Halloween Ends finds Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) living some semblance of the life she might have had if Michael Myers hadn’t murdered her closest friends and terrorized her town over forty years earlier. She has lost many years to alcoholism and existed in a sort of grey area between paranoia and justified fear. She has lost her daughter and son-in-law, various friends and acquaintances, and is not always treated kindly by the community. But Laurie Strode has chosen to move forward – for her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), and for herself.
Part of moving forward means doing ordinary things, like baking and doing errands in town. She’s at the gas station when she runs into a kindred spirit in Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a young man suspected of killing the boy he was babysitting. Like Laurie, Corey is subject to strange looks and ostracism. And in much the same way Laurie could not have helped the events that unfolded while she was babysitting as a teen, Corey was not responsible for the freak accident that killed his charge.
With the best of intentions, Laurie encourages Allyson to go out with Corey, never imagining that Corey will soon become a vessel for Michael Myers’ evil. In her mind, she’s setting up her grieving granddaughter with a nice boy. She does not realize that the trauma of growing up in Haddonfield will begin pulling them both toward the dark side.
Admittedly, this latest encounter with Michael Myers feels a bit obligatory. Really, this guy AGAIN? We haven’t learned that no matter how you kill him, he’s just going to reanimate unless you literally chop him up and separate the pieces? Assuming that Halloween actually does end here, it’s about time we get this right.
Far more interesting is the ongoing saga of Laurie Strode, a woman finding her feet after forty years of arrested development, finally processing her grief and choosing (as she says) cherry blossoms. If there’s another sequel in this franchise, it really needs to be Laurie, with its full attention on a smart, resilient Final Girl who finally gets to work in her garden, go on a date, and knit a sweater without the fear of Michael Myers turning up.
BONUS FEATURES
Extra features include Deleted and Extended Scenes, a Gag Reel, Feature Commentary , and the following featurettes including interviews and behind-the-scenes footage: “Ending Halloween”, “Final Girl”, “No Place Like Haddonfield”, “ A Different Threat”, “The Visions of Terror”, and “Twisted Deaths”.
