropriately scary movies and play practical jokes; when one goes terribly awry, the kid accidentally falls to his death and Corey is immediately suspected of murder. This simple and chilling opening scene sets up what could be an annoying way to continue the franchise with a new baddie, as many pessimistic viewers will surely roll eyes about, but it works damn well as a reminder that this is kind of how the first one started back in 1978.

I still hate that Laurie's daughter Karen (Judy Greer) got killed off so unceremoniously and violently. I don't really understand how Laurie went from a paranoid survivalist to a thriving suburban house mom (house grandmother, I guess) in only four years during a pandemic and while Michael is clearly still out and about. I don't really understand how Michael survived four years in the sewers without getting caught or leaving or finishing what he started. But these points aside, I found the shifting focus onto Corey to be refreshing and terrifying, not unlike what we've seen in other sympathize-with-the-devil films lately like Joker. A bad thing happened to Corey -- who may or may not be slightly predisposed to some behavioral problems, as early scenes arguably suggest in vague, veiled ways -- and as a result, Haddonfield created a new monster. Michael's slaughter of no fewer than 31 people the previous year made everyone primed to see monsters; now they picked one, and between the hurting, angry parents and the anxious, angry bullies at school, they work in sync to vilify a lone boy who doesn't really fit in and can't quite catch a break.

So when an injured and scared Corey stumbles across the boogeyman in a drainpipe, it's not without some fascination that we see Michael Myers tolerate his presence and even coordinate attacks with him. In a twisted mentorship situation, Michael shows Corey his M.O. and encourages the young man to satisfy his violent urges in cruel and vicious ways. Meanwhile, Corey continues to date Allyson, whose own teenage rebellion lets her finally get to be a bit of a "bad girl" after living in her mother's perfect house and now her grandmother's overwrought attempts at cookie-cutter normalcy. It's not a very believable romance, and the two actors leave quite a bit to be desired, but it's a solid storytelling device.

I found this film, compared with the previous two, to be less focused dramatically but perhaps more focused thematically. I also found its editing and cinematography to be less effective and even occasionally lazy; one wonders if larger portions of this film fell to the cutting room floor during production, or if the writers had too many ideas and didn't prune properly. As a Halloween film, it's not really up to par with the others. But thank goodness for that, because another rote flick in the franchise would have killed it in a bad way. And it does have a badass fight between Jamie Lee Curtis and The Shape, so there's always that lovely inclusion. As a horror thriller about the creation of a new villain, it's really quite wonderful and unexpected. And I think that's the most satisfying way to end the franchise: something fresh and interesting that reinforces the series' concept of evil. It is impossible and unknowable and unpredictable, and most importantly, it is very catching. 

Halloween Kills (2021)

 Score: 4.5 / 5

Here it is. Perhaps my most-anticipated movie of the year, and it's killer. Literally. Halloween Kills takes its title and runs with it in graphic, gory glory. The original 1978 film scared the shit out of us (and still does), and in the years since, Michael Myers has become something of a joke. The closer he got to the camera, the less scary he seemed; the more people tried to explain him -- in the movies, as Laurie's brother, or about the movies, almost always psychosexually -- the less mysterious and potent his terror. When David Gordon Green rescued the franchise from Rob Zombie's flaccid grip, retconning all the other films but the first, we were all a little nervous. But Halloween (2018) allayed my anxieties in that respect, even as it tied my constitution into knots. And now, in the continuation of Green's planned trilogy, we get the bloodbath that is the middle installment.

Much like the previous film, this one features Green's amazing ability to at once channel John Carpenter and make his own, new product. While he felt a little shackled in the first, like he was working to re-introduce old fans to his new vision through homage after homage, here Green is breaking free and playing his own twisted game. The story picks up immediately after the first one ended, with Laurie's house in flames and Michael trapped in its basement. A group of firefighters hurries to the house -- ignoring Laurie's screams to "Let it burn!" -- and are subsequently slaughtered. It's an interesting pseudo-homage to My Bloody Valentine, much as the previous film did with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which suggests to me that Green is making consummate works of horror art with these flicks. One can only imagine with gleeful anticipation what he'll do with his upcoming Exorcist reboot.

