In 2018, Blumhouse released their latest and most anticipated film: “Halloween.” The film was set to ignore all sequels and follow up films after the original Halloween film from 1978 and would serve as a direct sequel. Surprisingly, it was really good. The film took the many elements of horror that made the original Halloween so great and also applied a reasonable explanation to why we are returning and adding to that story.
A trilogy was set in place after 2018’s “Halloween.” The trilogy focused on the return of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) overall goal to finally end what was started decades before. With 2018’s “Halloween” ending with an extremely disappointing cliffhanger, the fate of the trilogy seemingly was already set in place.
:A very disappointing taste was left in everybody’s mouth when the second film of the trilogy, titled “Halloween Kills”, was released in 2021. The film became a story of dramatic and poorly structured horror as an attempt to finally end Michael’s murder spree.
Unsurprisingly, when “Halloween Ends” was released, it took an extremely defective form.
The ending to the latest Halloween trilogy focuses on some of the most unimportant and poorly written plot points that when watching it, it comes across as watching a film that only consists of deleted scenes.
Have you ever seen a film’s directors deleted scenes and noticed how a whole new plot line was added, and it just makes the film longer and gives some insight to what a side character is doing outside of the main plot and thought “so this is why it was cut!”? That’s what Halloween Ends is like. Except they also removed all of the other plot points that happen outside of the side character storyline.
The film spends around fifteen minutes – if I’m being generous and rounding up time – with Michael Myers. Michael was living in a sewer for four years, just chilling and enjoying his days like a villain from “IT.” The rest of the film focuses on a new character named Corey, who was accused of killing a kid. In reality, the kid was pushed off a stair railing that was taller than him by a door in the film’s intro.
Corey and Laurie’s daughter hit it off and begin to date and have fun. Meanwhile, Corey is being bullied by a group of high school jocks and is also teaming up with the homeless and sewer-drained Michael Myers.
After an hour and a half of an emotionally draining bore of side character experiences, Michael Myers finally does something important … and even that was extremely bland and idiotic.
Luckily, Jamie Lee Curtis actually gives a good performance with what she was given, a character filled with trauma who is writing a novel about her experiences with a serial killer as if she was Sidney Prescott from “Scream 4.”
Overall, the film is a bland piece of horror that makes the forgettable “Halloween Kills” appear more engaging and terrifying.
The best thing Halloween Ends offers is that it ends this Halloween trilogy. The biggest scare of this film is the fact you wasted two hours of your life watching characters you don’t care about while Michael Myers hangs out with sewer rats.
With a film like this, very little can be said. It’s hard to discuss a film that completely forgets its purpose and tries to conclude a trilogy by ignoring its predecessors.
Opinions expressed in The Nevada Sagebrush are solely those of the author and do not necessarily express the views of The Sagebrush or its staff. Gabriel Kanae is a student at the University of Nevada studying journalism. They can be reached at edrewes@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @NevadaSagebrush.
