SPOOPYWEEN DAY 17 HALLOWEEN ENDS!!!

Day 17

Halloween Ends

This is one of those…

I’ve both wanted to revisit, and I’ve also wanted to let just die.

Much like the title itself would suggest. Halloween Ends. Finally. Possibly.

Just let it die. Please.

This film divided many, many fans. Even the praise the film gets, is not exactly overwhelmingly positive. So much as it is “At least it tried new things”. Which is what a lot. A. Lot. Of positive reviews mention and use to defend the film. Where the negatives either criticize the director deciding to do a new thing at the end of his trilogy, or they simply tell you the movie fucked itself and should’ve ended with the first film in the trilogy, since Halloween Kills was also largely not a popular film with people.

I will have a lot to say about this, in the end. A. Lot.

But I am going to revisit it now, for all of you. Because I put it on this list SPECIFICALLY to talk about it, and. The very mild. Incredibly small chance, that watching it again. May bring a new take on the film.

As James Woods said in Scary Movie 2, Let us pray.

The Film.

Well lets begin with one of the truly fun moments I appreciated of this film the first time around, and still love this go around. At least once we get past the opening rock intro. It’s our introduction to Corey, the new central figure of the film, traveling back to the glory days of 2019. Before the dark times.

Corey is our babysitter for Jeremy. A little shit that needs to be scared into the reality that in life, no one likes people with that much energy. Seriously, the most annoying people to work with are super hyped up balls of positive energy that just smile at everything to a point you enjoy when they show signs of pain.

The setup with Corey here as the babysitter is that, as far as everyone is concerned, Michael is gone. Which is odd. Given the last films ending. Which we’ll get into a LOT more later.

For now. Lets deal with how Corey is handling being a horrible babysitter. Firstly. You don’t let a kid watch John Carpenter’s The THING until they’re old enough to appreciate it. Or you just want to instill a healthy fear in them of dogs ripping their skin off and splitting their skulls to reveal alien dogs. Secondly, don’t take shit from a kid. I know as an adult we are all supposed to just let things slide and let kids be kids. Fuck that. If the little bastards get in your face and piss you off, throw the sass right back. Just refrain from using the C word if you can. That’s a privilege, not a right.

But also we’re simply told he’s a bad babysitter because, this kid is a little shit. I mean Corey let him watch shit even my cousins knew not to let me watch. But the moment he mentions playing hide and seek, the kid calls him a weak simp and Corey is done. He’s going to enjoy some zucchini bread and call it a night.

That is until this little shit decides to play super asshole and pretend to need help. Trapping Corey in a dark scary attic space. Which makes really no sense, but I guess Corey really is a little bitch. We were told Jeremy has been afraid of the dark ever since the attacks began again with Michael. So he needs a night light on. Yet here we are, Corey is locked in a dark room, and he’s the one flipping the fuck out. Seriously he’s kicking and bashing this families door to bust it open and losing his mind. Granted hearing a little kid on the other side losing it laughing and mocking you is enough to bring out super strength in any of us. But still. It’s a bit much.

Well as Corey screams out about killing Jeremy when he gets free, and little shit Jeremy laughing at the scared babysitter. Jeremy’s parents are back from their Eyes Wide Shut orgy. Just in time for as I said, the best part of this whole damn movie. With the force of a thousand bullies behind his foot, Corey kicks the door and sends it flying open. The door slams into Jeremy’s face, sending the fit reeling back until he does the greatest bent like a pretzel fall from the second story staircase, right in front of his parents.

I still laughed at it and I still love it. It’s the funniest fucking thing, it was deserved, and I just love rewatching it.

Then the rest of the movie begins.

And this is where I’m ending the review watch a long.

It’s not because I don’t care to watch this again. I am, and I did. We are. It’s just…I’m going to save us all a lot of time by just getting at the heart of the matter. The good, the bad, and the ugly of the film versus 20 pages and another 13 pages after of ranting through.

TLDR version? The movie isn’t a piece of shit, until the end. The movie wasn’t needed, but I also didn’t hate the movie. I just didn’t care for what it tried to become, and in the end failed to do. So with that. Lets dig into the actual review of it.

Because yes, I am capable of doing that outside of a watch along reaction review.

This film immediately after its introduction of the new protagonist, immediately jumps aboard the train of the films name sake. It’s giving us a rundown of the first Halloween, straight into the new trilogy entries. It’s both letting us know this is the end, while bringing us up to date on where the film is taking place. 4 years roughly after the second films ending, and we are told all of this through Laurie’s narrating of her book about her experiences with Michael.

This was the first thing that I found to be both interesting and a let down.

The film was being sold to you and me, the audience as a final showdown between Laurie and Michael. This was how the last film before it ended. Which was one hell of an ending to an otherwise fairly boring sequel.

To recap that ending. We have a town of lunatics going out with torches and pitchforks, guns and baseball bats chanting about evil dying tonight, and hunting Michael down. They managed to kill an innocent insane patient, questioned who the real monster was, and eventually they DID find Michael.

The group began stabbing, bashing, beating, slashing and hacking at Michael like there was no tomorrow. Only for us to see Michael get up like Jason Vorhees and begin taking people out with renewed pure evil strength, and tore everyone apart. Piece by piece. He even managed to sneak up on Lauries daughter, who was until this moment played out as a big badass who forgave her mother and was know on her side for killing this monster. Michael kills her and it’s played off pretty damn intensely.

