There is a sweet moment near the middle of HALLOWEEN ENDS where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) runs into Officer Hawkins (Will Patton) at the grocery store. The two exchange pleasantries with a subtext and Laurie’s modest charms float to the surface. It is in this scene and a handful of others that we finally see the innocent final girl we fell in love with. We almost believe that she will conquer her personal monster, Michael Myers. But alas. The quartet of writers which includes director David Gordon Green opts to bury the lead and, instead, tell the tale of a town outsider’s tumultuous romance with Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Insert WTF here. The result is a lopsided narrative to close one of the most iconic horror franchises in movie history. Halloween Ends is not the worst film, but it is a half-hearted ending that Laurie, Michael, and the loyal fans of the franchise are left with.

The film opens on Halloween 2019, a year after the events of Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills.  We witness a tragic, albeit darkly hilarious scene that leads to the death of a precocious child at the hands of nebbish babysitter Cory (Rohan Campbell). Everything is played straight but we assume it was intended as shock cinema. We jump to four years later to learn where Laurie and her grandaughter Allyson ended up after the catastrophic events of the previous installment. Laurie has decided to heal. and write her memoire. She purchased a lovely victorian home complete with a picturesque porch in Haddonfield. The two are is attempting to build a brighter future. Across town, put upon Cory is bullied yet again sending him to urgent care where Allyson is a nurse. The two have a meet-cute over stitches and Allyson asks Cory out to a Halloween party.

After a strange date with Allyson, Cory is attacked by bullies, and then, no joke, pulled into the sewers by Michael Myers. Pulled into the sewers. Let that sink in. Michael has been lurching around the bowels of Haddonfield avec mask for 4 years and has decided to drag another outsider in. An outsider that has a connection with Laurie. At once Cory begins to kill, donning his own mask and the town is sent into chaos again.

Green along with co-writers Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride decide to lean into a new story at to end the Halloween franchise. For that Halloween Ends is a failure. What made them think that they could close out a story that began 44 years ago by telling a new tale of an embattled outsider? The multiple theses explored are “Evil, natural vs cultivated”, and “internal vs external”. These are apropos but why spend three-quarters of the film on the development of a new villain when we were here to see the end of another? While Halloween (2018) was an admirable return to the roots of the franchise, the aimless path charted by Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends exposes the cynical cash grab.

That said there are some positives in Halloween Ends. We get back to the original aesthetics of the first film with Michael Simmonds doing a lovely job at capturing the original look of Dean Cundy’s work. There is less gore, allowing for the imagination to seep in where it can. Then of course there is the phenomenal music by John Carpenter, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies. In each new installment, the music has risen to the occasion, recalling the cruel synth sound of Halloween (1978). Finally, we bow to Curtis who gets a lot more screen time in ENDS. Curtis offers so much more gravitas to the arch set up by Carpenter and Deborah Hill so many years ago than anything that Green and crew could have constructed and that is given due respect.

Halloween Ends isn’t the ending that most of the characters, much less the audience deserved, but here we are. This will probably become an annual must-watch for some fans, verboten for others, and a forgettable dip into the marketability of nostalgia for casual fans of the genre. For this devoted fan of the franchise, I am left sad that we weren’t given a more effective conclusion.

5 Out of 10