That’s one way to end a franchise. Too bad it wasn’t a better way, or certainly a more entertaining and interesting one. Shall we all now band together and take inspiration from the one and only Madea? Let’s bury this thing eight feet under. The sooner the better.
The Universal Pictures film, “Halloween Ends” may have ended a long past its prime franchise, but it certainly made sure to do so in the worst possible way. I definitely want my money back. Okay, I didn’t really pay to watch it (thanks Peacock), but I still feel owed. Certainly for my time and the bottle of wine I had across all three films. That may be a different let down altogether, but it’s still an important and fair one.
I was ready for it. I wanted to like this film. After the supreme disappointment of the previous entry, I was certain this one would greatly improve upon and make it a worthy ending to this trilogy and the franchise as a whole. Boy was I wrong. And here I thought one of the biggest upsides for me was that I hadn’t seen any trailers or TV spots. No. I deliberately chose to miss those warning signs and got what I deserved. Perhaps next time I’ll do what most normal filmgoers do and watch the footage that’s released. At least next time I’ll be better prepared. On another note, I guess it’s a good thing I only own the requel “Halloween” film. Like with how this new trilogy is able to exist, I’ll just pretend the last two films never happened.
Who’s Film Is It Anyway?
That’s somewhat the question of the moment. Who’s film is this? It’s certainly not star Jamie Lee Curtis’ film. She practically took a backseat in “Halloween Kills” and definitely took one in this new film, but you wouldn’t know it on some level. She’s everywhere in the marketing and the press tour, which makes sense when you think about how it’s one final fight between her and Michael Myers. Alas, it seems, someone forgot to tell the writers that.
Which is problem number one. Why did it need four writers? Three writers was already bad enough, but a fourth? I’m now wondering: How much was added by this third and fourth writer (both get top billing) and seriously altered the original film’s narrative? I ask that because, once more, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green are the only two writers returning for this film. Each film featured a different third (fourth in this case) writer. Perhaps this itself can serve to all writers and producers etc., that sometimes, less is more.
But moving past that, let’s look at the film itself.
Firstly, it’s not scary. No, it’s anything but. Sadly, for this one more than the previous films, and even with this marathon I did, I found myself easily not invested. My phone is probably what kept me awake and even slightly aware that something was still going on on my screen. Why wasn’t it scary? There was no attempt to be. Even the kill county is kind of paltry and lacked creativity. When this film wasn’t spending time showing how Curtis’ Laurie and Andi Matichak’s Allyson had managed to move on and live “normal” lives in the subsequent four years, it detoured off to follow some new character named Corey. While having Rohan Campbell as part of the cast isn’t entirely a negative, it’s how the writers used him that hurts.
It slowly but surely, once you accepted that Campbell’s character was going to be here the entire film, became a story about revenge. Just not the revenge story we wanted. We’ve seen the film about the picked on kid/person over and over to find this angle itself tedious to sit through. Sure the writers sprinkled in some child murder for this new character, but seeing as there wasn’t much nuance of any kind attempted, it all became one repetitive scene after another of him being attacked. Enter revenge, and another major flaw. This isn’t Michael’s film either. Sure it seems (laughably) like our favorite man in a white mask is going to take on some sort of disciple, like he’s Joe Carroll or something, but because of how perplexing it was and how all of a sudden Curtis can see things in Campbell’s eyes (which I did laugh at and groan loudly at), it stuck to the idea that this was a film about Corey and not Michael. This, right here, is why I’m glad I didn’t watch any of the trailers until today. I would’ve been even more irritated. Misleading doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt the studio gave us. It’s also why this film isn’t scary. There was no mystery as to where he was. No suspense. Nothing. We knew why he was doing what he was doing and thus it started to look like a normal day in this country. People killing people who have wronged them and (somewhat) had it coming. I didn’t stay up late for this.
It’s not that I don’t believe characters or people can’t live somewhat “normal” lives after tragedies, but even the happy moments we see with Curtis, Matichak and even Kyle Richards’ Lindsey (who served what purpose in this film?), seemed tacked on. While even seeing these moments was fine for a bit, like the opening sequence, it all eventually felt out of place. I honestly couldn’t figure out what type of film I was watching some of the time. It said “Halloween Ends”, but it certainly didn’t feel like one of those types of films. Even the “Romeo and Juliet” thing this film eventually had going got irritating.
Why these choices? Why are we following this person? Why do I care?
Questions like that floated through my head as I sat and watched what should’ve been a far more interesting and entertaining film. What was anyone thinking? How did the studio allow for this to even be filmed? For a film that was touted as a final showdown between two iconic characters, the writers took a long time getting to the main event. Honestly, this should’ve been a short film. Come to think of it, the short film “Jurassic World: Battle at Big Rock”, that was released three years ago was itself more suspenseful and fun than this film. Talk about sad.
If anything good can come from this new (final?) film, it’s that I feel I owe Rob Zombie an apology. Sure I still don’t like his films and think he wasted many opportunities, but at least his were far more interesting than this one. There was certainly enough going on to keep you watching, even if you disagreed with the creative choices. I also feel like I owe the previous film in this trilogy an apology too. That one’s looking more and more like a top notch film with each passing minute. While some people seem to believe that this new film will garner a cult following later on or have people reassessing their current views on it, I’m not one of those. This is a bad film. It’s a crap way to end things and shall forever be just that, no matter how much time passes.
Some Seriously Misleading Trailers I’m Glad I Missed Till Now:
Director: David Gordon Green
Writers: Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernie, Danny McBride and David Gordon Green
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney, Will Patton, Rohan Campbell and Kyle Richards
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