At that moment, in that film and the story they chose to take us all aboard for. Laurie was going to go balls out insane on Michael. This was going to be a hell of a showdown and the film left us knowing this was coming.

Instead we are told Michael vanished. People died in mass. Everyone moved on.

Laurie decided to buy a normal house, in a residential area, with no weapons or traps. She’s done worrying about Michael. Who killed her daughter, and her friends, and is still alive out there. She’s now getting on with her life, and being a good grandma to her late daughters kid. Apparently people committed murders in Haddonfield, and people wondered if it was Michael or someone else. He got blamed for a lot of deaths, and fell back into being a town legend.

How.

HOW?!

At the beginning of Halloween Kills, we are shown a scene shot during the original, where parties of policemen are out searching and patrolling all the streets for Michael. It showed us that after he went missing from being shot 6 times, the cops went out to find his ass. It resulted in an officer being killed.

But this time, nearly a dozen or more people die. In one night. It was reported Michael was outside his home. They knew where the fuck he was. But apparently they didn’t care to spend a week or so looking down every alley, every sewer tunnel, every house to find a bleeding, stabbed, beaten, slashed and possibly near some version of death or at least slowed down. MAYBE?!

But no. They just call it good and apparently over the next 4 years, not only do people believe Michael to be a legend. But those who still remember what happened. The elderly who survived encountering him. They either blame Laurie for ‘antagonizing’ Michael, or being the reason he went and killed everyone 4 years ago for two days straight.

Which is another thing I feel people forgot. That the first two films look place the same day into the following morning. Which again would’ve made sense to have this one follow right after the second no?

Instead this is where we go. The rabbit is so ahead of the tortoise that it’s decided to take a nap for now.

This is done to give us another arch for Laurie to go through. One where she is made to feel selfish for her actions and paranoia, and moves on from Michael, who has taken over all of her teenage life to her golden years. Only so she can find the next Michael.

Which is the idea that split many fans over this trilogy. The idea that Michael is no longer the only evil, but that evil resides in all of us, and sometimes all it takes is a push to bring that evil out. That is what we get with Corey.

We saw Corey lose himself while babysitting and display an over use of force when he kicked the door down and it knocked the little shit off the second floor killing him. Because of that, the town took to immediately ostracizing Corey and labeling him a murder, a nut case. The weirdo.

He just wants to live a normal life, but between the unfortunate flipping baby landing, and his own over baring mother(the secret ingredient to all serial killers), he’s destined for a path that will change him into a murderer. Especially with the aid of extreme bullying adding to this. The film decided to ease off the showdown finale and delve into, what makes a monster. A monster. Which is interesting sure, and would make for a good film. But when you are at the finale of your trilogy. This isn’t the time to begin new stories. Especially when you are dedicating this film. The closure to Michaels story. To us watching Corey transform into a new Michael.

Which again.

That’s a fine story if you began it earlier, or made it its own thing. Honestly it’s a good premise for its own separate thing, and watching his transformation. Funny enough, it reminds me a lot of Christine. Another Carpenter classic and King classic story. Kid gets bullied, finds something that gives him a sense of power and freedom. Gets it taken from him and destroyed. Only to see that thing come back with a vengeance and help him to become something new. Confident, cocky, strong. Ultimately that same thing kills him and its up to his only friends who believed in him and liked him from the start to destroy this evil that corrupted and turned their friend into what he became.

It’s a great story, an even better film with a wonderful soundtrack I highly recommend.

That movie told this story far better.

This movie, turns that story into trying to hold a flopping fish you just caught, in hands covered in vasoline.

So 4 years after the murders, and Corey field goal punting the kid over the stairs. We see Corey getting bullied until he loses his temper and breaks a glass bottle he had in his hands. Laurie see’s this and comes to his rescue. She even helps him get a little revenge by cutting the front tire of the rich jock’s car who lead the bullying. She sympathizes with the kid since everyone sees him as a psycho and she herself was seen as the same when she was a recluse going on and on about Michael.

She sets him up with Allyson, her late daughters kid and the two hit it off. But Corey is confronted during his night of fun by the parents of the kid he accidentally killed. They lay into him so he dips out of the party. Only to end up on a bridge headed home, when the bullies from earlier spot him and decide to not just bully him. But out right murder the fucker. Seriously the jock decides to knee him and tosses Corey over the bridge to the hard ground below. Him and his friends take off and Corey is left alone on the ground. Until Michael finds him, and decides to drag him into the sewers where he’s apparently been hiding.

Corey awakes, wonders around blindly and stumbles onto Michael. Who begins choking him out. Michael is a complicated man. But as he strangles Corey apparently the two…have a mind meld, and Michael suddenly sees everything that Corey has gone through. The accidental kid killing. The bullying. His rage. So he lets Corey go. Corey is unsure what to make of any of this, stumbles outside to freedom. Only to run into a crazy homeless man who pulls out the knife Laurie gave Corey when he slashed the tires on the car and lost when he fell over the bridge. The two struggle and Corey ends up accidentally stabbing and killing the homeless man.

Does he hide this? Well he hides the body, but he immediately rushes to tell Allyson he killed someone. It’s the first funny moment in the film I laughed at genuinely because Laurie is in her home, doing Laurie things, but then she looks out her window because something feels oddly wrong, scary. She looks down from her window and she sees Corey, standing creepily by the bushes looking up at her with an empty stare. She goes outside and looks for Corey, only to find him not there, and in that moment he shows up behind her and we see Laurie startled and screams. For the first time in forever.

