“Halloween: The Ending” offers a satisfying ending, but gets distracted along the way

It’s a moment of truth for one of the horror film’s most iconic survivors, Laurie Strode. The end of the road (or so it seems), after more than four decades of existence linked to one of the most iconic and fearsome serial killers on the big screen, Michael Myers. There is no Michael without Laurie and vice versa. Although their paths have separated many times since they first met in 1978, their future has been bound by fate and now, 44 years later, everything is set for the final showdown.

‘Halloween: The End’ is the closing of the trilogy that began in 2018 with the acclaimed ‘Halloween Night’, in which David Gordon Green resurrected the franchise inaugurated by John Carpenter in the 1970s to give it a direct continuation, essentially ignoring most part of the sequels that were produced in the following years. After “Halloween Kills”, released in 2021, this last chapter supposes the climax of the long saga, which promises horror lovers the definitive duel between the last girl par excellence and the psychopath with the white mask. Not without first tying some garments and opening new threads for a possible future of the franchise.

While saving a lot of distance, Green devised the “Halloween” revival trilogy as if it were a terrifying response to what Peter Jackson did with “The Lord of the Rings”: three linked pieces of a whole that can be enjoyed as individual films, but which actually make up a great story divided into parts. In this way, the disappointing “Halloween Kills” would be “The Two Towers” of “Halloween”, an intermediate transitional chapter, while this “Halloween: The End” serves as the epic climax of the story: “The Return of the Queen ‘.

One of the biggest flaws in “Halloween Kills” was that its protagonist, Jamie Lee Curtis, came out quite infrequently and, when he did, was confined to a hospital bed. This latest installment, although it continues to make us want Laurie more, ensures that her presence is felt a lot more during the cutscene, better dosing Curtis’ participation and making Haddonfield’s nanny have more weight in the plot. The film takes place four years after the events of “Halloween Kills”. Laurie, revived from her last confrontation with Michael, lives with her niece, Allyson (Andi Matichak), and is immersed in writing her memoirs. Since then, no one has seen Michael Myers again, although his presence is still felt in the country, forever marked by his grisly misdeeds.

Laurie has decided to move on after living in Michael’s shadow for decades, leaving behind the fear and anger of what she experienced in the past, to focus on the present and the future. However, the assassin’s shadow is about to loom over Haddonfield once again. Although this time, he returns in the form of a new threat. “Halloween Ends” begins by distancing yourself from the rest of the bets with a great prologue in which Green reverses expectations, presenting Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a young man accused of killing the boy he cared aboutand whose story ends up being closely linked to Laurie’s, forcing her to take back what she tried to leave behind to face Michael Myers for the last time, with the aim of putting an end to him once and for all.

The best thing about “Halloween: The End” is that, far from falling into the repetition of patterns, Green manages to offer something new and surprising, which cannot be overlooked in a long-running saga like this and in a genre that has already been retried a thousand times, as well as the slasher. Based on the idea (and the film’s motto) that “evil does not die, it only changes shape”, Green orchestrates a final symphony of blood and guts that embraces at all times its role as the end of the saga, as well as its metaphorical character of the passage of time. After more than forty years, Michael Myers has become the symbol of all evil that keeps coming back when you think he’s gone, coming back to life again and again, no matter how hard we fight him; something that we have very much present today, unfortunately. In this way Green manages to impress a timely sense of catharsis in the film, especially in the intense final duel between Laurie and Michael.

But before reaching the long-awaited face to face, “Halloween: The End” does some stops along the way that distracts from what interests us most and makes us wonder if this is an end or the pilot of a new stage for the franchise. And is that, although Laurie appears more than in the previous film, most of “Halloween: The End” focuses on her granddaughter, Allyson, and especially on the new character in the saga, Corey, who seems to be written as a generational change, in case you want to continue with ownership (which will eventually happen). In this sense, Corey’s weight in the film is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, Green explores really interesting ideas with him and Rohan Campbell does a great job; but on the other hand, by addressing him so much, it sometimes gives the feeling that they are giving us a pig in one go and we are not seeing the movie we thought we were, but a spin-off film focusing on a totally new character. In other words, for this to be the grand finale of Laurie and Michael’s story, too much time is spent on other characters who, however closely linked to the film’s theme, only delay the moment of truth. .

Jamie Lee Curtis better than ever

Now, when that moment comes, everything explodes in the best possible way. The wait was worth it and seeing the final battle between Laurie and Michael, albeit brief, is a very satisfying experience. “orgasmic”as Curtis herself described it. 40 years of history, fear, trauma will culminate in that violent, visceral and surprisingly intimate confrontation. Laurie’s evolution from teenage victim to mature and empowered adversary is completed in a struggle where it doesn’t matter who gets out dead or alive, but what it means to them to get there.

Curtis has never been better in this saga. In this finale, the actress, increasingly free and interesting in her choice of projects (‘Scream Queens’, ‘Daggers in the back’, ‘Everything at once across’), gives her most sincere and emotional interpretation as Laurie Strode, being in every moment aware, and therefore transmitting, what the character has meant for her and for the story of terror. But not only that, Curtis allows himself to bring out the funnier side of the character, supported by the confidence that her maturity, experience and charisma as an actress give him. It’s a real pleasure to see that light side of Laurie and say goodbye, in style to her, to her nanny who launched her to fame.

Ultimately, that’s what makes “Halloween: The End” accomplished despite the detours. With her, Green signs a coda that preserves the spirit of the original, but also expresses the passage of time and how our relationship with her has transformed, a nostalgic film full of winks and connections with the past, which in her time manages not to repeat itself. And of course, with everything we expect from “Halloween”, blood, macabre violence and John Carpenter’s ever-disturbing soundtrack. Michael Myers has long transcended his role as a mere serial killer and in this ‘Halloween: The End’ his evil personification nature is embraced, in an intelligent and self-referential way, making his threat, curiously, more real than ever. .

Note: 7

The best: Jamie Lee Curtis in top form. That I can do something different after so long. The final cathartic showdown.

Worse: That the film mainly revolves around a new character.