Halloween Ends

Halloween Ends is a 2022 American slasher film directed by David Gordon Green, and co-written by Green, Danny McBride, Paul Brad Logan, and Chris Bernier. It is the sequel to Halloween Kills (2021), the thirteenth installment in the Halloween franchise, and the final film in the trilogy of sequels that started with the 2018 film, which directly follows the 1978 film. The film stars Jamie Lee Curtis, Andi Matichak, Rohan Campbell, Will Patton, Kyle Richards, and James Jude Courtney. The plot follows the outcast Corey Cunningham who falls in love with Laurie Strode's granddaughter while a series of events, including crossing paths with Michael Myers, drives him to become a serial killer.

Before the release of Halloween in 2018, McBride confirmed that he and Green had intended to pitch two films that would be shot back-to-back, but decided against it, waiting to see the reaction to the first film. Following the success of the first film, in July 2019 the film's title was announced along with Halloween Kills. Green intended to give each film in the trilogy its own unique theme, Halloween Ends being a "love story"; John Carpenter described the film as a "departure" from its predecessors in the trilogy. After being delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, principal photography took place in Georgia between January and March 2022, with re-shoots taking place in mid-2022.

Halloween Ends premiered at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles on October 11, 2022, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 14, 2022, by Universal Pictures; the film also started streaming simultaneously on paid tiers of Peacock. It received mixed reviews from critics, who criticized its focus on the new character of Corey and generally deemed it a disappointing conclusion to the trilogy. The film grossed $105 million against a $33 million production budget, making it the lowest-grossing of the trilogy of films by Green but the third highest-grossing film in the franchise. Despite the mixed reception, the film ranked #2 on The Hollywood Reporter's list of "The Best Slasher Movies of the Decade".

Plot

On Halloween night in 2019, 21-year-old Corey Cunningham babysits a young boy named Jeremy Allen who pulls a prank on him by locking him inside the attic. Just as Jeremy's parents come home, Corey kicks the door open and accidentally knocks Jeremy over a staircase railing to his death. Corey is arrested for aggravated manslaughter, but is cleared by the judge. Nonetheless, Corey is made an outcast by the citizens of Haddonfield, Illinois.

Three years later, Haddonfield is still reeling from the aftermath of Michael Myers's latest killing spree in 2018, while Michael has vanished. Laurie Strode is writing a memoir and living with her granddaughter Allyson.

Meanwhile, Corey is working at his stepfather's salvage yard. On his way home one day, he is accosted by high school bullies and injures himself in the process. Laurie, having witnessed the incident, brings Corey to the doctor's office where Allyson is working herself. Allyson and Corey develop a relationship and later attend a Halloween party, where Corey is confronted by Mrs. Allen when she recognizes him. Corey leaves the party and runs into the bullies who throw him off a bridge. Unconscious, he is dragged into the sewers where Michael resides and is choked by him, but Michael eventually lets him go. As he crawls out, Corey is threatened by a homeless man. In a struggle, Corey stabs the man to death and flees.

At a dinner date, Corey and Allyson are harassed by her ex-boyfriend who arrested Corey for Jeremy's death three years earlier; Corey later retaliates by luring the harasser into the sewer to be killed by Michael. Not long afterwards Allyson is passed over for a promotion at work, in favor of a nurse who is having an affair with the doctor. When Corey finds out about this, he kills the doctor at his home while Michael kills the nurse. Allyson, still unaware of Corey's latest actions, plans to leave Haddonfield with an insistent Corey because of the past trauma while Laurie realizes Corey is infected by Michael's evil; their differing mindsets cause their relationship to fracture. Corey, while sleeping in the spot where Jeremy died, hallucinates a conversation with Laurie where she offers to help him on the condition that he distance himself from Allyson. In response, Corey retorts by blaming her for the events that have occurred in Haddonfield before issuing her an ultimatum - if he cannot have Allyson then no one will.