Because as she says in the movie at some point to the local bartender, “He had Michaels eyes”.

So the boy she thought was being bullied and wanted to set Allyson up with. Which is odd itself to say in one sentence. Turns out now to give her the creeps. NOT because she senses a darkness in him. But because she see’s Michael in him.

Now. The other part of this. The part that gets talked about once in the film, and then forgotten as it was only used to make a fucking statement. Is when Laurie talks to the father of the child Corey accidentally killed.

He talks to Laurie about how he felt bad for Corey. That he genuinely felt what happened was an accident, and that his wife was wrong for trying to call him a murderer and screaming at him. So the day after the party, the dad is driving and stumbles onto Corey on the side of the road. He pulls up to him, wanting to apologize and try to get an answer from him by talking to him, looking at him. He tells Laurie essentially that, when Corey leaned down to the car window and looked at him, he said he saw darkness in his eyes. “The boy who used to mow our lawn, he didn’t kill my son, I know that. But the boy I saw? Is on a dark path. Did the town do that to him? Or was it the darkness always there”

Because we needed that pimple of knowledge popped in our faces.

I like it but I hate it.

I like it. Because what the father says in that moment. Describing what he saw when he looked at Corey. Describing the change in him. That’s -real-. That’s something that goes back to factual killers. FBI investigators and profilers have all said the same thing. When you look eye to eye with killers. Serial killers. There’s nothing there. A switch flicks and all humanity, all emotion is just. Gone. It’s genuinely scary to see because you know something isn’t right. It’s something you see in abundance and done flawlessly with HENRY. You see slivers of humanity in Henry, but the moment he has to do what he knows he’s going to have to do. Click.

So him seeing that in Corey and SAYING IT. Saying that boy he knew was gone, and what he saw in those eyes was a darkness that made his hair stand on end. That’s good shit. It’s really good. But when you decide to follow it up with the ever fun discussion of ‘Did society make him or was he always that way’, it’s just boring. But WORSE then that. Is having Laurie tell us her version. Which is she saw Michael in his eyes.

Go back to the original film. Dr. Loomis put it perfectly and gave you all you needed to know about Michael.

“I met this six year old child with this blank, pale emotionless face and, the blackest eyes. The devils eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy’s eyes was purely and simply. Evil.”

It was a very realistic take on a horror character and served as the most basic, and all you needed backstory for Michael. He killed his sister one night, and went mute from that moment on. He never said a word to anyone, he stared off blank faced and never responded to anything or anyone. Only to escape the night he was to be transferred, and returned him to begin killing again. He had it in him since he was a child and that was that.

Then Rob Zombie came along and decided to toss Michael into a fucked up family with a loving mom who strips to pay the bills, living with a bitchy sister and an incestuous step dad that abused the hell out of him.

Thus these two merged and we get, Corey.

Had they simply gone the route of ‘I saw darkness in his eyes’, and didn’t venture off into mind melding with Michael so the two share a mind for murder and Laurie ‘I see Michael in his eyes’.

It’d be one thing if she was saying she see’s evil in him, and uses Michael as the main example. But she legitimately acts like, and talks like. Michael is somehow now within this boy, and there is a fight for control of his soul, and if they aren’t careful. Michael will win, and live on through Corey.

Which the film even tries to suggest as we get further into it, once Corey begins bringing his bullies to Michael, and helps Michael to kill them.

Which again goes back into the Christine story of the bullied kid has his best night out with a hot girl who likes him and treats him well ruined. He finds a muscle that can help get rid of the shitters of the world. The people that shit on him and put him down. At one point we even see Michael taken back as Corey is on the ground, holding down a grown man. So Michael can kill him. So the two are working together. Meanwhile Corey is transforming. He is becoming darker. He is becoming more confident, and its again slightly conflicting because you have great moments with Corey.

Again I don’t hate the movie or those involved in it. I just didn’t care for what they tried to do and the story they told. But Rohan Campbell did a great job as Corey. He does a great job of showing us this change he’s going through. It’s again something tied to real serial killers, Mafia Hitmen, and good horror villains.

There was a great documentary years ago called ICE I believe, it was on HBO and was an interview with a mafia hitman known as Iceman. The guy talked about how when he was a kid and bored. He used to find it funny and entertaining to find two cats, tie their tails together and sling them over a fence. To watch them fight each other and kill the other. Just to try and get free from hanging on the fence and their tail. He also mentioned driving home one night and some guy cutting him off. He followed the guy and was going to kill him. Didn’t even think about it, wasn’t even that mad about what he did. He just saw it happen, and decided this guy was going to die.  You hear shit like this and you know someone is fucked up, and they’ve always been fucked up.

But then you have others who became this. That embraced the darkness inside them. Another trait of serial killers which they decided to use with Freddy in Freddy’s Dead. Was the embracing of pain. Taking the tools of your abuser and inflicting it on yourself. Growing numb to its effects, stopping your fear and giving in. There was an old classic film The Vanishing with Jeff Bridges. He plays a man who kidnapped and buried people alive. He talked about living a normal life with nothing exciting or big in it. Finding someone drowning and without hesitation he dove into the water and saved that person. Which surprised him that he’d do this. But he did. Because he had no sense of fear. He took that, and used it as his opening into killing people. It’s the idea that once you stop fearing something. Even fearing death. Your outlook changes. A lot changes. You feel less held back, afraid. People liken it to a new truer sense of freedom. Which is great. Unless you are a serial killer. Then that’s just bad news for everyone. Including Corey.

