“Halloween Ends’ | Missed Opportunities, Graceful Exit

 I was 15 years old when I saw Halloween in a packed theater in Sacramento, CA. It was surely opening night, which was October 24^th, 1978. It was the most scared I’d ever been at the movies ( a record that would be short-lived; 7 months later Friday the 13^th took the #1 position.)

It was the first time I remember such violence coming to an “ordinary” setting, with “ordinary” people who looked like my neighbors and me. The juxtaposition of the normal and the hyper-violent was jarring. Of course, at that very moment, less than 10 minutes from home, the Golden State Killer was busy, but he wasn’t called that and teenagers didn’t pay attention to the news back then. But that’s another story.

Now 44 years later, I can’t say that Halloween Ends traumatized me. Things are different now. Michael Myers is a pop culture icon and Jamie Lee Curtis is a 63 year old woman,   not a 19 year old babysitter. These days, we are all too aware of the movie magic secrets and CGI and after decades of graphic slasher films – we have lost our ability to be that scared, it seems.

Halloween Ends feels more like homage to Slasher flicks than an actual one. That’s not a complaint – there is more attention to character and, in particular, the film has a good protagonist/villain/whatever at its center: Rohan Campbell. The Canadian actor is perfect as (Corey Cunningham) a shape-shifting persona who accidentally causes the death of a kid he’s babysitting and becomes the punching bag for an entire town of bullies thereafter.

His life having essentially ended and his enduring victimhood from bullies causes a change in him.  A change that Michael Myers himself sees in the kid’s eyes, and for that reason, we think, spares his life when he has the chance to kill him.

Oh, yeah- Myers is back in small town Illinois and this film will concern whether Corey is becoming the new Myers (a hugely missed opportunity for a potential new storyline for future installments) or just has that killer vibe about him that makes him the most eligible young slasher.

You can find out much more plot detail online – I just wanted to hack out a few paragraphs here as an old guy who was there at the beginning (yes, I skipped most of the sequels  over the years, getting back on board in 2018) and still here at the end.

The film’s pacing, attention to character and relatively plausible narrative arc gained my admiration. It has some requisite blood and guts, but never at the expense of believability. It’s weird to say this about a franchise with such a staggering body count, but, finally,   I think the film ends on a grace note and with a sense of tying up loose ends.

There may be more Halloween films on the horizon (I mean, just the theme song is a money-maker for John Carpenter’s estate – so money is always a consideration) but for Jamie Lee and me, I think this is the end. We’re done.

Kudos to director David Gordon Green for bringing the film in for a smooth, if not soft, landing. Wheels down. Let’s call it a day.

Halloween Ends | Rated R | Universal Pictures | 3 out of 4 stars | in theaters