Set four years after the events of David Gordon Green’s “Halloween Kills,” “Halloween Ends” follows Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she is recovering from the death of her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and her latest altercation with Michael Myers/The Shape (James Jude Courtney). She lives with her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), and is writing a memoir about her life in Haddonfield and how she’s witnessing the once quaint town descend into violence and chaos. Myers is missing. But Haddonfield has found a new boogeyman in Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a 20-something who is accused of killing a kid he was babysitting. Whereas the truth of the matter is that Corey was being pranked by the kid, and he accidentally shoved him down a flight of stairs. However, no one cares about the truth because all they need is a punching bag. One day, Laurie comes across Corey and rescues him from a group of bullies. She attempts to set him on a path of redemption. Sadly, fate has a different plan for him.
Major Spoilers Ahead
How Does Corey Get In Touch With Michael Myers?
After his first altercation with a group of bullies, Laurie nudges Corey in Allyson’s general direction, largely so that Allyson can find someone to go with for the Halloween party and Corey doesn’t feel he is alone in Haddonfield. Luckily (or unluckily), Allyson and Corey instantly forge a connection and decide to accompany each other to the party. While Laurie appears happy about this, Corey doesn’t even talk about it to his parents because his mother, Joan (Joanne Baron), is a helicopter parent, and his father, Ronald (Rick Moose), is too docile to stand up for Corey. That said, Laurie does get a reality check when a woman – who is the relative of one of Michael’s victims – confronts her at the mall and tells her that she’s to blame for provoking Michael’s murder streak.
Despite all the negativity in the air, Corey and Allyson go to the party. It starts with the two of them having a very good time. But when the mother of the deceased kid sees Corey having fun, she berates him until he leaves in a huff. Allyson tries to calm him down, but Corey says she can’t fix him even if she wants to. She’ll always be a survivor in the public eye, and he’ll always be the kid killer. Hence, their friendship is pointless. While walking to his home, Corey comes across the group of bullies again and gets into a fight with them. The group’s ringleader, Terry (Michael Barbieri), ends up throwing Corey from the bridge and then proceeds to flee the scene without checking if he’s dead or alive.
When Corey regains consciousness, he finds himself face-to-face with Michael Myers, trying to choke him to death. But that’s when Myers has a vision of the abuse Corey has faced, and he lets him go. Now, this can seem like a plot device that appears out of the left field. But if you are familiar with the franchise’s tropes, you’ll know that in “The Return of Michael Myers,” “The Revenge of Michael Myers,” “The Curse of Michael Myers,” and even Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II” (to a certain degree), Myers has exhibited psychic/spiritual powers. So, him doing the same in Gordon’s trilogy (which is an extension of the 1978 film) doesn’t necessarily feel like a stretch. Yes, in the previous films, he “bonded” with characters connected to him by blood, which isn’t the case here with Corey. In “Halloween Ends,” the bond is more parasitic in nature as Michael gets stronger at Corey’s expense, and Corey continues to become more and more evil.
Why Does Allyson Decide To Run Away From Haddonfield With Corey?
Laurie notices the change in Corey when he unintentionally stands near her house, just like Michael did back in the day. But when he appears to be apologetic about his behavior with Allyson, she doesn’t address it directly and lets her granddaughter go with him for the time being so that they can hash out their issues. Instead, she goes to Joan to inform her about his son’s relationship with Allyson. I think she went in expecting Joan to do what she couldn’t and refrain Corey from meeting Allyson again. However, the thing with parents like Joan is that they’ll infantilize their kids in private and boast about their qualities (even if the kid doesn’t have them) in public. So, Laurie’s plan of distancing Corey from Allyson backfires on her as she is forced to feel guilty for snatching the one good thing he has right now after suffering years of bullying by the residents of Haddonfield.
At this point, you must be wondering why Corey, a fully-grown man, doesn’t just leave Haddonfield, especially when the place has nothing to give to him. Well, the answer to that is kind of complex and is revealed in his conversation with Allyson at the diner. Allyson is of two minds about leaving Haddonfield because the place is associated with her parents’ death, and she worries that if she leaves, Laurie is going to succumb to her vices again. But her subdued intention to “burn the place to the ground” motivates Corey to do it for her and for himself and then leave with her. The issue, though, is that his parasitic relationship with Michael Myers has started a process that won’t allow him to leave until he resumes the position of the boogeyman again. And maybe that’s something that Corey wants as well. Maybe he doesn’t want to leave the town until he ensures that the aforementioned moniker has shifted back to Myers and isn’t associated with him.
So, after feeding Officer Mulaney (Jesse C. Boyd) – the police officer who keeps harassing Allyson – and Nurse Deb (Michele Dawson) – Allyson’s colleague who is apparently sleeping with their boss to get a promotion and, hence, preventing Allyson from moving up – to Michael, Corey feels that his work is complete, and the real boogeyman is back. He expresses his intention to leave Haddonfield a little strongly to Allyson whilst tugging at her efforts to “fix him,” and she caves in after seeing firsthand how people are going to view their relationship. The departure apparently becomes a little easier for Corey when his mother chucks him out of their house. But then things get difficult again when Laurie confronts Corey to tell him that she’s not going to let him “infect” Allyson’s mind because he is as evil as they come. Corey promises that if he can’t have Allyson, no one can. I think he even asks Laurie to try and kill him by referring to her instinct to do the same to Michael because he’s not going to stop.
