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Saucy Cinema- Halloween Ends + Trilogy Retrospective
NON-SPOILER TALK/MUSINGS
Hello dear readers! It’s been almost a year since my last writing, and I deeply apologize for that! I’m entering my dissertation phase for my PhD program, and I recently completed the process of purchasing my first house. This has left me precious little time to write about the delicious BBQ I’ve been eating. Upcoming reviews for True Texas BBQ, Stanely’s Famous Pit BBQ, and Daddy Duncan’s BBQ are being written as we speak for a sort of lost months retrospective. However, today I’d like to talk about something which may just be an even bigger passion of mine- Halloween.
Not the film franchise, although that is the subject in the main this week. I’d like to pause and chat about the holiday and why it has inspired me to write a new blog post. Halloween is more than just a day of Trick or Treating for me, it’s an entire month filled to the brim with fun ways to celebrate. You can visit a haunted attraction, walk through a pumpkin patch, hand out candy to costumed kids, get lost in a corn maze, tell spooky stories, or watch scary movies, just to name a few. This year, I’ll finally get to watch my favorite film, Trick R Treat, in theaters and hand out candy on Halloween night! I’ve already had my double feature film fest with my friends (this year we watched Malignant and The Ring), and I’m eyeballing a pumpkin patch or haunted attraction to visit. Even if I don’t get to do everything on my Halloween list, there’s always next year!
Which brings me to Halloween Ends. See, this year has actually brought several productions echoing the pillars of Halloween as a holiday. For a sweet bag of trick or treat candy bathed in a child’s vision of the Halloween aesthetic, you could check out The Munsters. For spooky stories and fellowship- as well meditations on death- give The Midnight Club a whirl. The upcoming anthology from Guillermo del Toro- Cabinet of Curiosities- appears to giving audiences a fun look at the things that go bump in the night. All of these are available on Netflix, btw.
For those seeking a bit of a thrill ride, why not give Shudder’s V/H/S 1999 a try? It’s the movie equivalent of a haunted house attraction, more fun than scary, and appreciated infinitely more when watching with a group of friends. But after indulging on movie candy, creeps, and creatures- some of the best parts of Halloween- by yourself or with a crowd, you might want to wind down with Halloween Ends, a surprising and creative entry into a franchise known for its reliance on repetition and formula. The full answer to why one might watch the third entry into David Gordon Green’s trilogy will be discussed in the spoiler section. For now, I will state that the movie represents a maturation, a look back at the legend and story of Michael Myers, and its effect on the town of Haddonfield. As an end to this trilogy, it’s easy to look back at the story as a whole and regret some of the choices made in the storytelling. This movie contains a definitive end, but also an indication of more stories to tell outside of the Myers/Strode feud. Likewise, Halloween, as a holiday, may end at midnight on October 31st, and we might look back at the month and wish we had done more. But there is always next year because the holiday doesn’t actually end for good. The ending of one Halloween- either holiday or film- does not mean a definitive end for all the things we love about either.
Suffice to say, Halloween Ends represents a bittersweet potential finale to a franchise inevitably tied to the holiday in its namesake. Not since Halloween III: Season of the Witch has the series felt so ambitious. My non-spoiler take is that audiences should forget about whatever story they feel was promised in Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills. The third entry is messy and does compromise in a few key moments to devolve into more predictable territory at times. I fully expected to hate this movie. But after sitting on Halloween Ends for a day, I realized most of my problems were contained to the trilogy as a whole, and that I actually enjoyed most of the narrative presented. The film is divisive to be sure, but I do not want say much more than that in the non-spoiler section. Just go in completely blank, and I think you might meet the movie on its own merits without all the baggage.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
So the meat of the movie is the introduction and corruption of Corey Cunningham. His tragic incident babysitting a kid on Halloween night- one year removed from the events of the first two films- immediately casts Corey as a sympathetic character. The town of Haddonfield hasn’t seen Michael Myers since 2018, and needs a new boogeyman to transfer their hate onto, and so Corey becomes a bit of a pariah, bullied by band geeks, his domineering mother, and just random people he meets. Laurie shows kindness, introduces Corey to her granddaughter, Allyson, and the key romance of the film heats up immediately. An encounter with Michael Myers in the sewers changes Corey, and he begins to finally act out the rage which has clearly been building for three years. This idea of Corey being a successor to Michael in the same way that Allyson was introduced as a successor to Laurie creates a kind of forbidden love that only the audience- and eventually Laurie- are privy to throughout the movie.