But that’s what Corey gives us and tells Allyson.

When he accidentally killed the homeless man, he felt like something was wrong. He knew he did something wrong, even if it was in self defense. But he also didn’t really feel that bad about it either. But when he lured a bully to Michael in the sewers, and decided to help him kill the man. He made two choices. He could’ve used Michael to kill the man and used him to solve all his bullying issues. But instead. Corey goes out with Michael, and the two kill Allysons nurse friend and mean head doctor at the facility Allyson worked at. Corey is shown clumsily and very unceremoniously killing the doctor. It’s shown to us in much the same way police talk about serial killers first kills being sloppy. The Doctor had been strangled with a bag over his head and Corey began stabbing him repeatedly in the neck and chest. While Michael, a seasoned vet at killing, picked up the nurse and effortlessly kills her.

After that, Corey feels invincible. Nothing and no one will ever keep him down. He found power, and he found purpose. If anyone ever bullies him again, he can take care of it. Of course doing so in the WORST way possible. But yeah.

So he’s gone from struggling with this sense of something being wrong. That he is walking the beginning of a path he is unsure of. To now fully embracing it. The only thing that plays it down somewhat, is the idea that Michael is teaching him. Again that Michael, a true psychopath void of any emotion. Would decide ‘hey kid, you ain’t so bad. Your alright’, dipping into the whole supernatural side of it. It just. I don’t know. It doesn’t really work.

Which is also a problem with Michael BECAUSE of the sequels. Carpenter and his idea at the end, that Michael WAS the boogeyman. He was this thing that exist and could never be stopped. It’s great and it’s scary. But when you have sequels that, much like Jason make him more and more supernatural to the point he was never even human. It just gets ridiculous.

At one point Jason became a straight up zombie, and around I want to say Halloween 5 or 6, Michael became a pagan Darth Vader who was looked after by a cult and used to carry out their deeds. So you know. He’s got that under his belt as well.

You can kind of see why they chose to ignore those films with the new trilogy.

I mean shit there was even a point where Michael and the ‘Cult of Thorn’ who controlled him impregnated Jamie Lloyd from Halloween Halloween 4 and 5 and were trying to use her child in some…back to the review.

What we have going on with Corey IS an interesting story. But it feels nearly out of place at this point in the game.

But it still makes sense! It just, really deserved more air to breath. Versus getting squeezed into a film we were rushing toward the goal line of, and then decided to do a second half time show for. With 1 minute left to go at the 5 yard line. With no timeouts left.

We get to a point in the film where Laurie has decided she needs to handle mini Michael. She confronts Corey and drops her wisdom bombs on him, telling him not to go down the path of the dark side, that she can help him. There is still good in him. But mini Michael has decided the dark side is more fun, he likes the thrill and the power. So Laurie tells him to leave her daughter’s daughter alone, he can run off and go on a killing spree, just leave her daughter’s daughter alone.

Of course he won’t. Because he’s at that point she knows his secrets, and she’s still cool with him. Which is ANOTHER issue in this film.

Allyson in the first film had the worst Halloween of her teenage life. Her mom blew up on her crazy aunt Laurie. Her boyfriend was making out with a cheating cheetah girl at the school dance. Her friends were killed by Michael AND her former boyfriend had his head snapped, on top of Michael killing both her mom and dad. IN THE SAME NIGHT.

This girl is fuuuuuuuuuucked up. But 4 years pass and she’s now apparently ready for love, she liked Corey, think’s he’s dorky but okay.

She decides the stories about him killing a kid are…worth brushing aside.

She decides him telling her that he killed a homeless man is….worth brushing aside.

Him telling her he killed the sand people, murdered them like animals. Not just the men, but the women, and the children and….she brushes it aside.

How does the girl, who lost her entire circle of friends, and boyfriend, to horrendous gruesome deaths. Decide “You know, he might be slightly bad and killed a few people but, I can change him!” How. How?! I mean shit even with her boyfriend fucking around on her in the first film, she was WILLING to forgive him by the second film. But he got his head turned around and fucked up. She is oozing trauma so I guess, why not date a possible murderer who turns out to be actually murdering people?

It's even funnier when the couple are talking about running away from town. Because of his murders, and the whole thing is lit, played off like, and even given a soundtrack reminiscent of something from The Lost Boys. Right down to his fake death jump from the radio station. But she finds it cute and endearing. That her murderous boyfriend is being silly and full of freedom. Freedom gained from killing with the man responsible for killing her friends and boyfriend and parents.

It's just. It’s weird man.

So yeah Laurie can’t reach him and tells him flat out she will kill him. The dude laughs it off and tells her the line every parent loves hearing as does any woman “If I can’t have her, no one will”

Which always leads to great things, as the ID channel can attest.

So that leads the film into the oh so fun trope of Aunty mama trying to protect dead daughter’s daughter, dead daughter’s daughter hating Aunty mama for being paranoid and not understanding her boyfriend. While evil boyfriend sets out to kill Aunty mama so he and dead daughter’s daughter can run off on his motorcycle and murder cross country with freedom and love.

