This weekend, Halloween Ends. I will be honest I have enjoyed using that line in my pieces but I guess that is now coming to an end as well. In 2018 David Gordon Green brought back one of horror’s most infamous icons, Michael Myers. Green and his team told us to forget everything but the original Halloween film from 1978. Our focus was now going to be on Myers’ obsession with, Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis. As well as the imprint it had left on her family and the town of Haddonfield.

In 2022, we have reached the conclusion of Green’s trilogy with Halloween Ends. Promising a final showdown between Michael Myers and Laurie.

Halloween Ends begins with the introduction of the film’s central character, Corey Cunningham, played by Rohan Campbell. He has been hired to babysit a terrible little kid that at one point disappears on him. Corey desperately searches for him around the house in suspense waiting for something or someone to jump out of the darkness. When he reaches the attic, the kid locks Corey in the attic. In his desperation to get out, he kicks down the door accidentally knocking the kid over the banister of the two-story staircase, just as his parents are walking through the door.

It was an accident of course, and he ended up being acquitted of manslaughter. But in a town like Haddonfield (and any town really), that was enough to label him as a killer. We also learn that despite time passing since Myers’ last appearance, the town has been left with a wound that refuses to heal. This is evident as Laurie is exiting the grocery store, and is confronted with one of Myers’ victims that blames her for all of the horrors Myers has caused.

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The perceptions of Haddonfield on these two characters are probably what brings them together. Even to the point where Laurie sets up Corey to meet his granddaughter Allyson, played by Andi Matichak, who works as a nurse. Corey’s status as an outcast is also what attracts Allyson to him as she feels the need to heal and protect him, like his grandmother.

Corey continuously keeps running into local bullies, which at one point leads to them leaving him for dead when he falls over an overpass. He is then mysteriously dragged into a large sewer pipe. When he wakes up and tries to escape, he is suddenly grabbed by the neck by none other than Myers. But he doesn’t kill Corey as he apparently has killed others before, they instead look deep into each other’s eyes and become partners in… well… crime.

Halloween Ends then just becomes Corey’s revenge tour. Myers himself has surprisingly very little screen time. As a standalone film, this idea would have worked film. Unfortunately, what we were promised was the epic conclusion between Laurie and Myers, one final battle. Which does happen, but by that time it feels rushed. In Halloween Kills, it seemed implied that Allyson would either stand at her grandmother’s side or in a way take her place. But here she is really used as a way to connect Corey and Laurie.

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Gordon has also a lot of the signature traits that make Halloween so special. The way Myers walks, stalks, and viciously attacks his victims is not present in this film. Corey as a killer reminds me more of Ghostface. The camera angles throughout the film are fairly basic. The score in uninspiring and the pacing does not allow audiences to build that tension that is then paid off when Myers slams into frame. Leaving us with more of a generic slasher film than an addition to John Carpenter’s masterpiece.

Overall, I enjoyed Corey’s story, it’s just told and the wrong time. Corey needed to be a character that we started investing in back in 2018 to give it weight. I’d even say to show his trauma in the first film. Then show his treatment in town through the second film. His introduction in Halloween Ends feels a little too late. This then forces audiences to breeze through Laurie versus Myers and make it feel less epic than it was intended to be.

Halloween Ends Overall Grade: C

Universal Studios’ Halloween Ends is now playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock.