Halloween Ends (2022), Themes And Ending, Explained: “Halloween Ends”, the third and final installment in David Gordon Green’s trilogy, is set four years after the tragic events of 2021’s “Halloween Kills.” In Halloween Kills, Laurie’s hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, was attacked 40 years to the day by the same sinister masked murderer who killed six people and one dog on Halloween night in 1978.
Laurie is still dealing with the fallout of Michael’s latest killing spree, which resulted in the shocking twist-ending death of her daughter Karen (Judy Greer). While trying to move forward with her life, we see her unpacking her trauma by writing a memoir and making a happy home with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) in the town.
When tragedy strikes the small town again, Laurie is ready to face off against her longtime nemesis, who, at 60-something years old, is still racking up the kills for one last time. This time around, Michael has a bit of help in the murdering department. Here’s a deeper look at some of the film’s themes and ending.
Checkout – Where To Watch And Stream Jamie Lee Curtis’ New Horror Movie ‘Halloween Ends’ Online?
Halloween Ends (2022) – Plot Explained
The movie starts with a flashback of a new character named Corey (Rohan Campbell) – a 21-year-old prospective engineering student. Set during the Halloween season of 2019, a married couple tasked him with babysitting a rather difficult child on October night. The young boy, after many tantrums, attempts to scare Corey by locking him in the attic. It’s the first anniversary of Michael Myers’ attack on the town, and everyone is on edge, including Corey himself, who finds himself increasingly paranoid in the attic. So he soon kicks open the door, only for it to slam right into the child. The little boy tumbles over the railing, falling three stories down to his death on the living room floor. It was an accident, but the town now brands Corey as a murderer for how the event happened.
We then flash forward four years into the story. Corey is known to the locals as ‘the psychotic babysitter’ who lost his temper and killed an innocent child back in the day. He’s been ostracized from society, but of course, Laurie Strode looks to nurture this outsider. She now finds herself doing some work in therapy, trying to let go of the fear, paranoia, and anger that the Boogeyman caused her. After a group of teens bullies Corey, Laurie drives him to the hospital, where he bonds with Allyson – a nurse who cleans his wounds and helps him. All the hate and subjugation Corey’s went through has hardened him, but it’s Allyson he finds himself comfortable around. She sees something in her that nobody else does, and the two eventually go to a Halloween party, where he finally gets to cut loose. But that evening at the bar, Corey runs into the mother of the boy he had accidentally killed. Reminded of his body, she is unhappy to see the kid who ruined her life while openly enjoying his. He was never sent to prison for Jeremy’s death, though the details of why are never disclosed. Laurie also runs up against this with locals. She is blamed for bringing Michael Myers to town, for wreaking havoc on an otherwise quiet corner of the town.
What Is Corey’s Motivation?
Corey is a monster in the eyes of Haddonfield. Corey’s interaction with the grieving mother causes him to lash out, bringing him on edge and, thus, blaming Allyson for forcing him out of his comfort zone. After storming off from the bar, Corey runs into the same teens who came after him earlier. He fights back against them, but they throw him over a bridge down in the woods. It’s here where Corey stumbles upon the ultimate catalyst of his journey- he is dragged into a cave by a (barely) living Michael, who has been lurking beneath Haddonfield like an infected rat. By looking into his eyes, Michael senses the evil inside Corey and sparks it to life. Thus, Corey, from here on, becomes a sort of Sorcerer’s Apprentice to Myers, letting the boogeyman loose while feeling free to commit atrocities of his side by side.
How Does Michael Possess Corey?
Previous Halloween sequels hinted that Michael Myers might be a kind of supernatural being, which would surely explain how he has survived being stabbed and shot so many times over the years. 1982’s “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” was the only sequel that didn’t feature Michael Myers. It was a witchy slasher film focused on pagan rituals and child sacrifice. It set up the “Thorn Trilogy” arc that reintroduces an immortal Michael Myers- a product of a satanic cult that cursed him for killing his bloodline. In “Halloween Ends,” we see echoes of that again; Michael Myers seems to psychologically infect Corey by forcing him to stare into his cold, black eyes. From that moment on, Corey becomes Michael Myers’ Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Corey wears his scarecrow mask and blue jumpsuit to kill Allyson’s former boyfriend and the doctor who didn’t give her a promotion. Corey soon becomes a conduit for Michael, going so far as to wear the very iconic mask to inflict revenge on those who have tormented him in the years since the child died under his care. Corey starts feeling empowered with each killing, which becomes more gruesome as the movie continues. It becomes clear if this evil has always existed within Corey.