Which would make sense in any other movie maybe. I mean shit that was the premise of FEAR, kind of but only 90% of.

Again it makes no sense for Allyson.

She was the biggest supporter of her Aunt in the first film, she and her mom bonded with Laurie by the end, who’s paranoia proved sadly true and saved them, well saved themselves too. The entire night as it went on. They all grew closer, they stuck together, she never questioned Laurie and to know that Laurie now is raising her and they live together. How do you suddenly stop believing the person you were close to, that saved your life, and helped keep you safe. How do you decide Michael must be dead because he was beaten, slashed, stabbed, whacked, and got up then wondered off.

Apparently new dick can do that? It’s just shit to ruin a character for the sake of a new direction in the end of your trilogy. She was a strong character, and now she’s an emotional teenager.

It’s just…uhg.

It just feels so out of place.

Yes you can get and understand that she wants to move on with her life. To stop living in the past of her boyfriends death, even if he WAS cheating on her, he still didn’t deserve to die. She’s decided to try and move on. So it starts working out for her. You can also try and say that her attempts to hold onto Corey are because she doesn’t want to lose someone else after she just began to open up to them. But not to an extent to just ignore…..I mean okay. Let us just say. All she was told by him, and knew. Was that he killed a homeless man. By accident.

She is aware he is a town weirdo because of the kids death and people either think he did it on purpose or it was an accident. So having THIS now happen. Even as an accident. Yes people will talk, they will get scared, and he won’t be able to escape this.

But from how her character was setup from the first two films. She is a smart, head strong character. She would/should have told him something along the lines of ‘Oh god that’s so horrible, I. I’m so sorry. You need to turn yourself in. If you tell the police it was an accident…” and that of course would lead into him scared telling her how they won’t believe him blah blah blah. But at least it wouldn’t reduce her character to this shit.

It would’ve also proven interesting if she was caught between Laurie and Corey, and struggling with how to deal with this. How to keep the two from killing each other, and how to deal with someone she obviously cares about, wanting them to be okay and DO THE RIGHT THING. Versus get taken out in a blaze of gunfire.

But we don’t do that.

Instead we get two teens in love, who decide lets get on a bike and ride out of town, make it out on our own away from the haters. Away from your controlling Aunt, and away from my bullies.

Because sure that makes sense.

Speaking of making sense.

We get to the funny and what the fuck moment of the film where, Corey has decided he needs to take care of business AND Laurie. But he has to do this on his own. While taking zero blame, and becoming the new Vader.

So he stumbles into the sewers and growls out at Michael about how he needs his mask MORE than Michael needs it and he beats up an apparently now feeling his age elder dying Michael and puts on his mask. Leading him to begin killing the last of his bullies AS Michael, complete with jumpsuit and mask.

The kills are intense, and pretty damn good. They’ve never failed to make those something worth while.

What gets me though. Is he not only takes out ALL of his bullies, but he goes back to the Radio station he and Allyson were at earlier and decides to kill Darcy the Mail girl and the DJ. Because he said mean things to them, and also because Darcy had a cameo. So why not. He also kills his mom.

THEN.

After this multiple killing spree. In a town that we were shown last film is so up its own ass over the terror that is Michael. That they’d go on a pitchfork and torches man hunt. Hasn’t taken notice. On Halloween night. That multiple people are dead, in public.

Well I guess to be fair, Laurie DID tell us how any murders that happened got blamed on Michael to the point people apparently stopped caring? But care enough to still blame Laurie for it? It makes no sense.

What makes even less sense, but had to happen. Is the showdown we get with Laurie and Corey. AND Allyson.

Allyson was meant to meet Corey at a café, and the two would take off. Corey went on his killing spree and left her hanging. Laurie can’t get a hold of Allyson because she’s angry at her. So Laurie is shown at her home, preparing herself to. Kill herself. She even calls the police to report her suicide. Its of course a fake as she set this all up, waiting for Corey to come for her. Which he does. She pops him three times, he falls down from the second story of the house. And Laurie decides to give him one chance to kill her before he dies. But instead he hears Allyson’s car outside. So he decides to jam a 10inch kitchen knife into his neck.

Laurie calls him a stupid bastard because well. How can self defense look like that when the killer knifes themselves. But he really did it because now Allyson will think Laurie killed him. Which she absolutely does. But also because Laurie pulled the knife out and was standing over his body holding it.

Yeah. Instantly she is cussing out Laurie and crying over the body of her murderous semi boyfriend.

So with Allyson out of the picture. The film finally gives us what we waited for. Michael somehow knew he could find his mask at Laurie’s house. Which he comically takes from Corey, as well as the knife. Corey tries to stop him like “I can still do this! I’m tough!  I can be you! Send Fredo to do this, Fredo to do that. I’m smart. I’M SMART!”

So Michael snaps his neck and their bond is severed.

