Halloween Ends review: The finale of the trilogy is a bewildering stab in the dark

Spoiler warning: The following review discusses plot elements of Halloween Ends.

There’s something to be said for trying something new in the final film of a trilogy.

Following 2018’s impressive Halloween relaunch and 2021’s gory Halloween Kills, writer-director David Gordon Green wraps up his Michael Myers trilogy in bewildering fashion with Halloween Ends, a film that feels cut from a very different William Shatner mask than the films that preceded it.

Set four years after Halloween Kills, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is now living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and writing her memoir. Still mourning the death of her daughter at the hands of Michael Myers, Laurie is trying to settle into some semblance of a normal life when she encounters Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a troubled young man.

As we witness in the film’s tense opening, Corey was responsible for the accidental (?) death of a young boy he was babysitting years earlier. In an attempt to play matchmaker, Laurie introduces Corey to Allyson, and the pair quickly strike up a whirlwind romance.

After nearly being killed by a gang of small-town bullies, Corey stumbles upon the hiding ground of Michael Myers, which is where things get really strange.

Seemingly recognizing a fellow traumatized man, Michael not only lets Corey live but somehow imbues him with the evil power that has kept him alive for so long.

What follows is a perplexing left turn for the Halloween franchise that features Michael Myers acting as a sort of guide for Corey to unleash his inner demons and take revenge on anyone who threatens him or his burgeoning relationship with Allyson.

Perhaps the most confounding aspect of Halloween Ends is that it essentially sidelines the showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers that the last film took such pains to set up. The first half of the film is more concerned with the doomed young couple that feels lifted out of the small-town Twin Peaks romance handbook, and when Michael Myers is finally introduced, it’s really only in order to guide Corey down his dark path.

Jamie Lee Curtis is powerful as ever as the endlessly beaten-down protagonist and there’s a welcome chemistry between Matichak and Campbell, but to what end exactly? The first two films in this franchise relaunch (and all of the marketing materials for this film) point to a final climactic battle between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, which this film barely feels interested in.

Perhaps David Gordon Greene grew impatient with the arc of the franchise and wanted to try something unexpected. In many ways, the audacity of switching things up so dramatically at the 11th hour is commendable, but Halloween Ends feels more like a mish-mash of half-baked ideas and studio notes than a cohesive attempt to shake up this trilogy.

While there are some hilariously over-the-top kills and a thrilling soundtrack (featuring a throbbing new John Carpenter score and tracks from the likes of The Cramps and Sebadoh), those elements can’t save Halloween Ends from repeatedly stabbing itself in the dark.

Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now.