Halloween Ends Review

October 18, 2022 at 4:12am
By Jason Stettner

Well, the end of Halloween has arrived and it goes out with a whimper. It was ever so promising when they brought this franchise back and it’s just gotten progressively worse. I honestly thought it couldn’t decline further after Kills, but oh was I wrong.

That film at least tried to provide some interesting slasher moments whereas this whole setup was just awkward. A climax decades in the making strangely enough throws away character development and doesn’t even provide much of a clash between the juggernauts. I don’t really want to spoil anything in covering movies via review but wow, I couldn’t believe that this barely featured Michael Myers at all.

When the character did appear, he was easily thrown around by a tiny assistant. It was sad. So what they did here is rush in a new random character named Corey (Rohan Campbell). They try to paint this person as some tragic case from a town of hysteria and then thrust this random person into the forefront of the movie.

It makes no sense considering there’s no legacy here and it’s painful to watch. It’s particularly bad how they completely sabotage Allyson’s (Andi Matichak) character by creating this unbelievable romance. I couldn’t buy it for a second and I was sitting there in the theater wondering where the hell they were going with this one.

On the flip side you’ve got a suddenly happy go lucky, overly awkward Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) that only came out as her usual self for a few brief moments. Other big characters appear for a brief moment or in a silly context and this was dumb, awfully dumb.

I’d say they almost insulted the audience with the weird choice in bullies that felt silly, or the rushed romance or the lack of any semblance of carrying forward what came before. The concept might have been neat, but it made zero sense for this, the final clash of Laurie and Michael.

The visual experience ranged from dark to strangely over stylized. There was a strobe light scene that was uncomfortable to sit through and in general it wasn’t too pleasing to take in. They moved away from any prior iconic locations, and overall it felt small in budget or in general scope.

I might give minor props for some of the kills, but even those were fairly bland and quickly approached feeling meaningless. Thinking of the setup for some scenes just came across as silly. Not to mention an assistant of sorts being the one handling everything. It was again, completely asinine. I do believe the performances were fine, as the actors were trying their best in what was an awful situation.

The Conclusion

Halloween Ends is an insultingly bad ending to what started as a very promising continuation of this iconic horror franchise. If only I would have known how bad things would get as I really loved the first of this new trilogy. Kills was really bad, but this was genuinely atrocious.

The concept at play here might have been neat as a different horror film, but to use it in this ending battle was a terrible idea. Even the whole assistant angle was neat, but it didn’t make any sense here. It’s a bunch of conflicting ideas rushed together for one poorly disjointed effort.

The romance aspect was agonizing to sit through and early on I had a terrible feeling. I was pumped up seeing the credits kickstart and from there on it was a dreadful time the whole way through. Dumb premise, dumb journey and a terribly stupid cartoony ending. I think Halloween Ends ended my interest in this series.

Halloween Ends Review at Theater with Standard Viewing

Rating Overall: 2.0