Should You See Halloween Ends? 10 Spoiler Free Questions Answered To Help You Decide
Greg Ehrhardt, OnScreen Blog Columnist
The Halloween Franchise is one of the most important movie franchise of my life. It helped foment my love for the holiday as well as my fear of it. Michael Myers, the titular antagonist, the boogeyman, is ultimately just a man with a mask who cannot be stopped in his singular pursuit of death. In the good movies, he is relentless, but also patient. Michael Myers embodies everything we ultimately fear about, well, fear.
Even though most of the Halloween movies are badly made, I always anticipate any new installment feverishly. The adrenaline I get with a great Michael Myers scene is unmatched by any other horror villain.
The anticipation for Halloween Ends, for me, was just a bit different, because I’m not sure this really should have an ending? It is not because I want 12 more installments. It’s because the beauty of the original was, Myers will always be out there, lurking, waiting patiently for his next moment to strike.
Of course I was also thinking, this won’t really end, will it? Hollywood will never give up this character or the franchise. If that turned out to be the case, then this will be one of the biggest movie marketing lies ever.
And then, as we got closer to the release, I started seeing reviews indicating this movie was going in a totally different direction than the last two installments, and predictions that this would be very polarizing.
UGH.
Now I’m starting to dread this final installment, and it’s not due to dread over Michael Myers hiding behind the closet.
Polarizing can be good for many movies; usually it’s good for movies to challenge your preconceptions for what the movie ought to be.
With Halloween though, with the first two movies delivering mostly fan service, if it went in a truly different direction, the conversation would be more about the film director’s conceit (David Gordon Green) than about how Michael Myers was finally put in his place (assuming the title was true).
A polarizing movie also means, for some of the audience, it could be a movie they wish they never watched (like Matrix Resurrections or the latest Scream movie, or, gulp, The Last Jedi.
So I’m here to prep Halloween fans who are on the fence about seeing this in a spoiler free way.
Question #1: The trailer indicates this will be a traditional Michael Myers chase movie. Is this true?
Answer: HECK NO!! This was sadly one of my biggest takeaways from the movie, that the trailers were very dishonest and purposely deceptive about what the crux of this movie is about. Most of the trailers that I saw feature footage from the last 20-30 minutes. But man, what happens in the last 20-30 minutes is almost a different movie than the first 90 minutes, and the first 90 minutes is mostly not a traditional Halloween script.
Question #2: But being non-traditional doesn’t mean it is bad, right? Did it still work, objectively?
Answer: To keep this spoiler free, all I can say is the first 90 minutes centers around an entirely new character to the Franchise, and while it does involve the central themes of the movie, it feels like they were trying to set up a new character for potentially future movies. Also, the plot twists regarding that character I’m pretty certain any viewer will be able to spot from miles away.
Question #3: So, is Michael Myers still Michael Myers, is THAT the big swing the reviews say the movie took?
Answer: I can assure you that Michael Myers is still a villain and a boogeyman and someone who is not redeemable. What I cannot assure you is that you will see that much of him in this movie. I’ll be brutally honest, this is by far the strangest Halloween movie to date in that respect.
Question #4: Pacing wise, how does this movie rank with the others?
Answer: This movie definitely paces deliberately, although I don’t think that effectively. The original Halloween was a very deliberate movie, but every scene had a point to it in establishing dread. I think most Halloween fans will be bored during the first hour of this movie.
Question #5: How about the quality of kills in this movie, how does it compare to previous installments?
Answer: I’m the wrong guy to ask this question to, since even though I like slasher movies, I don’t watch it for the kill count or the creativity of the kills. One of the things I liked about the first DGG Halloween movie was how it established all of the victims as real 3 dimensional people, and you felt the humanity after they were killed by Myers. That said, if you’re just looking for creative kills, there’s only one that stood out to me, and frankly, almost all of the set pieces were pretty short. Fans looking for long intense Myers scenes are going to be disapointed.
Question #6: So, does Halloween actually end?
Answer: I don’t think its spoilery to say that yes, Halloween does end with this movie, since its in the title.
Question #7: How satisfying is the finale with Laurie and Michael?
Answer: For the most part they got this right, although I wish the finale was a bit longer, especially considering there was definitely some editing of earlier parts that could have given them more time to add meat to the finale.
Question #8: Are there any standout performances in this movie?
Answer: I thought this was a great John Carpenter score, and any Halloween fan should check it out immediately. Acting wise, nothing stood out to me, including the new character whom its clear they were hoping for some buzz around.
Question #9: So is this movie good?
Answer: So to me, it was more important for this to be a good Halloween movie for Halloween fans than for it to be an objectively good movie for the masses, and unfortunately I think this movie was trying for the latter versus the former. I do think the elevator pitch for this movie was promising, and it was a concept that could have tied neatly into a more traditional Halloween movie. But, even on it’s own terms, I don’t think the movie earned the big swing it convinced itself it had earned. There were too many story telling shortcuts, too many things unexplained, too many assumptions it asked you to make to believe its premise. Plus, I don’t think the casting for the central character was very good. On a letter grade basis, this would get a C- from me.
Question: #10: Where does this rank amongst the other Halloween movies?
Answer: For me, this is in the bottom tier, above some truly bad Halloween movies like Resurrection, Curse, but below even pedestrian movies like Return, Revenge, and Kills.
This movie doesn’t challenge the previous movies premise like The Last Jedi did, but it doesn’t feature a lot of Michael Myers, ironically. If you’re not prepared to spend time learning a whole new character to the franchise, then I wouldn’t bother watching. On the flip side, if you just want to see how the story ends, and you only YouTubed the final scene a couple months from now, you would get the essence of Halloween Ends without missing much.
I guess that’s about as damning a review as one could leave for this movie.