‘Halloween Ends’ review: It’s a bloody shame Jamie Lee Curtis didn’t get a better sendoff
Michael Myers stabbed his way to the top of the horror world again with the runaway hit “Halloween.” The fact that he’s now falling down and impaling himself on his own blade (figuratively speaking) is both disappointing and head-scratching.
The success of the 2018 film lifted the franchise – and Jamie Lee Curtis’ iconic survivor Laurie Strode – to new heights, though last year’s “Halloween Kills” sidelined her for much of the bloody slasher action. Ambitious to a fault, director David Gordon Green’s trilogy closer “Halloween Ends” (★★ out of four; rated R; in theaters and streaming on Peacock Friday) essentially does the same thing to the series’ other best asset, taking masked Michael off the board until he’s needed for a gnarly climactic fight.
Jamie Lee Curtis says goodbye to ‘Halloween Ends’ and hello to Oscar buzz
Fast-forward to present-day fictional Haddonfield, where Laurie is working on a book, living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and seemingly enjoying a normal (for her) existence. Michael murdered her daughter four years prior (see: “Halloween Kills”) but hasn’t been seen since.
As time has passed, “The Shape” of evil instead has seemingly infected the town full of jerks, who blame Laurie for the past bloodshed and abuse Corey on the regular. Seeing him bullied, Laurie befriends this young guy who’s seen his share of trauma, but she also sees something strange in his eyes and worries when he starts dating Allyson. Naturally, all of this coincides with yet another Halloween in Haddonfield that turns extremely violent.
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“Ends” is a “Halloween” film – complete with one brutally visceral kitchen fight for all the marbles between Laurie and Michael – that for much of it doesn’t want to be a “Halloween” film. There are a couple of standout kills, yet the movie embraces a more domestic drama angle as Laurie and Allyson’s household friction rises higher on the priority list than the scary-movie aspects.
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Concluding a fan-favorite saga dating back more than 40 years is no easy feat – as “Star Wars” can attest – and introducing a new main character and high concepts this late in the game increase the degree of difficulty, especially for a story that at its core is simply about a woman surviving a villain who just won’t stop. In that vein, “Halloween Ends” deploys Curtis in ideal fashion. The horror legend brings new humanity to her longtime role and just when she thought she was (somewhat) safe, emotional pain and anguish are again heaped onto Laurie’s solid shoulders until she unleashes hell in a furniture-busting finale that gives the “Halloween” faithful a conclusion with just a hint of ambiguity.
That’s how “Ends” rolls, though: It’s a denouement that ventures too far afield from familiarity, a good-vs.-evil slugfest more complicated than it needs to be, and a “Halloween” flick that should go out with a roar but instead closes with a masked wheeze.
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