Michael fights Laurie, damn near kills her a few times. He goes after her with a knitting needle like she used on him, and hid in a closet like she did in the first film. She eventually gets the upper hand and knives him to her butchers block table. She stabs him in the chest. She slits his throat. But he still wont die. So as he chokes her and all looks lost. Allyson comes charging in, stabs him also, then gives an empowered war cry and snaps the mans arm. Telling Laurie everything is cool now. It’s all good. The two slit Michaels wrist and anything else major that could count as a source of keeping your body functioning. Just in time for the retired cop from the first few films to find her, AFTER all the killings, find Michael now dead. And, as if no time has passed what so ever between the second and third film. Everything they built up about the town being over Michael for 4 years and him being reduced to a myth again… I shit you not, they decide this time, it’s a perma death. So they alert the towns people. Escort Michaels body on top of Allyson’s car WITH A POLICE ESCORT. Through town to the junk yard Corey worked at, and the fucking town crowd surfs Michaels body to a metal shredder. Which they clear a path for Laurie and her daughter to ceremoniously pull the switch to activate it. And toss Michaels body into it. So we can see Michael crushed to a pulp. With no way what so ever coming back. No tombstone, no memorial. Nothing. They even tossed his mask in the fucking thing.

So clearly this is obviously the end. Michael can never ever not ever come back. Even when we are told oh so cleverly “Evil doesn’t die, it only changes shape”

Get it? Because Michael was known as ‘the shape’ in the credits. GET IT?!

Also I lied they didn’t destroy his mask. Because why the fuck would they.

The whole thing just came off feeling disjointed and really off the mark. Which sort of makes sense, really. I mean they never anticipated making a sequel. They said they ‘could’ if it went well and there was a demand. So instead of a sequel, they just said fuck it and turned it into a three part story. Because who doesn’t like money?

Honestly it would’ve worked just fine being left as a stand alone film. It had a good ending. The Strode family conquered the madness that effected them all.

But we got the sequel. Which focused on changing Haddonfield from a town where ‘some’ people cared about Michael and knew who he was. To now the entire town has been plagued with terror for years. Back to a town that forgot him, until it remembered him in the end.

In ways it’s a similar issue the new Star Wars trilogy ran into. They didn’t plan that out. They just announced a new trilogy, and let the directors make their own story. The first one was decent and a good starting point and introduction to new characters. The sequel was a director changing things he didn’t like in the first one and killing off the new villain. Leaving the first director to come back, retcon the things that director did, and then pull Palpatine out of Disney’s ass as the villain ‘We always planned on’, for a trilogy no one planned out.

Think how much nicer this could’ve turned out if they did it differently.

Imagine, if they introduced Corey in the sequel. Hell imagine if they replaced the annoying chubby friend no one cared about from the first film with Corey. Set him up as someone who cared for Allyson and was there from some what the beginning. Give them a back story. That way when 4 years have passed, maybe Allyson gives him a chance and that would explain her out of nowhere sudden deep connection to him. Why she was so willing to believe anything he said, versus him being some guy her mom helped out and forced her to date.

It would give Corey more heart. It would’ve made him into a character you cared about because you saw him take this journey over several films.

Or.

Even better.

Imagine this for a moment. Because I really like this and I feel it makes sense.

Picture if you will, that Laurie’s story has ended. Her chapter in this is done and she and Allyson have moved on and away from Haddonfield.

Introduce Corey the same way. Switch out Allyson and Laurie for a new family. A new generation in Haddonfield living in the aftermath of Michael Myers.

Have Corey stumble upon Michael the same way. Realizing Michael isn’t a myth but something that really exist. Build on that, show his curiosity grow and his path down into darkness.

It’d be a great way to setup a new generation of horror in Haddonfield. A new path for the franchise going forward. You ended the Laurie Strode chapter, now you hand things off to the new group.

That could serve as a better send off to the series. Have Michael defeated by Corey, or he just dies. Let Corey become the new terror and when they gun him down. Just like Michael, he vanishes. And things have begun again.

Or hell have him and Michael killed, but end the movie with the shape breathing, letting you know its never really over.

Something.

Instead we get the story of a new character and his trip into darkness, with a final battle between Laurie and Michael tossed in at the end like an after thought.

The problem is, we already had a showdown with Michael and Laurie. And then Michael versus the town. So now we repeat it. But this time for good.

Which is even more comical.

You have to give a finality to the series, by not just stabbing, crucifying, gutting, slitting the throat and wrist of Michael. But putting him in a fucking grinder. As if that actually means anything. It’s just silly and I really feel it ruins a lot of whatever the fuck they were trying to say and do with all three films. Which again would’ve been best left alone as a stand alone.

I mean even the sequel Halloween Kills was not well received. You could see it was disappointing to fans. It wasn’t as good as the first one, and it became a parody at one point. I know more people who laugh and say “Evil dies tonight” with pure mockery and joy over the stupidity of that film. Myself included.

It was a silly movie with an ending that actually started going somewhere, in a way that made you look forward to the possibility of the final film being a blow out free for all. So yeah, imagine peoples reaction when they instead got a love story and a kid dealing with becoming a killer, while tossing Michael in at the end.

It’s just sad, when you want a series to do well, and right when it looks like they’re going to pull it off. They decide to recreate the battle of The Mountain versus the Viper in Game of Thrones. Mando is beating the piss out of the Mountain, but begins showboating and gets his skull crushed. That was this film.

They took a chance and decided to tell a new story while finishing their last story, which should’ve ended long ago. Corey’s story was fine, but it would’ve done better with more time, in its own thing. After Laurie and Michael end things. But throwing it into the middle of things. Not even the middle, but 85% of things.

It just didn’t really work that well. It’s an interesting story in a film people were expecting and ready to see end. Only to get introduced to a new story. It was a bold choice, an odd choice. But it also felt like something they did. Because they realized they needed a story to carry the length of a feature film and get them to the end of Laurie and Michael. Which makes an even stronger case for the Halloween Kills being a place they could’ve ended it versus stretching it out to Halloween Ends.