But so begins this chapter, which sees the diabolic Michael yet again stalking the streets of Haddonfield on Halloween night (actually, the clocks show that it is after midnight for most of this movie, but November First would be a terrible new title). Once Karen (Judy Greer) and Allyson (Andi Matichak), Laurie's daughter and granddaughter, learn that he survived, they alert the hospital and go into lockdown, certain that he's coming for his original Final Girl (Jamie Lee Curtis, of course). I wondered how much of this movie would feel like a reboot of Halloween II, in which Michael indeed follows her and butchers all the night staff at the local medical center. Not so much here, but the lockdown sequence begins easily the most surprising and shocking -- and realistic -- turn of events in this movie. Panic. Utter chaos as people get up in arms, angry about the bloodshed and renewed horrors of their past. The pot proverbially boils over, and many people are hurt and even die without Michael so much as coming anywhere near the building.

That's because he's far too busy. Much will be made, critically, of Michael's titular kills, but I couldn't help feeling awe at his prowess. Other Halloween entries have been criticized for having lower body counts than other contemporary slasher films. Not so here, which I expect may very well have the highest body count of any slasher. I lost count around 17, and that was at least half an hour before the end of the film, which features yet another bloodbath. A few nasty shocks took place in the previous movie -- especially one scene in which Michael enters two or three houses in a row to stab away -- but this one really showcases his murderous creativity. This movie reminds us, much as Rogue One did with Darth Vader, that Michael isn't a joke; this movie makes him utterly terrifying as the most prolific (hmmm... anti-lific?) serial killer we've ever seen. Perhaps most disturbingly, this film takes its time with most of its deaths, showing the suffering victims as they gargle on pooling blood and struggle to take their last breaths; one scene in particular, involving an older interracial couple and a fluorescent light tube, forced me to look away from the screen for the first time in this franchise.

In a third focal point for this wide-ranging but remarkably coherent film, we get a fabulous re-introduction to legacy characters played by their original actors. A 48-ish-year-old Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), drinking at a bar in observance of 40 years of Michael's lockup, cheers with other survivors of that fateful night in 1978. We've got Marion Chambers (Nancy Stephens), Lindsay Wallace (Kyle Richards), and even Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet, who was not in the original film although the bullying character was) whose son is dating Allyson. Even Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), the former sheriff whose daughter Annie was murdered by Michael, returns to wearily and warily oversee the events of this Halloween anniversary. Once they hear about the firefighter massacre, they drunkenly get up in arms and rally together a mob to hunt down Michael Myers once and for all. In their journey across town, they stop at the hospital and police station where Tommy whips them into a furious frenzy. Monsters beget monsters, you might say, and Tommy is pretty terrifying in these scenes as he begins the (admittedly campy) "Evil dies tonight" chants.

Surprisingly, Deputy Hawkins (Will Patton) survived his attack by the evil psychiatrist in the previous movie, but that's about the only good news here. We're finally given some much-needed backstory on him in a brilliant and beautiful flashback scene right away in this movie: transporting us visually and stylistically to Carpenter's masterpiece, Green shows us a young Hawkins chasing Michael after he disappeared from the Doyle lawn at the end of the '78 film. His own trauma stems from this scene, which puts him in bed thematically with Laurie and the others; their present-day scenes together in the hospital suggest their romantic past as well, which may have blessed them with a daughter, Karen, whose badassery almost steals this movie as well as the previous one.

Green's endgame here is still unknown, and frankly its mystery has compounded exponentially. Very few questions are answered in this film, and it deliberately sets up a lot more. Without spoiling the finale of Halloween Kills, after which very few characters seem to be still alive, we have to wonder what will happen in next year's Halloween Ends. Moreover, the mythos of Michael Myers himself is now under the most scrutiny I think it's ever endured. Those answers will come -- or not -- in time, but what remains is easily one of the most nihilistic and downright cruel slashers I've ever seen. Much as Green knows the franchise has survived off audience cheering each new murder, here he dares us to do so; in fact, he seems intent on forcing us to eat the cake we so often demand from this genre. "You want more blood?" he seems to ask; "here it is, and all the pain that comes with it." Much as the mob created to kill Michael has trouble facing its own violence, Green seems to turn the camera on us in the final sequence, asking what exactly we want in the final chapter of this franchise, and if we have the courage to stomach it.