Also, Read – Halloween In The Harry Potter Films
Laurie immediately sees a change in Corey after his run-in with Michael, telling fellow Halloween survivor Lindsey (Real Housewives of Beverly Hills’s Kyle Richards) that his eyes reminded her of the Boogeyman’s from the past. She later sees Corey standing outside her window, staring back as Michael once did. She never implies that something supernatural has taken over Corey; she believes his evil side comes from something all too human. She confronts Corey by telling him that there are two kinds of evil in the world. The first one is “an external force that threatens the well-being of the tribe,” but the other “lives inside us,” she tells him. “Like a sickness or an infestation. It’s more dangerous because we may not know we’re infected.”
She even alludes that Corey is in the latter category, that he has chosen to let evil take hold of him. (His hand becomes infected from holding the knife he uses to murder Allyson’s boss.) But this pep talk doesn’t stop him from killing—Corey just becomes more unhinged. Wearing Michael’s stolen mask, he kills his teen tormentors, his mom, and anyone else who gets in his way. He tries to get Allyson to leave town with him, to start afresh, but he can’t outrun his past. Laurie knows it all too well, which is why she’s the only one who can stop Corey- the second coming of Myers.
The Final Showdown
Corey becomes hellbent on killing Laurie, realizing that as long as she’s around, he won’t be able to continue seeing Allyson. Meanwhile, Laurie is struggling with the rift that this relationship is causing between her and Allyson. She appears to be spiraling and calls the police to report a suicide at her home. She goes to her office, lights the jack-o-lantern on her mantle, and grabs a gun from a locked drawer in the desk. While she does this, we see someone watching her from outside the office door. In a tense scene, we see her bring the gun to her head, and just as she pulls the trigger, the camera peers in from beyond the door. Something sticky and gooey splatters on the wall, and the creeper pushes the door open to find a smashed pumpkin on the floor (that was foreshadowed in an earlier scene). Laurie then pops into the frame, pointing the gun at the masked man. “You think I’d kill myself,” she says before pulling the trigger and hitting Michael Myers. But it isn’t Michael she attacks. It was Corey, dressed as Michael.
Laurie doesn’t wish to kill Corey. In fact, she tries to appeal to his better nature to turn himself in for the crimes he’s committed. But the human Corey is gone, and what remains of him decides to stab himself in the throat, killing himself so that Allyson will see her grandmother standing over his dead body and assume it was Laurie who killed him. Thus, Corey decides to take things into his own hands. “If I can’t have her,” he says in reference to Allyson before stabbing himself. Laurie pulls out the knife just as Allyson opens the door entering the house – the scene’s shot and staging now mimic the movie’s very opening. She watches her grandmother stand over her boyfriend’s lifeless body. At that moment, Laurie seems to revert to the helpless, scared teen she was all those years ago. She cowers in the corner, pained by what Michael is doing to her, giving the masked maniac a chance to let her enter her home. The real Michael immediately grabs his mask back from Corey. As he reaches for the knife, Corey awakens and tries to stop him, but to no avail. Whatever power Michael may have had on him, he’s no longer useful to him. He snaps on Corey’s neck and continues on his menacing way, once again repeating the same cycle he started in the late 70s.
Laurie Vs Michael Myers
Laurie seems to sense that Michael is somewhere in the house and hides in a kitchen closet. It’s similar to the final moments in the original Halloween when Laurie attempts to hide from the knife-wielding Michael in a bedroom closet, narrowly escaping by stabbing him with a nearby hanger. We even get brief flashbacks to that film later on. She can jump on him this time, barreling out of the closet with a fire extinguisher in her hand. He manages to stop her from bludgeoning him by throwing off a few good hits. Laurie puts up a strong fight, stopping him from putting her hand in the garbage disposal by hitting his head. She then stabs him with a knitting needle, which leads to Michael having stabbed her in the side of the face with it. Luckily, she grabs a butcher knife and sticks it through his two-fingered hand, the one she shot through in “Halloween” (2018). Stuck and pinned to the butcher block table, Laurie gets on top of him in his vulnerable state and stakes a knife through his other hand. She swiftly pushes the refrigerator on top of him and grabs yet another large butcher knife. Finally, she pulls off Michael Myers’ mask.
Using the knife as a mirror, forcing him to look at himself one last time, she says, “I have run from you. I have chased you. I have tried to contain you. I have tried to forgive you. I thought maybe you were the Boogeyman. No. You’re just a man who’s about to stop breathing.” With that, she slits his throat unflinchingly. At the same moment, his arm goes up and grabs her throat. The two seem destined to die together, and Laurie seems resigned to this fact. “Do it! Do it!” Laurie shouts as he tightens his grip. As she begins to lose consciousness, all her run-ins with Michael flash before her eyes; Laurie finally becomes ready to let go, to end all of this, but Allyson isn’t.