Let’s get some negatives out of the way- the ending feels a bit shoehorned. They have marketed this entire trilogy on the Laurie/Michael saga, but this film isn’t really about them. Nevertheless, to capitalize on last4 or 5 years of marketing, they added (an admittedly well done) final fight between the Shape and Laurie then cap it all off with an unnecessary and grotesque funeral sequence for Michael. We do get a nice coda for both Laurie and Allyson, but once the Corey story wraps up, the last 10 minutes or so feel like a completely different movie. In addition to feeling superfluous, the choice of killing Corey in favor of a brief return of Michael robs the franchise of a potential “passing of the torch” moment.
This is actually my biggest complaint. This should have, with a few obvious story tweaks, have been the first or second entry in the franchise. It may have a bit too bold to launch the trilogy, but at least as the middle section of an arc exploring the effects of Michael Myers on the town of Haddonfield the filmmakers could have developed a more original trilogy. Instead we get two entries almost hyper-focused on either Michael or Laurie, only for the third film to treat them as background characters until the 11th hour. Imagine instead that the second film develops Allyson and Corey, while the final entry teases a potential “return to the light.” Or, to be extremely bold, have it revealed in this movie that Michael is actually dead, succumbing to his wounds from Halloween Kills, and it truly is Corey who has become the Shape. In any case, the baggage of the first two films weighs this one down, and it is therefore of little surprise that audiences haven’t embraced this entry. For those who don’t care much for Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, the movie feels compromised at points to try and pick up elements from those films. This serves ultimately to undermine Corey’s arc. For those who are fans of either of those movies, Halloween Ends does not bring them the story they were promised by the trailers or by the first two acts of the trilogy.
For me, this was the biggest hurdle in trying to determine exactly how I felt about the movie. Once I was able to address those issues, I realized that I liked pretty much everything else in the film. These issues still impact my overall enjoyment and desire to rewatch the movie, but it’s worth considering the positives as well. Corey’s descent is tragic, the kills are more creative, and The Shape is genuinely unnerving. He is clearly weaker this time around, likely due to the wounds or- if you take the more supernatural route- the relatively small amount of kills he completes in between the films. His sewer scenes were genuinely scary to me, although getting his mask taken away does make him look pathetic. I think, though, that is the point of story. The evil or power or simply lifeforce in Michael is fading as Corey’s is on the rise. When Michael kills the cop in the sewer, however, you can feel some of that light (or darkness) returning.
While the love story is a bit rushed with both Allyson and Corey just having an IMMEDIATE and VISCERAL attraction, it fits the tone of the rest of movie. The light synth score while the pair are riding around Haddonfield on Corey’s motorcycle feels so otherworldly, and there are part of the story which almost have a dreamlike logic to them. Of the trilogy, this feels the most like a true auteur approach to the franchise, centered by some careful directing and more metaphorical framing of key scenes. It also helps that Rohan Campbell’s Corey is so magnetic that he commands the screen, even against the titans of the genre in Laurie and Michael. His desire to leave Haddonfield and take Allyson with him is an understandable one, and we can only speculate what could have happened had they both just left the rotting, angry town together.
The Trilogy, The Franchise, and The Holiday
I have talked a lot about this trilogy, but I’d like to expound a bit more on some interesting interpretations. In many ways, David Gordon Green has distilled the entire franchise down to three films. You have the violence of the Rob Zombie entries, the hint of the supernatural from the third, fifth and sixth films, the re-return of Laurie from the seventh, the hospital and fire from the second film and the mob mentality from the fourth movie. If intentional, this is quite an interesting idea. However, given the way that the Halloween sequels are often denigrated, I feel that this more a case of the franchise having taken the character and genre in pretty much every direction you could. What is definitely intentional is using the font color and style from Halloween III: Season of the Witch, signifying a departure from the past films’ narrative and style.
