Halloween Ends

That brings us to the current trilogy, which retcons everything that happened after Carpenter’s first film. I enjoyed the 2018 version of Halloween, even though it was a remake/sequel, a la Star Wars: The Force Awakens. It nails the original’s creepy stalker/force of evil tone while offering up just enough freshness to make it stand on its own. However, Halloween Kills was a completely different story for me, having eschewed that tone for bad, heavy-handed writing, making the characters, plot, and action feel meaningless. Does Halloween Ends get back to the fundamentals in the right ways?

There’s a certain twisted morality that many horror films follow. As Randy in Scream states, “You can never have sex, you can never drink or do drugs, and never say ‘I’ll be right back.'” It goes back to the primal centers of our brain that yearn for justice anytime someone does something that we think is bad. We get a kick out of watching characters pay for their sins in horror. These sins were all punishable by death in the original Halloween (besides Laurie Strode smoking marijuana). In Halloween Kills, there was no rhyme or reason, with “good” characters getting killed left and right.

“…zigs where other films zag. For that, I can appreciate it.”

Halloween Ends brings back, for the most part, the morality (Diana Prince’s receptionist character is an exception here unless having big breasts is a sin) and the revenge factor that was missing in Kills. This only adds to the fun I felt was missing in the last installment. Campbell’s Cory is a polarizing figure. Still, I liked his outcast/loser performance and the sympathy his character earns off of the writing. The score is excellent, but what else would you expect from the original horror maestro John Carpenter, with help from his son Cody Carpenter and Daniel A. Davies?

In an age where everyone expects the latest thing to be the greatest, Halloween Ends is not that, but it zigs where other films zag. For that, I can appreciate it.