‘Halloween Ends’ Ending Explained: What Does Corey’s Turn As The Shape II Signify? Does Laurie Successfully Vanquish The Evil From Haddonfield?
When faced with the threat of death, Corey turns to Michael and essentially becomes him by putting on the iconic mask. He ties up all the loose threads, which is a roundabout way of saying that he kills the bullies, the radio jockey who badmouthed him and Allyson, and his mother. Corey’s father becomes collateral damage, and so does Margo (Joey Harris), i.e., one of the members of the group of bullies. But I don’t think you are supposed to feel all that bad for them because they were silent spectators to Corey’s debacle, and their “neutrality” helped the abusers and facilitated the downhill slide. Anyway, with that out of the way, Corey proceeds to Laurie’s, who is all by herself since Allyson has gone out to meet Corey and go away with him. Laurie baits Corey into thinking that she has killed herself. Corey drops his guard, and Laurie utilizes that moment to not only taunt him but also shoot him in the chest multiple times.
It’s a great character beat because, throughout “Halloween Ends,” Laurie paints this somber image of herself who is writing memoirs, is anxious about Allyson, and is devoid of the spunk that we saw in “Halloween” (both the original and the 2018 sequel). But at that moment, we find out that it’s all a front for her real fighting spirit. She isn’t the kind of person who lets her guard down. Even if she doesn’t look like it, she’s always on her toes and ready to pull a gun on her aggressors. However, the problem is that she isn’t diabolical. That’s why she fails to predict Corey’s next move, which is stabbing himself in the neck before Allyson re-enters the house so that he can fulfill his vow of not letting Allyson belong to anyone if he can’t have her. Allyson falls for this trick as she sees Corey’s dead body in Laurie’s house and Laurie holding a bloody knife and standing over him. She rushes out while Laurie grapples with the fact that she isn’t going to get her back again.
Amidst all this chaos, Michael sneaks in, kills Corey, reclaims the mask, and engages in one of the most brutal fight sequences in American horror history. The police department calls Allyson to let her know that they’ve received a suicide call from her house. Given the circumstances, it seems that Laurie made that fake suicide call well in advance so that the police could converge on her house by the time Corey or Michael got to her. If you’ve seen the previous movies, Michael has a habit of cutting off the telephone lines so that the victim can’t reach out to anyone. Even if he doesn’t do that, it’s quite difficult to quietly avoid a serial killer and make a 911 call at the same time. So, that’s yet another brilliant bit of writing right there. All that said, the fight ends with Laurie pinning Michael down on the kitchen table with knives and dropping an entire refrigerator on his legs. She even slits his throat. But, as we’ve seen numerous times before, Michael fights back and tries to strangle Laurie.
For a brief moment, it seems like Laurie is willing to let Michael strangle her so that the two of them can put an end to their rivalry. But Allyson reaches out and rescues Laurie, and they proceed to bleed Michael to death. When the police arrive, instead of letting them take him to the mortuary, Laurie and Allyson (accompanied by the entirety of Haddonfield) carry Michael to the car-crusher and reduce him to a pile of flesh and bones. As Haddonfield begins to heal, Allyson moves out on her own, and Laurie finishes her memoir. In it, she states that although she has bid goodbye to her boogeyman, the truth is that evil doesn’t die. It only changes shape. “Halloween Ends” concludes with Laurie sitting on the porch with Will Patton (Frank) as Blue Öyster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” starts to play and the mask (the only reminder of Michael’s existence since he doesn’t get a memorial or a tombstone) lies in Laurie’s study room. I don’t think that hints at Laurie’s eventual turn as the next Shape (of evil), but I won’t be surprised if it happens.
To sum it up, David Gordon Green’s take on the “Halloween” franchise is that, like every other quaint town, Haddonfield is a cesspool of evil that pulses through everyone living there. Michael Myers was merely a symptom of that problem. He personified the issue because the evils of that town had been distilled into him, and he was starting to branch out by nurturing a similar rot inside Corey. Luckily, both of them were stopped in their tracks. But does that mean that Haddonfield is completely free of evil? No, not at all. Patton said that it was time for Haddonfield to start healing. It meant that they had just begun the process. They’ve got a long way to go, and they’ve got to learn to work on themselves by introspecting or by going to therapy. They’ve got to stop their witch-hunting and penchant for mob justice. And most importantly, they’ve got to come down from their high horses and learn from the past instead of bringing it back to taunt each other. Only then can they move forward and stop evil from taking another shape.
See More: ‘Halloween Ends’ Review: Toxic Romance, Motherhood, & An Iconic Villain Collide In This Horror Movie
