To familiarize myself with the story so far in this new Halloween trilogy, I went back to check out the other two films. But not just any standard cut, as I was seeking something different. Something a little unorthodox.
This led me down a path of fan edits, something I’m no stranger to, as I’ve made my own back in the day, re cutting Natural Born Killers so it followed Tarantino’s original script. All the pieces were there, they just needed to be assembled.
I knew there was an extended cut of Halloween Kills, but nothing for the 2018 film. That is until I read something on the restructured cut.
The restructured cut is mostly the 2018 film, but edited to better fit the original screenplay. I never read the original screenplay, so if they managed to accomplish this, I have no idea.
For the most part I really saw no difference from the theatrical aside from a few key elements, that Halloween Kills retcons.
The one thing I noticed while rewatching these films was how much I was kind of disliking them. Kills is a complete tonal mess. It doesn’t know if it’s a comedy, a sitcom, a commentary of the history of violence…
And both of the films suffer greatly from this issue. The humor honestly just doesn’t work and gets in the way.
Thankfully, Halloween Ends strips all the humor out of it, giving you this very somber, almost soulless feel to the film, as everyone in this town now has either gone insane or are total assholes.
Halloween Ends is such a departure from the last two films, it almost feels like it’s a part of a whole different franchise.
Speaking of, I think this marks the 13th Halloween film. So, it seems only fitting they pull the plot from Friday the 13th New Beginning.
Now if you’ve seen Friday the 13th: New Beginning, you should have some idea where this is leading.
Not since Halloween 3: Season of the Witch has the franchise done something so… dare I saw refreshing?
Halloween Ends isn’t a perfect film, not by a long shot. But I admire the fact they tried something different and new. And it didn’t involve the stupid Thorn Cult either.
This franchise has always suffered from not knowing where to take the story. How many times can you have a masked killer who isn’t a swamp monster, or a dream haunting child killer do something new and original?
Michael Myers is human, he’s just a kid who killed his sister one night and has been killing ever since. If the Dahmer Netflix series taught you anything, it’s there’s no real answers to these things, sometimes people are just fucked up and end up doing fucked up things.
Michael Myers being only a man, has shifted the story sometimes to the supernatural, making him pure evil, whatever that means. Like the mantra from Halloween Kills kept telling us, EVIL DIES TONIGHT!
For the most part these new sequels have stayed away from turning Michael Myers into something other than just a man, that is until Halloween Ends. Which ended up becoming even more confusing.
Sure, we see Michael Myers getting shot multiple times, stabbed, ran over and he seems pretty unstoppable, with the notion that he gains strength from killing. Something they lean heavy into with Ends.
That aside for now, I guess let’s get into what this movie is about. Unfortunately, we can’t get far into it without spoilers since the trailers don’t tell you what this movie is really about. So you’ve been warned.
Halloween Ends takes place 4 years later after the events of Kills. I don’t think this was originally the plan, but with covid, things had to change.
But before the 4-year time jump, we get a glimpse of something that happened in 2019, also taking place on Halloween night.
We are introduced to Corey, filling in for a couple’s babysitter. Their kid Jeremy is kind of a little shit, pulling a prank on Corey, locking him in a closet or an upstairs room.
While trying to get the door open, he mistakenly knocks Jeremy down off the balcony, killing him in front of his parents as they arrive back home. And like all the kills in this movie, we aren’t sad to see it happen.
Now it’s 4 years later and Laurie is playing the part of mother to her granddaughter Allyson. Why the hell they’d stick around in this town, I have no idea.
Allyson is asked this, and her answer was this is where she grew up, all her memories are here. Yeah, memories of your parents and friends getting murdered.
I’m just happy Allyson isn’t still calling Laurie “grandmother” like she did in the 2018 film. That bugged the shit out of me. Who calls their grandmother grandmother?
Anyway, Laurie is writing a book about her experience with Michael Myers. While Allyson is working a shitty nursing job she can’t stand with people she can’t stand.
First thing becomes pretty clear as we start to run into more people from this town. Everyone has gone slightly insane. Either that or they act like assholes.
Corey has his fair share of running into said assholes, in the form of teens. Corey is an adult by the way, at 21 I believe. But that doesn’t stop these teenagers from beating him up.
After Kills, Michael Myers just vanished. And to replace their anger at him, they redirect it towards Corey who was cleared of murder, as it was an accident. But the people of Haddonfield still suspect it was done on purpose.
Because of this, Corey is a pariah, like Allyson, working a dead-end job where his potential is wasted.
The main focus of this story if you haven’t guessed, is on Corey. It’s almost a character study of this guy getting worn down by abuse until he snaps and can’t take it anymore.
It reminded me a lot of the film Joe with Nic Cage. Which makes sense seeing as it’s by the same director.
This aspect is what I really enjoyed about the movie, but it’s such a departure I know people, at least some, are going to hate it.
I’d say Michael Myers has maybe less than 10 minutes of actual screen time in this movie. So yeah, people are going to shit themselves with anger.
Corey is a nice guy, maybe the last nice guy living in Haddonfield, aside from the sheriff who really should be dead or at least a cripple.
