When you put “ends” right there in the title, you’re asking for it. Such is the pickle for David Gordon Green’s trilogy-capper “Halloween Ends.” So, is this really the end of the iconic franchise? Green has a diplomatic answer. “I think evil doesn’t die, it changes shape,” Green told IndieWire. “And that can become something to really think about, the negativity that you could be greeted with at some moment in your day. If you want to take that and dwell on that and exacerbate that and then hand that off to the next person, you can. It can be as infectious as you want it to be or you allow it to be. And if you say, ‘I’m going to greet that hardship, that tragedy, and then I’m going to turn that around, and I’m going to find the lesson and the learning and the misunderstanding or the miscommunication or the love within that lost moment, and turn that into something more meaningful and more positive,’ that’s there too.”
Even if (and that’s a big “if”) this is the end of the series, Green’s films have always asked his audience to consider the impact of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode’s (Jamie Lee Curtis) decades-long battle on the rest of the small town of Haddonfield. That’s one thing that’s not going away, even after the credits roll. “This is embedded in their history and this is what the town now has to rebuild on,” said co-star Andi Matichak, who plays Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson in all three of Green’s films. “Allyson’s trauma from the 2018 massacre, it’s not something that you can just pretend doesn’t exist or bundle up and put it in a drawer and forget that it ever happened, it is part of your story now. It’s up to the individual to figure out and the community to figure out how to heal and how to move forward in a way that is hopefully healthy and productive to living a happy life.” As for Matichak, and for Allyson in particular, this is the end. For now. “There are so many iterations of what an end can be, and it is probably what we had envisioned for everybody and for everybody’s fate,” Matichak said. “For better or for worse and how people end up well or not, it’s a good final chapter for me.” It is also, apparently, a good final chapter for Michael Myers, who is finally killed off in a battle royale with Laurie that Matichak deems “so epic and jarring and exciting.” And that’s not all, because after Laurie (with some assistance from Allyson) slices and dices Michael into seeming oblivion, the two of them take it one step further: they strap him to the roof of Allyson’s car, drive him through town for all to see, and then chuck his body into a massive scrap metal shredder. You see his head explode. It’s pretty clear.
Ryan Green/Universal Pictures Understandably, Green is thrilled to see what the fans think of his alleged end to, if not this entire sprawling series, his little corner of the franchise. (Green’s plan for a single trilogy isn’t just philosophical, because as producer Jason Blum explained to Screen Rant earlier this year, once “Halloween Ends” arrives, it completes Blumhouse Productions’ deal for the franchise, with its rights then reverting back to original producer Malek Akkad.) “I feel like the beauty of these horror movies is we can just go and express ourselves and let it all out,” Green said. “For me, it’s just an incredible creative platform, an opportunity to be rambunctious and do whatever kind of crazy shit comes to my mind, and then there’s a fanbase waiting to devour it in one way or another.” And, as Green previously told IndieWire, he remains open to however people want to devour the film. “I just wanted it to be something people think about and can discuss, and has a degree of ambiguity and uncertainty,” Green said. “That was important to me. As much as this is, in my mind, an eat-some-popcorn-with-your-friends and enjoy a midnight madness, somewhat campy, but also artistically confident genre film, I also like a movie that you can have a conversation about it on the way out. … I love a movie that has those complicated layers and this asks a lot more questions than it answers.” A Universal Pictures release, “Halloween Ends” is now in theaters and streaming on Peacock. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
