Halloween Ends: … Or Does It?

By Catherine Erskine

If you are a fan of the?Halloween?franchise, you have been literally waiting your whole life for this movie.?

Or, in my case, before life even started. 

When the original?Halloween?was released in 1978, I wasn?t around. But, two years later, a?Halloween?fanatic was born, even though she didn?t know it yet. I still remember the first time I saw Jamie Lee Curtis screaming in the closet, running from a killer that she couldn?t kill. (I was at a sleep over when I was too young to be watching it, I am sure)?

I was hooked. 

Since then, I?ve followed the scream queen and Michael through 13 movies. Halloween wasn?t Halloween until these movies were watched. Were they all winners? No. So let?s just skip past the third one?. Every anthology needs a pass… or two? but I digress! Halloween followed me throughout my life and taught me the rules of horror and how to stay alive! (Always run out the door, not up the stairs!)

So, to say that I was excited for the bittersweet ending to this saga was an understatement. But I was also nervous. Would they do us proud? Stick to the plot? (Although, has the franchise ever kept continuity with all the change ups to the backstory over the years?!) Would the film finally give Michael the ending that he deserved after all the chaos? 

After walking out of the theater, I can say I feel confident that they did.

In Ends, Jamie Lee Curtis continues to be an icon as usual and stays true to the fabric of her character. This was a movie that did not disappoint. One of the main themes that Ends discusses is the origin of evil and its nature. Is it something that you you let into your heart? If you do, will you let it consume you? Become your obsession? If Michael were ever to die, does Laurie have to go with him? These are the key questions that Laurie and her granddaughter struggle with throughout the movie.

With four years having passed since Michael last disappeared, Laurie is writing a book about her experiences as she tries to live a life free of fear. Meanwhile, a new love has blossomed between Allyson and a young man who has also been cast aside by the town after a terrible accident. When Laurie warns her granddaughter that she has a bad feeling about him, Allyson disregards it and poignantly attacks Laurie on her paranoia. ?You pretend you have moved on but you are actually just obsessed with death,? she argues. For Allyson, what matters is trying to get away from the stigma of being a survivor and she wants to run away from the entire town.  But, of course, Michael, and his shadow of evil, are never far away. 

With the franchise?s trademark campiness in its storytelling,?Halloween Ends?pays homage to its origins, with several moments that fans will recognize as nods to not only the previous movies but the iconic posters as well. Whether it?s the pumpkins or the reflection in a knife blade before the kill, the nostalgia factors were high, and?Halloween Ends?delivers just what you are looking for. Leaving the theatre felt like finally closing a book that you had been enjoying, yet still satisfied with an ending that you felt it deserved. I would highly recommend seeing it and felt it was a proper end to an era.?

But then again?. It IS Halloween?. 

And as Laurie writes ?The truth is that evil doesn?t die. It changes shape.? 

Halloween Ends is available in theatres on Friday, October 14, 2022.