I mean they could’ve. With editing in the second film they could have easily worked in Laurie taking on Michael after he killed her daughter. Really the more you consider this, it really does feel like they did realize they didn’t have enough story, and when they decide to slow it down and ramp up a new threat. It just puts your audience in a bit of an off place. Because they were expecting something else. We were all set up for something else.

At the same time you understand it. They had a choice to make.

Do you continue with the trend of the first two films, and make the third your conclusion to one night of terror? Do you stretch it out over a few days? A large scale manhunt for Michael and Laurie along with other towns people involved? Or do you do what they did and do a time jump.

If you do the time jump you better have a good explanation for it.

To see what they did though, in the end. It’s just. I don’t even know.

You change Michael from this unescapable evil, this shapeless wind of murder and terror. Who was shot 5 times, stabbed, beaten and slashed at. But came back with a vengeance. Only to now become a mortal, near death after 4 years of hiding. ONLY TO THEN begin regaining his super strength and become unstoppable. ONLY TO THEN BECOME MORTAL AND BLEED OUT BEFORE BEING GRINDED TO MULCH!

A town that didn’t give two shits about Michael after all those years since Laurie was attacked. Suddenly over night turning into a town obsessed with Michael and his reign of terror. To a town that semi gave a shit about Michael but otherwise wrote him off.

Laurie going from a survivalist ready and set on trapping and destroying Michael for good and all, to Laurie being out of action in the sequel losing her daughter and others close to her, to Laurie who decides a missing Michael is good enough for her so lets forget him and our years of training to stay alive and become a pie cooking mom. TO LAURIE WHO KNOWS EVIL WHEN SHE SEE’S IT AND KILLS TO STOP IT.

TO LAURIE WHO RETURNS TO SURVIVOR MODE LAURIE TO KILL MICHAEL!

Allyson going from the daughter trying to unite her family and bring her aunt back in. Allyson who had a mature relationship and good head on her shoulders, who grows from fearful to courageous. To Allyson who is working to end the man who killed her friends, and keep her family safe, who used her mind to come up with plans to DO these things. To Allyson who watched Michael kill her boyfriend and come for her, to be saved by her mom, who Michael kills. TO ALLYSON WHO GETS HOT FOR A KILLER. TO ALLYSON WHO SAYS FUCK LOGIC AND COMMON SENSE, I GOT A NEW MAN! TO ALLYSON WHO HATES HER AUNT, THE ONE PERSON SHE FELT CLOSEST TOO AND MOST LIKE.

TO ALLYSON WHO IS BACK ON HER AUNT’S SIDE TO FUCKING KILL THE MAN WHO KILLED HER FRIENDS AND FAMILY AND SHE STOPPED GIVING A SHIT ABOUT UNTIL JUST NOW!!

It’s just…..

It’s a house of cards, built out of shit, on top of a toilet that’s been out of order for 5 years.

This film wasn’t needed. Even the film before it, Halloween Kills. Is questionable on the needed meter. That films only fault was getting high on itself and reintroducing past characters as mob pushing survivors fueling towns people with murderous rage. More so to a comical point. Otherwise the movie wasn’t entirely bad or unneeded. It just needed a tighter story and a lot cut from it. Like I said you could’ve easily marked that as the end. But knowing they wanted to drag this out for two more films.

I hate to say it, but they should’ve killed Jamie Lee Curtis’s Laurie off in the second film. But the director and writer lost their balls, and instead killed Lauries daughter. So Laurie was still untouchable in this film. I know they tried playing it up like she COULD die. THIS. TIME.

But no. Everyone knew she wouldn’t die. They didn’t do it in the sequel. They weren’t going to do it here. Because why do that, and give her character an end. When you can just have the town rally behind the woman they blamed for Michael, and have her lead everyone in crowd surfing Michael to the grinder.

I still laugh at that scene and will always laugh at it. I couldn’t believe that’s what they did as their “This is the REAL” end of Michael.

This is the last rant I want to get into with this film, and it covers a few other franchises as well. It’s the trend of, lets forget all the other films because those were shit, and lets label THIS one the true sequel.

The first time I saw it done, and the one time it also was done tongue in cheek and hilariously? Was Citizen Toxie. The film began with Stan Lee telling us how after the original there were 2 horrible shitty sequels, and announced “This! Is the REAL sequel to the film”.

It addressed absolutely nothing from the original or sequels. It did its own thing and it was funny as shit.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre decided to do the same. It did not go well. It was mostly a cameo showcase.

When they did this to Halloween. It was met with…skepticism.

There are some good things in the field of dead bodies and shit that is the Halloween series. There is also horrible shit no one likes at all.

They mostly ignored the other films. Because Laurie Strode died in the series.

The worst part about that? IS IT WAS A GOOD ENDING FOR HER!!

The film itself where she died? Was laughable. But still she had a proper send off. In Halloween H20, Laurie was in charge of some girls dorm and she did all she could to keep the kids safe and battle Michael. The film ends with her going off into the woods after Michael. He’s struggling near death and reaches out for her. She reaches out to him, but then draws back and cuts his head off with a fucking axe.