Corey returns to the sewers where he successfully fights Michael for his mask and embarks on a rampage, murdering the bullies after luring them to the salvage yard, one of whom accidentally kills Corey's stepfather. He goes on to kill his mother, a DJ at a local radio station who had taunted him earlier, and presumably the radio station's assistant. Eventually he is lured to the Strode house when Laurie fakes a suicide attempt to ambush him. When Corey arrives, Laurie shoots him down the stairs. Corey then stabs himself in the neck to frame Laurie for his death in front of the arriving Allyson, who leaves in distress. Moments later, Michael suddenly arrives and retrieves his mask before killing Corey by breaking his neck.

Michael then searches for Laurie in her house and she ambushes him in her kitchen, leading to the two having a violent and brutal fight that concludes when Laurie manages to pin Michael to the kitchen table. Laurie then removes Michael's mask and bitterly recaps on her decade-long history of trauma while coldly dismissing Michael as not the boogeyman, but merely a man, before slitting his throat to finish him off. Suddenly Michael yanks his injured hand free and grabs Laurie by the throat before starting to choke her; Laurie implores Michael to kill her and he nearly succeeds in doing so until Allyson, having just learned the truth about Corey's actions and his death after receiving a call from Deputy Frank Hawkins himself, returns just in time to save Laurie by breaking Michael's arm; this act allows Laurie to slice Michael's wrist, finally killing him as he ultimately succumbs to his wounds and dies in front of her and Allyson.

Shortly after Michael's death, Laurie and Allyson take his body to the salvage yard by police escort; this attracts the residents of Haddonfield, who follow them in a procession, and they watch as Laurie disposes of Michael's body in an industrial shredder, thus signaling the end of his reign of terror at long last. In the aftermath, Allyson and Laurie reconcile from the ensuing days and Allyson eventually leaves Haddonfield while Laurie finishes her memoir and rediscovers her romance with Hawkins. The last shot of the film shows that Laurie kept Michael's mask.

Cast

• Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, a survivor of Michael Myers' 1978 killing spree and Allyson's grandmother
• Andi Matichak as Allyson Nelson, Laurie's granddaughter
• Rohan Campbell as Corey Cunningham, a young man who accidentally killed a child while he babysat. Though he was cleared of the charge, he was made an outcast and had an encounter with Michael Myers which leads to him becoming a serial killer.
• Will Patton as Deputy Frank Hawkins, a sheriff's deputy who arrested Michael following his initial killing spree in 1978
• Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace, one of the children Laurie babysat in 1978 who survived an encounter with Michael in 2018
• James Jude Courtney as Michael Myers / The Shape, the masked figure who carried out a horrific massacre on Halloween night in 1978, and returned to Haddonfield for another killing spree forty years later in 2018
  • Nick Castle, who portrayed the character in the original 1978 film, provides voiceover work for Myers' breathing and makes an unrelated cameo appearance in a party scene.

Also appearing in the film are Jesse C. Boyd as Officer Doug Mulaney, Allyson's ex-boyfriend who previously arrested Corey; Joanne Baron as Joan Cunningham, Corey's overbearing mother; Rick Moose as Ronald Prevo, Corey's stepfather who owns the salvage yard that Corey worked at; Michael Barbieri as Terry Tramer, the leader of the gang of bullies who target Corey; Destiny Mone as Stacy, Joey Harris as Margo, and Marteen as Billy, members of Terry's gang; Michael O'Leary as Dr. Mathis, Allyson's boss at the local hospital; Michele Dawson as Deb, Allyson's coworker who is having an affair with Dr. Mathis; Keraun Harris as Willy the Kid, a local radio DJ who taunts Corey; Jaxon Goldberg as Jeremy Allen, a young boy who dies in a prank gone wrong while Corey is babysitting him; Candice Rose and Jack William Marshall as Theresa and Roger Allen, Jeremy's parents; Tony DeMil as Robert Tramer, Ben Tramer's son and Terry's abusive father; and Omar Dorsey as Sheriff Barker, Haddonfield's current sheriff.