Corey prefers drinking chocolate milk over beer and rides a bike everywhere. He wants to keep his head down and away from people as most people living there either hate him or fear him.
While at a gas station, he has a run in with a bunch of asshole teens that want him to buy them beer. He refuses of course and they get violent.
Laurie shows up however, running the kids off but not before taking a switchblade to the main bully’s car tire.
Corey cut his palm on some glass, so Laurie takes him to the hospital to get patched up. That’s where he meets Allyson. For these two it’s love at first sight. Both dealing with the folks in this town treating them as pariahs. Corey as someone they fear and Allyson as someone they pity.
And finally, the film did something else I didn’t expect to see in a Halloween film. You actually caring about a couple.
I really like these two together, their damage brings them closer, but shit keeps piling on with Corey as he can’t even escape it from home since his mom is batshit crazy as well.
She’s overly protective, even tries kissing him on the mouth at one point. This guy has it bad and wants nothing more than to get the hell out of this crazy ass town and away from these crazy ass people.
Once he gets a motorcycle, he and Allyson start making plans to leave. But not before Corey has yet another run in with those high school bullies.
They throw him off a bridge, leaving him for dead. I think the reasoning there is, so we really hate these kids, making their inevitable butchering something we cheer for, rather than dread seeing. Which works since they die a most brutal death, and we never bat an eye.
Corey manages to survive the fall, getting dragged into the sewer by the masked killer himself Michael Myers. Apparently he has been living down there ever since the events of the last film. His mask even has mold growing on it.
Michael Myers this time around is played almost like this defeated and drained sewer monster or vampire as killing seems to give him energy. With his lack of murder sprees, he has become weak.
Corey and Michael Myers have a small encounter, and this is where things kind of take a strange turn. While looking into his eyes, I guess Corey is infected with Michael’s evil?
Because after this Corey starts killing people. I think the better option would have him eased into it, rather than just suddenly he kills people now. Maybe use Michael Myers a bit more as this attack dog, going after his enemies.
They kind of do that with this asshole cop who dated Allyson for a bit. Corey leads him down the sewer where Michael is waiting. But in his weakened state, Corey has to help kill him.
Corey also goes after the shitty doctor Allyson works for and his mistress nurse who got promoted over Allyson because she wasn’t sleeping with him.
That’s when Corey and Michael work together in their killing, but sadly we never see again because after that Corey wants the mask for himself and does all his killing alone.
Laurie also takes a complete U-turn on Corey as well. First setting him and Allyson up and being happy they like each other, to no longer trusting Corey, thinking he’s evil because he had the same look in his eye Michael Myers had. Huh?
Michael Myers infecting people with his evil is so dumb. Even Friday the 13th did something along the lines of that as well.
We don’t need the story to drift into the supernatural to explain why Corey would snap and start killing folks. All the ingredients are already there. He’s been beaten down in life, picked on and poked at. He finally meets a girl who isn’t afraid of him or treats him like a freak and now he’s being told to stay away from her.
The evil in his eyes shit was just stupid and made no sense. It also contradicts the ending as well. As the ending hammered home the fact Michael Myers isn’t some boogeyman, but just an old man.
Now with everyone against them and nothing keeping them there, Allyson and Corey plan to leave Haddonfield behind. I guess on his tiny motorcycle?
But before they do, Corey has some vengeance to get to. First on the list are those teen bullies. He lures them to the junkyard he works, picking them off one by one in pretty gruesome fashion. And we end on a classic much needed head stomp.
Next up, the radio DJ that was mean to him. He meets a pretty nasty end as well, getting his jaw ripped off.
Now all that is left is Laurie, the only one still standing in his way. Oh, I forgot he kills his creepy mom as well.
Laurie is distraught over Allyson leaving, putting on this show of her taking one last drink of booze before killing herself. But surprise! Fool you!
She knew Corey was in her house, watching her so she shoots him, wounding him badly. But as Allyson is about to walk through the door, he stabs himself, framing Laurie for his murder.
And instead of calling the cops, Allyson just drives away, I guess.
Now, with like 10 minutes left in the film, Michael Myers returns to reclaim his mask and once again go after Laurie.
It’s not a bad fight, but it’s still two geriatrics flopping around in a kitchen. And since they already did the whole Laurie gets got in one of the other Halloween sequels, this time around she gets her revenge, killing Michael Myers.
But that’s not enough, as the whole town must see that the boogeyman is gone, so they strap his corpse to their car and go on a little parade to the dump, where they finally use that metal shredder they’ve been teasing since the start of the movie.
Honestly, I thought Michael Myers was going to spring back to life and grab Laurie, pulling them both into the shredder. But instead, the film kind of limps along to the end, ending on a quiet, somber moment.
David Gordon Green could have just done another continuation of what he was doing, picking right up where Kills left off. Not really sure how interesting that would have been though.
Just Laurie hunting down Michael Myers as he kills his way through a bunch of people again? It would just be more of what Halloween Kills gave us, with nothing really all that new to offer.
It would have been the safest option, sure. Just give the folks what they want, but that idea was scrapped, and we got something different. As someone who loves Season of the Witch, different in this franchise is always welcome.
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