(Streamed via Peacock)
I was not a fan of David Gordon Green’s previous pair of Halloween sequels. Because of that, I had little excitement and next-to-no expectations for Halloween Ends. Maybe it was the lowered expectations, or the fact I knew (or cared) very little about the film’s plot that helped me enjoy it much more than the last two outings. It’s still not “good” exactly, but it’s an interesting (if flawed) attempt to breathe a little life into the franchise.
If you go in expecting a big, action-packed trilogy capper, you are bound to be disappointed. It seems by now that Green’s M.O. from the get-go has been to thwart fans’ expectations. If that really was the case, then Halloween Ends is his master thesis on the subject. It almost feels like the Halloween franchise’s version of Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi as it acts as a deconstruction of the series. A sort of litmus test to see how much you can color outside the line of the franchise while still very much adhering to what makes the franchise work. (The fact that there’s already a petition by angry fans to have the whole movie reshot bears that theory out.)
Without giving too much away, the bulk of the film revolves around Corey (Rohan Campbell), the new Haddonfield urban legend. A couple years ago, the kid he was babysitting for wound up dead in a freak accident. Harassed, bullied (by roving gangs of marching band bullies, no less!), and pushed to the brink, the mixed-up Corey has a fateful run-in with Michael Myers that… Well… you’ll see.
From the very beginning, you can tell Green and Co. are out to subvert our expectations as he uses the same font for the opening title sequence as Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, the first Halloween film to polarize the fanbase because it dared to take Michael Myers out of the equation. Green does a similar bit of redirection here. However, he wisely keeps Michael around (a little bit), allowing for Myers’ legend to still cast a long shadow over the town. It’s an interesting, if only sporadically effective way to go, and certainly a more enjoyable ride than the previous Green-helmed sequels.
However, I can’t help but feel a little shortchanged. We’ve been waiting over forty years for Michael and Laurie’s final face-off. As a payoff to that storyline, it comes up a bit short. I think they should’ve called it Halloween Aftermath. It would’ve been a more fitting title. Although, honestly, this might’ve worked better as a TV show called Haddonfield. It could’ve focused on the characters of the town that have had their lives impacted, shattered, ruined, or poisoned by Myers’ reign of terror. You could’ve brought Jamie Lee Curtis in for the intros (the scenes of her writing her memoirs feel very TV Movie-ish) and spent various episodes fleshing out the new characters. I know John Carpenter always intended to turn Halloween into an anthology, but given the evidence here, it might just work, as long as there is at least SOME connective tissue to the Myers legend.
I didn’t mind the way Green paralleled Corey and Michael’s ascension to boogeyman status. Sure, it’s the old nature vs. nurture deal, but it kinda works. I really liked seeing Laurie opening up a bit and starting a potential romance with the sheriff (Will Patton). The movie could’ve used a lot more of these scenes and less of the Romeo and Juliet stuff with Allyson (Andi Matichak) and Corey. I never really believed they were in love, and the arc of their romance feels forced and rushed.
One thing I did enjoy was seeing Michael taking Corey on as sort of an apprentice. I mean he’s sixty-five years old. He can’t keep on killing forever. It would make sense to for him to train the next generation of psychos. Corey himself sort of has an Anakin Skywalker vibe going on. He even has an understanding girlfriend that doesn’t seem to mind when he slaughters innocents.
Throughout the film, I went back and forth on whether I liked it or not. The longwinded romance scenes in the middle of the flick made me want to give it **, but then, late in the game, we got that great kill scene in the radio station set to The Cramps’ “I Was a Teenage Werewolf”, which is worth at least another Half-Star my book. I mean, if Return of the Living Dead, Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, and Near Dark have taught us anything, it’s that any horror movie can be made even better by including a needle drop on a Cramps song.
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