But, continuing the thread of meta-contemplation, one could easily read a more interesting theme present in the arc of Corey Cunningham. His name could be reference to the lead in Christine, which would be appropriate given Corey’s story kicking off with his own vehicle- this time a motorcycle. It could also be a reference to Sean Cunningham, the director of Friday the 13th and producer of many of its sequels. If Corey is a stand-in for Jason Voorhees, it could be a commentary on the evolution of the slasher genre from Michael to Jason, with Corey’s ending indicating that Jason will always be an imitation to original killer the first film was created to rip-off as a cash grab.
Outside of the trilogy’s relationship to the franchise as a whole, there is simply a lopsided nature which does not work. In many ways, Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills are simply remakes of the original and Halloween II using the bones of H20: Halloween 20 Years Later. There are a few effective sequences in both of these Green entries, but the themes are very muddled, particularly in the middle film, as the story condemns and condones the mob violence at the same time. The fatal defect of the trilogy however- by eliminating the brother/sister connection between Laurie and Michael, the filmmakers revert the Shape back to his more unpredictable and unknowable form while also insisting on centering the trilogy on their relationship, David Gordon Green and co write themselves into a corner.
This corner produced a very nonsensical heel turn from Doctor Sartain in Halloween (2018) in order to get Michael to Laurie. By the end of Halloween Kills, we are told to get excited about a showdown between Laurie and a man who does not care about her whatsoever. Perhaps more detrimentally, this approach likely led some audiences to be disappointed in the lack of Michael/Laurie action in both Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends. The trilogy essentially BEGINS with a climactic action showdown and then tacks the rematch onto the third entry. It is bizarre storytelling to say the least.
Halloween Kills remains the worst of the trilogy, a slog of kills stitched together with very little story. It does, however, serve to justify the town’s trauma explored in Halloween Ends. The sheer body count of that single night in 2018 makes for a much more believable soul shattering event for Haddonfield. Outside of that, I am unsure what the sequel accomplishes. Maybe hinting at the town losing its mind over the Shape in pretty quick fashion foreshadowing their infectious fear? It’s hard to tell, although it’s not the worst film of the series.
Halloween (2018) remains a competent retread with baffling storytelling choices that did not set up a cohesive trilogy. Like so many legasequels, far too much time is spent on remaking the original, a cardinal sin for franchise for a franchise which had already seen a remake (also entitled Halloween). It has fallen further and further down my rankings over the past few years. The slasher fan in me can remain entertained throughout the double-feature exploring that violent Halloween day from 2018, but it does little to justify its existence. They do, however, capture a bit of the spirit of the holiday.
For the most part, the first two entries feature more adult ways of celebrating the holiday (like hanging out the bar with Tommy Doyle and his sad friends), but as the night continues, we get pranks, trick or treaters, and costumed townsfolk. They might not match the first four in terms of holiday spirit, but they manage pretty well. Halloween Ends, on the other hand, features very little festivities, although Laurie is decorating throughout the movie, a nice way to show that she is overcoming her own personal Myers related trauma. There’s a costume party at a bar too, but not much else.
Usually that would be a deal-breaker for me. But in this case, with its meditation on evil taking new shape and the inclusion of a definitive end to a saga, Halloween Ends signifies- much like its title suggests- the end of the holiday, and the expectations of future Halloweens to come. The movie posits that evil doesn’t end, but neither does Halloween, not really. While I have my qualms with this trilogy and wished things had played out differently, the older films I truly love still exist, and I do not believe for a second that this will be the final Halloween film. Likewise, I may wish that I had done more haunted attractions or visited more pumpkin patches this year for Halloween, I’ve had some great ones in the past which mean a lot to me and I’m hopeful that I’ll have some fantastic Halloween times in the future as well. So on November 1, give Halloween Ends a chance. It will make you think back on the franchise as a whole, this decades long story. Say goodbye to this era of the franchise with the hope of better times and love of past entries you carry with you.
Final Score and Ranking (From Best to Worst)
Halloween (1978) 10/10
Halloween II (1981) 9.5/10
Halloween III 9/10
H20: Halloween 20 Years Later 8.5/10
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers 8/10
Halloween Ends 7.5/10
Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers 6.5/10
Halloween (2018) 6/10
Halloween II (2009) 5.5/10
Halloween Kills 5/10
Halloween (2007) 4.5/10
Halloween Resurrection 4/10
Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers 3.5/10
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