Halloween Resurrection comes out, and we learn that Laurie was committed to an insane asylum. Because she did not behead Michael. She beheaded a campus security guard who Michael put his mask on. So she was arrested for murder and claiming Michael was back and did it well. That put her where she is. So Michael during the beginning of the film comes there, finds her, and the two end up going over a rooftop. Laurie lands on Michaels blade, she kisses his mask and tells him she’ll see him in hell.

Laurie dies, Michael returns home and Busta Rhymes talks to us about “Dangertainment”

At least her character had a send off. She did a solid job in H20, and the filmmakers decided to end Lauries story in Resurrection. But we can’t milk Laurie if she’s dead. So fuck the sequels. I was okay with it back when these came out, because again…Dangertainment. We don’t need that in this world.

But I feel its also fair to say, we don’t need people erasing entire franchises to make their story work.

Terminator tried that, and it was as horrible in its execution as it was in its conception

But that’s what happens when people think they can do better, if only the source was removed and altered to fit their story. It’s even something kind of funny that was said by some of the writers for the Obi-Wan show. How it’d be so much easier to write Star Wars, if not for the source material.

Which raises the question, for all franchises, remakes, reboots, soft reboots and reimaginings.

If the source makes it difficult to tell that story, why not make it it’s own story?

Like I said this film could’ve been really good, as either it’s own NEW entry into a new direction for Halloween, or as something altogether its own, unrelated to Halloween. You are allowed to make horror films that take place on holidays without having to call it that Holiday.

Shit even Hellraiser Judgement or whatever the last piece of shit they made before the remake was called. That film was 80% a crime drama about finding a serial killer, and hell identifying the killer and trying to capture him.

The only part that made it hellraiser was the fucking name, and the random shots of a bored Pinhead sitting in his throne.

It was still shit and would’ve been shit. But it would’ve at least been a failed shit under its own name standing on its own legs instead of carrying the name of a franchise the studio didn’t want to lose.

Halloween feels much the same.

For all the good that there was in the first in this trilogy. The first also had its oddness that made little to no sense. Like the screwed up doctor for Michael. The weird dialog between cops and Allysons dad. Just random shit that felt widely out of place and awkward. But even then it still managed to be a solid entry into Halloween. It’s fault was in the creators hands when they said lets make this a trilogy.

The Hobbit did not need to be made into a trilogy. But they stretched out a short story, across 3 films. For no good reason. And the movies are largely forgettable.

Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends are forgettable. Largely forgettable. Halloween Kills showed us there was a failing heart beat in this films idea and what they had to work with. Halloween Ends just confirmed it.

It’s hard being a horror fan sometimes. Not because of the content so much. But more so because of other fans. There are some people that just come off like Ned Flanders and are just thankful we have more movies to talk about. While others tell the Ned’s they’re taste is shit and we should cheer for quality over quantity.

For instance, SHUDDER and TUBI.

SHUDDER plays a lot of crap horror, random horror, and original horror on top of the classics. Fans of SHUDDER will defend it as the Ned Flander’s of horror. “It was entertaining, it doesn’t need to be great or well written, it just needs to be fun” and those people are the ones who praise the Halloween trilogy AND things like Skinamarink as being ‘smart’ horror.

These same people, avoid TUBI like the plague. Because they know. As do we all. That TUBI is the place films go to die. It’s the place where films that should never have been released. Should never had been made, and are genuine waste of time and your life. Are shown and circulated. As a prime example of quality over quantity. Of deserving better, and something well done, conceived, written, directed, ORIGINAL and made with care.

Otherwise why don’t those people telling us to be thankful we have so much horror to talk about, defend those vile videos of liquid shit.

I feel the same about this trilogy. We didn’t need this trilogy, and no one asked for it. All they asked for, all any fan ask for.

Be it ALIEN

Friday the 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Hellraiser

Halloween

Terminator

PREDATOR

All any fan of those franchises can ever ask for, is that someone make a GOOD. SEQUEL. That someone. Tell a GOOD. STORY.

That’s all people want.

They don’t need the wheel reinvented. They don’t need a sequel 30 or 40 years too late. You don’t need Sigourney, Arnold, Doug, Robert, ANY of the original cast members. If you give a shit about the content, the story, and the franchise, instead of a paycheck. And you work with people who share a love for that franchise. Good things can happen.

But falling back on original cast, original directors etc. That’s milking fans of their money by trying to convince you that this time. This time it will be different.

Only it wont be.

It just ends up being a usually crappy film with a handful of moments you might like, and the rest is forgotten.

Which is what this trilogy is already bound for. Don’t believe me? Ask your friends this Halloween what they’d like to watch. Mention this trilogy. 9/10 they will go “Eeeeeh nah’ and they’ll also likely add “Huh? Oooh oh yeah”.

There was a chance for something good here. But they  missed it. There are shimmering moments of hope through out the three. But they’re fleeting. Good kills don’t make a film. Better story can help. Learning to let go of nostalgia and doing something entirely new. It’s a chance worth taking.

Anyway, that’s my ranting. This took a long time to get through and I likely rambled so, well no I won’t apologize. You all knew what this was. Of course I don’t recommend. But if you want to revisit and see if I actually was right or not? Be my guest.

But I did warn you.

So until tomorrow, Next time you hear someone talk about Halloween, if they mention how amazing Halloween 3 is? Punch them right in the fucking dick. Because they are full of shit, and they’re only jumping on a bandwagon. So yes. Right in the fucking dick.

GOODNIGHT!!