First Reaction: Halloween Ends (David Gordon Green, 2023)

Note: This is entirely spoiler free, and is exactly what it says, my first reaction after having finished the film a few minutes before I started writing this. I wouldn't call this a proper "review," because I've stopped believing anyone (which includes me) can properly critique a film after one viewing. 

Imagine my surprise, when the closing credits of Halloween Ends rolled, and I found myself satisfied. The chances are very high this is going to be thoroughly disliked by a large portion of the horror crowd who have very specific expectations for a horror film, a slasher film and a Halloween film. 

In 2018, I went into Halloween (2018) with an open mind, and basically, didn't know what to expect. I'm not going to bore you with my personal history with the franchise, more than to say Carpenter's 1978 original was the film I learned how to learn about film with and through. It was the first time I both obsessed over a film, and had the resources to learn about the process of creating it, its influences, what it then influenced, etc. When David Gordon Green's film was released 40 years later, I was excited to see Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode again. I was excited Carpenter was back to do the score (the scores for all three of these David Gordon Green films are very good). I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It is unwieldy at points and has some definite problems, but I had fun. There were moments when it felt like the Halloween movies I enjoyed growing up. My favorite new addition was the relationship between Laurie and Allyson. The short scenes between Andi Matichak and Jamie Lee Curtis are my favorite moments of writing and character in that film, and I like what they do together, as actors. As much as my previous relationship with the franchise and characters give me a sense of enjoying seeing Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie, those moments between her and Matichak gave me a sense of emotional connection to this particular story which wasn't otherwise there. 

Halloween Kills was not for me. Even now, having seen it a number of times, it feels like it's attempting to be campy, and not pulling it off. Initially, I thought it may have been a result of my expectations, but even after separating myself from those expectations and giving the film a few more tries, it just doesn't work for me. There are some good moments, but what doesn't work overpowers what does, by a large margin. The way it approached "Trauma" felt vaguely exploitative. The problem, for me, is that there isn't any central feeling to the whole affair. It ends up feeling sloppy. Getting a movie made is practically a miracle in the first place, this one just doesn't work for me. To some degree, this also makes sense. Laurie and Allyson's relationship was my favorite part of the first film in this new trilogy, Kills was doomed to disappoint me, because they barely get any time together. 

Now comes Halloween Ends. My expectations were low, frankly. In a way, that may have been good, because as with Halloween (2018), I basically went in without expectations of what I wanted to see. Allyson and Laurie, and their relationship are back at the center of this film, so in that regard, it was likely to be more enjoyable than Kills. Ends is a much more interesting film, on first viewing than Kills, and probably more than Halloween (2018). At the end of Halloween (2018), really all there was to consider was whether the themes and ideas worked, and why Dr. Sartain was in it, at all. There's more going on here, whether or not it's all successful is another story. There is at least some attempt to do something more. 

It's also entirely character driven. Halloween Ends is going to piss off a lot of the fanbase. Even as there is the hack and slash aspect of the events in the story, none of it ever feels as if its there just to satisfy the fans who are going to be angry if it isn't there. I need to see it again to be entirely sure I feel like all of the choices for these characters add up as the film progresses, but on first reaction, I do feel like everything is there. There aren't pieces missing and inexplicable or out characters acting in contradiction to what we've seen from or about them up to that point. It doesn't seem like Green and company were interested in creating a film which was just a fun time at the movies watching a bunch of creative special effects as the result of teens getting slashed up. That aspect of it isn't supposed to be fun. It's supposed to be tragic, and I think it does a decent job of pulling that off. 

I like Allyson's story, as well. I like the way it plays in combination with Laurie's story. I found all of that satisfying. Not world changing or something which I think should be the new standard for film schools or anything, but it was satisfying while I was watching it. Again, this is just a first reaction, if I give this film another viewing (which is likely), I could grow to like it more. I could also start to see cracks I haven't on this first watch too. Either way, I found it satisfying on this first viewing. If anything more comes out of this trilogy of films, I do hope it's Andi Matichak getting more work in roles with enough variety for her to demonstrate her abilities. There are very quick, very small moments in the 2018 film and in Ends where it shines through in decisions she makes about how to play them which shine through, and they feel organic and authentic in a deeper way than most of the films surrounding them, so they get lost, but they are there for anyone to see if they pay attention.  

One of the other things I like about this film is that it rarely feels like the Halloween movies I grew up with. David Gordon Green and company have fulled embraced going in their own direction. There are a few small elements which are callbacks to the original, but this feels much more like they found ways to put those into the film, in keeping with the direction they wanted to go, instead of having those dictate the direction of the film. 

There's a new character, Corey, who gets hist own story, along with Allyson and Laurie. Most of the fan and horror crowd controversy is probably going to center on his story. To avoid spoilers, I'll say this much, no matter how you feel about his story and its place in the Halloween franchise or what it says about the filmmakers intentions for the overall story, Rohan Campbell was very good in the role. 

I do give the filmmakers credit for this one though. It's definitely it's own beast even as its playing with the iconography, mythology and characters of the Halloween franchise. Maybe it's age. Maybe it's just having seen so many reboots, sequels and other IP related films. Maybe it's that I've spent two years actually working on my own fiction. Either way, I can't fault them for going in there own direction. There are going to be plenty of people who are going to say, "This is not a Halloween movie," and in some ways, they're right. This is very different from what's come before in the franchise. I don't mind that though. A lot of what came before in the Halloween franchise isn't very enjoyable to me. Someone, somewhere on the internet will defend each one of them, but a few of them are just downright terrible, in part because of how much they are just soulless retreads of everything that's come before and so cynically centered on serving up nothing but some carnage and maybe, if we were all lucky, they threw in a jump scare. Sure, that can be a fun way to spend 90 minutes with friends, have a few laughs and just enjoy that part of the experience that horror can provide, but it's a LONG stretch to deny they're not well made. 

Halloween Ends isn't that, at all. It's not cynically aping John Carpenter's Halloween either. It's doing its own thing, approaching the mythology, some of the themes and ideas which have been part of the story since the beginning, from its own perspective. As controversial as Rob Zombie's Halloween films are, this is also why I prefer the second of those. It also goes its own way, and does its own thing with the themes and mythology. It doesn't fully work, but it does try to be something different. Halloween Ends succeeds in being something different and I think, succeeds to a larger degree in what it is trying to do and say. It definitively ends this saga too. Does it leave room for a Halloween film to go in a new direction? Could more stories be told using these characters, in this universe? Maybe? It depends on how you take the events in this film, though I would say I don't think it would serve this film well if another followed by picking up what are the bare threads which suggest it as possible. The read on it which suggests this is the end of this saga, for all of these characters, is stronger storytelling to my mind.

I enjoyed it. It was a two hours which neither bored me, insulted my intelligence or anything else and I was genuinely interested in the journey the characters were on. It's not Great Cinema. It's not going to change horror for the next few generations. My first reaction is that it's a generally well made film, doing some interesting things in the world its part of, I don't feel like I want my two hours back and I'm interested in revisiting it to see if it does work as well as I feel it might or if it falls apart when looking at it too closely.