Halloween Ends (2022)
Halloween Ends is a David Gordon Green film in the shape of an Halloween movie. It’s also a fitting trilogy capper.
That’s just my opinion. I’m not an expert on all things Halloween, not at all. I’ve read online enough to know that Halloween Ends is not the movie a lot of hardcore fans were expecting.
Maybe that’s why I like it. To my mind, Ends subverts the rules of the franchise yet in spirit it is closer to the original movie classic from 1978 than most other franchise entries I’ve seen.
It also boasts terrific performances by Anti Matichak (as Allyson) and Rohan Campbell (as Corey) as two star crossed lovers.
Their relationship takes up a lot of screentime. Which means that the eternal fight between Jamie Lee Curtis (as Laurie Strode) and James Jude Courtney (as The Shape) takes a backseat for most of the movie.
Which is fine by me. I like David Gordon Green. I like most of his movies. He made All The Real Girls, Pineapple Express, Joe, Manglehorn and Our Brand Is Crisis, which I all liked.
I thought Halloween (2018) was a clever reinvention of the beloved Horror franchise. Halloween Kills (2021) didn’t do much for me, too much generic horror, for my taste.
But Ends gets it right for me. It looked great in IMAX. There is a lot of character work which I enjoyed and the horror scenes are sprinkled throughout the movie.
The beginning and the end of the movie are classic Halloween, but for the most part the director has used the final chapter of this supposedly final Halloween-trilogy to make his most David Gordon Green-like film.
I can’t wait to see what he does with his upcoming Excorcist-trilogy.