I liked the previous film. It was good enough to get the rest of the trilogy greenlit. I have nothing new to add other than I just hope that this is fun. It doesn’t have to be a masterpiece, just fun.
I was going to do a play by play, and I am glad that I didn’t. I took notes, but most of it is easy to remember or entirely unremarkable. This is one of those stories where Michael is doing his thing and then you have Laurie, Karen, and Allyson doing theirs. They also bring back Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace, the 2 kids that Laurie babysat in the original film, along with the nurse, Marion, who didn’t die in the original. Then you have Cameron, the dude that was dating Allyson, and his dad, Lonnie, who also had an encounter with Michael on the original night. Finally, we have Sheriff Frank Hawkins, who was severely hurt in the previous film but is still alive, and former Sheriff, Leigh Brackett.
Allow me to save you some time if you just want a poorly written recap.
Back in 78, Hawkins accidentally shoots his partner in the throat while trying to shoot Michael and the guy dies. Then Loomis was set to execute Michael, and Hawkins intervened again. The rest of his story is that he feels guilt because it could have ended way back then.
Laurie spends her time in the hospital in pain and a little psycho. She didn’t play a huge role in this.
Firefighters release Michael from Laurie’s house and he annihilates everyone. Nobody tried to gang up on him. They didn’t use multiple water hoses on him. It was either a hilariously bad scene or a lot of death for those who are just here for that. I ain’t judging you. Michael then kills Laurie’s 2 neighbors and is heading back home, naturally.
This is the 40th anniversary of the original night, that’s how we draw Tommy, Lindsey, Lonnie, and Marion into this, along with Marcus and Vanessa. A guy who escaped along with Michael is on the loose, steals Vanessa’s car, and Tommy forms up an angry town mob to end Michael once and for all, except they’re after the wrong dude. Marion, Marcus, and Vanessa all die and Lindsey survives.
Allyson and Cameron decide to join the mob and help out Lonnie, which makes sense. The mob ends up at the hospital. Karen realizes that this mob is after the wrong guy, she tries to help him, but he gets locked in a corridor with the mob on both ends trying to break in, so the guy leaps out the window and goes splat. Michael then goes to his old home where a gay couple, Big John and Little John, live. Quite frankly, I thought that these guys were the best part of this whole film. They get got, naturally.
The ending plays out predictably. Lonnie goes in the house first, he has Allyson and Cam with him, so he’s gonna be a hero. A dead hero. Then Cam gets killed. Allyson is on the verge of getting killed, but Karen gets there and attacks Michael. She steals his mask and lures him to the street. There, Tommy’s mob unleashes hell on Michael, but it is so lame. This mob thing is beyond lame. Anyway, they take turns, and the “finishing blow” was Karen stabbing Michael between his shoulder blades. Yeah, that’ll kill him. Don’t shoot him in the head repeatedly and cut off all limbs. Not, that stab wound is gonna do the trick. Keep in mind, he survived a burning inferno without any real problems. Karen goes into the house, and Michael gets up and destroys the mob, killing Tommy and Brackett, among others. He then finds Karen and kills her.
And that’s the end of that chapter.
I could see where this would be an enjoyable popcorn flick in the theater. Or a good romp in October for those that prefer a tried and true franchise, no matter how lame the franchise is, over something new and original.
There were a lot of kills. Over 20, I would surmise. That’s cool. But Michael is such a boring killer. “Oh, it makes him scarier because it’s more realistic,” says the pretentious person. Nope, he loses all realism credibility when he can survive certain death experiences time and time and timelines again. You can’t have it both ways! And that is what frustrates me about the Halloween fanbase. So many excuses, no real explanations. And half of them shit all over what Rob Zombie did by trying to make it a bit more reasonable with explanations. Ohhh, the horror!!!
Okay, cool. We have lots of kills. We have a ton of nostalgia by bringing back so many original characters. If that wasn’t your first indication that this film was trying to overcompensate for something, I don’t know what to tell you. They may as well have stuffed a cucumber in their jeans.
I am sure some pretentious fuck-o will try to add symbolism to the mob stuff and make up shit, but no. It was an angry out of control mob doing what angry mobs do. It’s quite simple. The fact that we spend so much time dealing with creating the mob, all the stuff at the hospital with the mob, the final beatdown, and the final massacre. At least a third of this film was mob-related, and it was a terrible gimmick. Goodfellas did it better.
How much time did we waste…..I mean spend with Laurie Strode? And how exactly did they advance her story in this? She is tough and reminisces with Hawkins. That’s how you use your leading lady? Perfect.
They also killed off too many nostalgic characters in this. They killed Tommy, Lonnie, Brackett, and Cam. Hawkins is still hospitalized. Sheriff Barker, my other favorite character aside from the John’s, didn’t have the ability to control a mob, so he seemed kinda useless. But he also looked like he could be a distant relative to Titus O’Neil, and I am all in on that.
I can’t say that I felt sympathy or empathy for any of the characters. I enjoyed the ventriloquist for his 1 minute of screen time. By and large, this was simply a bridge film in the middle of a trilogy that decided to reintroduce any characters for nostalgia and then kill them, except for Lindsey. So basically, we replaced Karen with Lindsey. Not really an upgrade, nor a downgrade. I like both equally in their own ways.
Did this film accomplish anything though? Yes. It gave Laurie a bit of time to recover. It showed us Michael’s journey back to Haddonfield, presumably for the final showdown. It replaced Karen for Lindsey. It set the stage for the final showdown. How many final showdowns have we had? You could argue that Halloween 2, 5, 6, H20, Resurrection, Rob Zombie’s 2, and Halloween 2018 all technically had final showdowns. If you didn’t know that it was going to be a trilogy, the way they ended 2018 truly felt like a final showdown. That’s a lot of perceived final showdowns. Even if you say that that 5, Resurrection, and 2018 don’t count you still have 4 before we get to Halloween Ends. That’s a substantial amount. But that is what happens with 4 different timelines.
This isn’t the worse Halloween film. It was mindless fun, and it is better than a few of them. In chronological order of the film releases, I have given ratings of 6.6, 8.0, 4.5, 7.2, 5.5, 4.0, 5.5, 6.0, 8.3, 6.9, and 7.1. I do like the franchise, obviously. Who else would ever give Resurrection a 6.0?
Final Rating: 5.7 – This is better than 3, 5, and 6. Beyond that, I can make arguments. Some may like this more than H20, Resurrection, and Rob Zombie’s Part 2, and I wouldn’t argue that. But this is clearly inferior to 1, 2, 4, RZ 1, and 2018. Also, whether fairly or unfairly, I think the success of Halloween Ends will impact how people look back on this film.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- Universal Pictures (presents)
- Miramax (presents)
- Blumhouse Productions
- Trancas International Films
- Home Again Productions
- Rough House Pictures
Please go find a copy and support the creators.