Thanks to a call from Officer Frank Hawkins, Allyson manages to get to her grandmother’s house in time. She runs in and stabs Michael, causing him to let go of Laurie’s neck before breaking his arm to ensure he can’t inflict any more damage. Laurie then takes the knife and cuts Michael’s wrist, slicing open another vein. Despite all the pain he’s caused her, she gently holds his hand as he begins to bleed out. For once, it seems that Michael is dead, but Allyson already knows that Michael tends to pop back to life. Allyson comes up with a plan that not everyone in law enforcement would agree with. She has Frank strap Michael to the top of her car as if he’s some sort of untameable beast so that she can drive him to the autobody shop herself. There, they plan to throw Myers into the car crusher. The drive to the shop becomes an impromptu funeral procession in which the locals join in to make sure the monster is finally put to rest. The funeralgoers include familiar faces from Green’s previous Halloween films that managed to survive Michael’s brutality. They’re not there to fight anymore but to heal. Familiar faces come together in the film’s most cathartic moments as the decade-long tale ends. It’s Laurie that gets to oversee and conduct Michael’s death. She seems to breathe a sigh of relief as she watches his body get crushed into the giant truck and disappear forever.
Halloween Ends- Ending Explained
The movie then flashes forward, though it’s unclear how long it’s been since Michael’s death. We see Laurie sitting in her office, finishing her memoir. With Michael’s death, she’s ready to put his story to bed finally. Her story, however, is one of survival. “I said goodbye to my Boogeyman,” she writes, but evil takes on many different shapes. (One of Michael Myers’s nicknames was “The Shape.”) For now, she’s looking to live a more peaceful life. In the film’s final seconds, she sits on her stoop next to Frank on a block that looks like any other in America. She seems calm and unbothered. The camera makes its way into her home, where everything has been returned to its rightful place. There’s no sign of the previous attack, no evidence that if things had gone differently, Laurie might not be here to enjoy this beautiful day. The only sign that Michael Myers ever existed is his mask, visually showcased in the film’s last shot. The mask is seen propped up onto Laurie’s table, but in bright daylight for once, where it’s not quite as menacing as it once appeared to be.
That final shot of the movie compounds the fact that Michael really appears to be gone, but it’s possible someone else could put on the mask again. By not destroying the mask with Michael Myers, Green might have created a symbolic passing of the torch for anyone who might be bold enough to revive the Boogeyman again. Because in reality, there’s always going to be evil persists in society. Green’s Halloween saga is a reboot, after all, and it’s hard to believe someone else might not want to reimagine this again sooner or later for the later generations. Halloween has always been Laurie Strode’s story, so it feels only fair that she gets the final word on the matter. “They can go off and make however many Halloween movies they want to make now and create a whole new narrative,” Curtis told the New York Times in October. “But our four movies can be played as a perfect quad—these three movies (directed by Green) and 1978—, and I feel very good about completing that.”
Halloween Ends- Themes Explained
As a character in “Halloween Ends,” wonders aloud, was the evil inside Corey always there, or was it put there? That’s been the central question regarding Michael Myers since that night in 1963, and the filmmaker does not consciously attempt to answer it here. However, this film and his prior Halloween films examine the effects of evil and the parallel moments that occur.
In mythical terms, if Allyson has taken Laurie’s role from 1978 and Corey has taken Michael’s. Laurie has become Dr. Loomis: resilient and watchful (Laurie is hard at work on her memoirs, which almost seem like a poetic parallel and philosophical version of Loomis’ psychiatric notes) and able to sense pure Evil. Once Corey is dead, the source of evil returns, and Michael and Laurie have their final confrontation. Michael almost emerges victorious, but Allyson, having come out from under Corey’s hold, helps her grandmother deal fatal blows to Myers. She and Allyson together slice open all his major arteries and veins, letting him bleed out completely before bringing his lifeless corpse outside and tying it to a police vehicle for everyone in the town to see. It’s a purely symbolic move, yet a powerful one.
Halloween Ends- Final Thoughts
When Tod Phillips set out to make “Joker,” he said he wanted to make a movie about “the power of kindness” in a society that he feels lacks empathy. But he ended up making it through a famous character that was already beloved in pop culture. Similarly, it feels that the makers of “Halloween Ends” wanted to make a film about generational trauma and its repercussions on society but settled for a Halloween movie just for the sake of the IP. There are echoes of this turning into a rather interesting different film, for instance, the conversation at the bar that we get where characters talk about societal prejudices and preconceptions of how people are ostracized from a society based on a partly-checked incident. But the movie suffers in its execution, as there’s not even a single meaningful confrontation we see between Corey and Allyson after the former’s complete turn into evil. Well, “Halloween Ends” still makes for an entertaining one-time watch, especially if you’re planning to watch it over Halloween night, partying with your friends.
Also, Read – Halloween Ends (2022) Review: Sincerely Hoping That This Is The End
HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022) MOVIE LINKS – IMDB, ROTTEN TOMATOES
CAST – JAMIE LEE CURTIS, ANDI MATICHAK, JAMES JUDE COURTNEY
