REVIEW: Halloween Ends (2022)

Movie Reviews

It’s been a week since Halloween Ends was released in theaters, and I know I’m late on this review. Please accept my apologies, readers, as for some reason, I thought the film came out the same weekend as Black Adam and not the week before. And, to be fully transparent, I was a bit hesitant to watch this movie in general. 

I’m here now, and I may be late on this conclusion as well, but my God, Halloween Ends is terrible. I’m so glad I did not pay to see this film in theaters. I don’t know how I’m going to get those four hours of my life back. Oh, it was only an hour and fifty minutes? Could have fooled me. I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to give you guys a full review that’s not “IT’S HOT GARBAGE” over and over again, but I will try my best. 

In order for me to paint this picture properly for you, there will be very minor overall timeline spoilers of the film, so be warned now. 

Where to begin? Or end, I guess, in this instance, because that’s what this film supposedly was: an epic conclusion to a 40+-year-old beloved franchise. Instead, it’s disappointing, boring, and unsatisfying. I don’t know who chose the word “epic” to describe this final showdown, but they should get a dictionary. 

Halloween Ends is a Halloween film in name and creepy Shatner mask only. If those things weren’t present, you would never know this is supposed to fit in with the other Halloween movies, let alone wrap up the story of Laurie Strode and Michael Myers.  

Halloween Ends is just under two hours long, but it feels so much longer. The first hour is a drawn-out, angsty teen love story/drama between Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and new character Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell). They’ve somehow managed to turn Allyson into a completely idiotic and insufferable character; she’s now a trauma-ridden girl who falls in love with the “Bad Boy” and throws everything she’s learned over the last few years into the garbage can. It’s disappointing because she was a good female lead to stand by Jamie Lee Curtis, and I liked her a lot. The guy she’s seeing, Corey, is a new character we meet in this film, and he is so forgettable it’s laughable. What’s even more laughable about that is that the writers tried to make him the villain instead of Myers, and it fails so miserably that you’re doing nothing but rolling your eyes the whole time. 

Speaking of Michael Myers, I’m just going to come out and say it: he’s in this movie for a total of about ten minutes, and I’d say maybe eight of those minutes are at the end of the film. 

Yes, you read that right. And that’s being generous. Now, for those of us who are a bit hardcore about the Halloween franchise, you may say, “Well, to be fair, he was only on screen for, like, nine minutes in the first movie,” and you’d be correct. However, this film is number 13 in the franchise, and even though, canonically, it erases everything that came before it except for the first movie, Myers got more and more prominent over time. At a minimum, even if he’s not physically on screen, he looms over the film like a dark cloud. Even in Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, Myers is on screen longer; a little over twelve minutes for Halloween and a little over thirteen minutes for Kills. Ends is supposed to be the conclusion to the franchise as a whole, and they snub the character that made it what it is today for a twenty-something angsty boy no one knows anything, nor cares, about. 

And the “final showdown” between Laurie and Michael promised by the cast and crew and directors and producers and some shill critics to be epic and wonderful and a satisfying end? Yeah, that happens with about twenty-five minutes left of the film and is over in about ten minutes, and I may be being generous with those numbers.

Nothing about this movie feels like Halloween. Myers is a broken shell, barely able to do anything. There’s only one traditional Myers kill in the whole film, and it comes with assistance. There’s no presence of Myers hanging over this film like all the others. He’s been left behind in the shadows, forgotten about until the very last second. 

“Does Michael actually die?” you may ask. It’s a valid question, especially with all the hype surrounding the film as being the “last.” Well, without direct spoilers, the only thing I will tell you is that the whole town of Haddonfield gets involved at the end, and what happens is a pretty weird, unnerving, and out-of-place scene that makes you sit there like, “What the heck is going on here?”

“What the heck is going on here?” is a question I asked myself throughout the entire movie, if I’m being honest. Even my boyfriend, a casual horror movie watcher, was like, “This is NOT a Halloween movie.” We both hated it. I don’t usually hate movies; I can find something I like in just about every film, even if I’m not a fan of the movie as a whole. But I can’t think of a single thing in this one that I can say that about. Not one. 

To say I’m disappointed is an understatement. 

This was it; the last film of a beloved horror franchise that has raised several generations, and instead of going out with a bang, it crumpled like the Jack-O-Lantern molding on your front porch. The director of the film, David Gordon Green, has come out since its release and flat-out said that Halloween Ends was never supposed to explore Myers’ and Laurie’s story any further (despite being marketed that way). That decision will be the catalyst that turns an iconic franchise into a forgettable one.