We have arrived at the final film of this reboot trilogy and up until this point, it has been a mixed bag of success for Michael Myers and co. I thought the first film in this trilogy, Halloween (2018), was great and really strong way of rebooting a franchise while being in keeping with the original film. Its sequel, Halloween Kills (2021) took all the goodwill of its predecessor and threw it in a bin. It was pretty damn terrible. So, going into Halloween Ends (2022) I was just hoping it would be a decent end and improve on that second film. In many ways it did, and yet somehow, I came out of it disliking it even more. The film takes place four years on from the first two and sees Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) having moved on from the horrors of her past and building a new life with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak). The town of Haddonfield, however, has not been able to move on from the trauma unleashed by Michael Myers, who has also disappeared. This shadow seems to creep back into Laurie’s life when Allyson starts dating a young man named Corey (Rohan Campbell) who accidentally killed a child he was babysitting three years prior. Laurie believes the same evil that lived in Michael is also in Corey and tries all she can to get Allyson away from him.
There will be potential spoilers in this review going forward so if you are interested in watching it I would advise you to watch it first before giving this a read. You may even come back and think I’m chatting out of my arse, but I thought this film was terrible. Truly terrible. And I think my opinion of it is as harsh as it is because there is potential here. I will leave all that until the end because there also is a lot here that is just bad. First of all, it is paced horribly. It starts well with a strong opening, but then it takes ages for anything interesting to happen and that comes as a result that this film feels like it could be a standalone from the other two films in this trilogy. The prior two films have very little to do with the major narrative of this film. Therefore a lot of the new relationships and characters we are introduced to feel massively rushed and unbelievable. The central romance, for example, happens kind of out of nowhere and is not earned at all, and this is the major sticking point in the whole narrative. What the film does get right are its slasher moments. The kills are all fun and keep up the brutality that this reboot trilogy has bought into, but they are bright spots within a story that is mostly very boring. It isn’t helped by a script that is all a bit messy and a couple of performances that had me chuckling more than buying into the relationships of these characters. The film is also shot and edited terribly. Perhaps this is just my taste, but the film implements so many zooms and slow-motion moments that it becomes comical and in an attempt to be interesting visually the film actually ends up becoming visually distracting and takes away from the film rather than enhances it. It is trying to do something interesting with its visuals, but the execution is so poor, and that is my main takeaway from the film as a whole.
I think I dislike this film so much because I can see potential in it, and they messed it up so badly. The opening scene of the film is a perfect example of this. The film opens showing Corey accidentally killing the child he is babysitting by knocking him down the stairs, but the scene is executed in a way where you are made to believe Michael Myers is going to appear and so when he doesn’t it pulls the rug out from underneath you and gives you a shocking moment. But it also opens up this great idea that the film has, which is this idea of relived and reoccurring trauma taking over a community and seeping into everyday life, and it introduces this mostly visually and through general chatter between characters. It had me interested straight away, but then it is immediately followed by one of my biggest pet peeves in films, fucking narration! And in this narration, it has to spell out this theme that it got across really well visually in that opening scene and it just dragged me back out of the film. The rest of the film is so hit and miss with delivering on this theme also. There are several moments where it becomes interesting then immediately butchers it again, and the ending takes this whole idea and makes it feel hugely comedic. It is just a huge, missed opportunity.
I gave this film a half-star rating straight after watching it and upon reflection, I feel that is a little harsh. I wouldn’t put it higher than a one-star, but I think that half-star comes from my disappointment in the film's execution because there is a lot of potential here. The ideas that the film is going for are interesting but it either butchers them with its bad pacing, script and editing or doesn’t go far enough with them and settles back into standard slasher fare. And to be honest, that second criticism actually ends up being somewhat positive in this case because at least the moments where the film does become slasher fare are fun. There is a lot of lost potential here and that is the most disappointing thing.
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