Last year, I tortured myself by watching every single one of the Michael Myers “Halloween” movies. Of the dozen films, most fell between mediocre and absolutely horrible. The latest, and maybe final, installment in this 40-year franchise, “Halloween Ends,” falls toward the latter, being an easy contender for the worst of the films.
In “Halloween Ends,” set four years after we last saw Michael Myers, we see him face off against his arch-rival Laurie Strode in an “epic” showdown to bring their intertwining stories to a close.
“Halloween Ends” is a disappointment. Though it promises to be the dramatic final conclusion of the Michael Myers saga, it instead flops around with pointless plot lines and love triangles and hinges entire chunks of the movie on characters never met before.
In trying to be the “final” film in the series, it poses more questions than it gives answers. For example, Michael vanishes four years after the previous film. We are told this several times. But we are never told how he escapes nor why he lays low for so long. Why is he in the sewers? What’s he doing down there?
Michael Myers (Nick Castle) is barely in this movie.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
Michael himself is barely in this movie. In the first half of the two-hour movie, he only shows up for one scene, and even then it’s just a shot of him lurking in the shadows of a sewer as if he thinks he’s Pennywise the Dancing Clown from “It”.
If the movie isn’t focusing on Michael, then the obvious choice would be to focus on Laurie, who has been the protagonist of this trilogy, and of the full series as well, debuting in the first film way back when. The movie doesn’t really do that either and actress Jamie Lee Curtis gives a pretty poor performance. It’s easily her weakest in the series, and it’s sad her final film in this franchise is such a letdown. Her character spends almost all of the movie being petty for little to no reason.
Jamie Lee Curtis’ performance in “Halloween Ends” is easily the weakest in the series.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
An entirely new character named Corey (Rohan Campbell) gets most of the focus instead, with his random love story with Laurie’s granddaughter getting a massive chunk of screen time.
Dedicating your entire series finale to a new character is a bold move and it’s one that did not pay off in this case. It’s hard to talk about the problems this character causes in this film without spoilers, so all I’ll say is his entire persona is rendered essentially meaningless by the end. He distracts from Laurie and Michael, who should’ve been the focus of “Halloween Ends,” as it’s supposed to be the last film in their series.
Corey (Rohan Campbell) is a new character that adds nothing to the overall story.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
Laurie and Michael’s rivalry is done after this, at least in this timeline, so why do we spend 90 percent of the movie on this new character who adds nothing to the overall story?
I know it’s only a matter of time before they reboot the series again or find some convoluted way to bring Michael back to life. I also am fully aware that I’ll be going to see it. And yes, I will probably love to hate it, like I have all these other movies. That doesn’t mean I’m happy about it though. As Curtis has screamed in the films before, “Let it burn! Let it burn!”
