Over the course of his 20+ year career as a filmmaker, David Gordon Green has proven that he can't be put into a box. He made everything from major studio comedies (Pineapple Express, Your Highness) to tiny indie dramas (George Washington, Prince Avalanche) to mid-budget awards contenders (Our Brand is Crisis, Stronger) before taking on his biggest, most out of left field assignment yet: Rebooting the Halloween franchise.
With the opening chapter of his planned trilogy, Gordon Green created the impression that he was making a John Carpenter-influenced sequel about a PTSD-afflicted Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) finally getting the opportunity to square off against Michael Myers again 40 years after she narrowly escaped with her life. With the 2021 sequel Halloween Kills, Gordon Green defied expectations by making a brutal slasher flick that focused on not only the rage of Myers himself after he was left for dead by Strode at the end of the previous film, but the residents of Haddonfield who want to make Myers pay for all of the damage he's caused their town. With the already divisive finale Halloween Ends, Gordon Green takes another wildly unexpected detour by making a film that lays out a simple yet loaded thesis: Are killers born or are they made?
Given that it's being billed as the epic conclusion to the Strode vs. Myers saga, Ends being a film that isn't entirely focused on that pivotal showdown is going to piss a lot of people off. What's going to make people even madder is that a lot of the film isn't even directly focused on the present-day versions of either character. Instead, Gordon uses the ever-present scars of their decades-long battle and the varying effects they've had on the residents of Haddonfield to explore the origins of a new evil force.
Save for a chilling opening sequence set in 2019 that introduces Corey (Rohan Campbell-who does a really good job with a role that requires frequent subtle emotional shifts) aka the impetus of much of the negative discourse surrounding the film and an accident that made him infamous in Haddonfield, Ends takes place a full 4 years after the events of Kills. When we arrive in the present, Myers-who has been significantly weakened by old age-hasn't been seen or heard from since they tore down his family home following his massacre in Kills, Strode has used Myers' disappearance as an opportunity to gain perspective and commit to no longer living in fear despite all of the despair Myers has caused her and Corey-despite being legally cleared all of wrongdoing-has been ostracized by nearly everyone in Haddonfield.
With Myers being MIA, the town takes all of its pent-up anger/grief and unleashes it on Cory. He walks through Haddonfield with a giant target on his back as people regularly taunt and threaten him over his involvement in the tragedy. After a string of confrontations escalate to the point of violence, Cory begins to shed whatever remained of his former self and morph into the monster he's long been perceived to be. While this narrative takes some questionable turns once the Strodes (both Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson played by Andi Matichak) get involved with Corey and isn't quite well developed enough to be a home run, it provides a lot of fascinating ideas about the psychology of a killer and the role the behavior of others can play in creating mass murderers to chew on and Gordon Green deserves to be applauded for having the gumption to dedicate a large chunk of the final Halloween movie to creating a sincere character study that is rooted in real word problems.
In the final act, Ends becomes the movie the fans wanted/expected it to be as Green delivers some crazy kills that rank among the more memorable in recent slasher movie history and the final confrontation between Strode and Myers that the trailers teased is a satisfying battle that has some real emotional catharsis lurking underneath all of the violence. Will this prove to be a too little, too late situation for a lot of people? No question, but I found its combination of being a reflection on the effects Haddonfield's deep legacy of murder can have on its residents and closing the book on Myers and Strode's decades-long battle for survival to be an unexpected yet fitting conclusion for this chapter of the Halloween franchise. And when the legacy of Ends is reevaluated 5-10 years from now, I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot more people out there will have to come appreciate it for similar reasons.
Grade: B
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