"You’re just hoping Michael comes back for you."
— Corey Cunningham to Laurie Strode
Halloween Ends is the thirteenth installment of the Halloween series and the direct sequel to Halloween Kills, again produced by Blumhouse Productions and Miramax Films and distributed by Universal Pictures. Director/co-writer David Gordon Green, co-writer Danny McBride, and executive producer/composer John Carpenter return to conclude the revival trilogy that started with Halloween (2018).
Picking up four years after the events of Kills, Michael Myers has vanished after his triumph over the citizens of Haddonfield, and Laurie Strode is now living with her surviving granddaughter Allyson Nelson. Laurie has decided to finally stop living in the shadow of her fear of the Shape and move on with her life, with a personal memoir about her experiences almost finished. Surely enough, Michael makes his inevitable return, and as the bodies start to once again pile up, Laurie is soon driven to finally finish off the man who has haunted her for over 40 years — once and for all.
Meanwhile, Corey Cunningham, a young man with a checkered past of his own, becomes romantically entangled with Allyson. Though Corey appears to be kind, he soon reveals to Allyson that he's struggling to come to terms with an incident he was responsible for a few years ago, which is not helped by the town making him a pariah after the unresolved trauma of Michael's last massacre leads them to think he could be another Boogeyman in the making. Corey tries to maintain a sense of normalcy that his relationship with Allyson provides, but he teeters on taking her with him on his dark path.
Jamie Lee Curtis and James Jude Courtney return as Laurie and Michael for the final time, joined by returning cast members Andi Matichak as Allyson, Will Patton as Officer Hawkins, and Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace.
The film released in theaters on October 14, 2022. Like its predecessor, the film was also released on Peacock the same day and streamed for a 60-day period.
Previews: Official Trailer
, Final Trailer
Halloween Ends contains examples of:
- 1-Dimensional Thinking: Margo tries to escape Corey driving a truck at her by running in a straight line and climbing the scrap yard fence in front of her, although the yard gave her quite some space to run to the sides. She's only just able to get over the fence before she turns around and Corey rams her, pinning her underneath it, although even before impact she elects to cling to the fence and scream rather than dart to the side.
- Aborted Arc: The previous films set up Hawkins as having been wracked with guilt for saving Michael's life back in 1978, and having now sworn to "be the one to kill him," yet his entire arc in this film is wanting to take a trip to Japan, and he never meets Michael again.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: Michael's sewer lair is a surprisingly large chamber with enough erosion to look like a cave in some places (the soundtrack piece playing over its introduction is actually named "The Cave"). It appears to be part of the storm drain system, giving it some natural light and possibly explaining its size.
- Abusive Parents: Corey's mom is very possessive and mercurial with her son. She even kisses him on the lips briefly at one point, showing a possible incestuous subtext.
- Accidental Murder:
- As depicted in the opening scene, Corey was locked into a room by the kid he was babysitting as a prank. Once he managed to kick the door open, the boy was on the other end and ended up being sent flying, falling several stories to his death. Corey was acquitted on trial, but many people won't let him forget the incident.
- As Terry tries shooting at Corey, Corey's uncle stands in the way and ends up Taking the Bullet to his head.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Whether or not Corey had a Heel Realization, and him fighting Michael off was intended to illustrate him both coming to his senses and turning on his "mentor" to try and make up for all the killings he committed under his influence, his death is treated with empathy in the end, as he's ultimately nothing more than someone tragically manipulated and used by Michael.
- All There in the Manual: The novelization presents a lot more information about what happened between the end of Kills and the start of Ends.
- Terry is revealed to be a grandson of Ben Tramer.
- Following the end of Kills while he is on his way out of Haddonfield, Michael kills two garbage truck workers and steals their vehicle. Then he comes across an abused girl and corrupts her into killing her asshole father before residing at a meat packing plant. The following year, he kills the girl whom Cameron kissed back in the first film of the trilogy along with her new boyfriend. Said girl, Kimberly, manages to wound Michael's already injured arm even more with a metal rod before being killed, and due to having to follow her all the way to the sewers Michael decides to lay down there. He also corrupted the fellow Smith Grove inmate into taking care of him by bringing animals and humans alike to devour. To make things even worse, the novelization also implies that Michael resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
- It turns out the person Corey murdered in self-defense was actually the pawn of Michael who, like Corey himself, used to abduct and bring people for Michael to kill; this almost happens to Corey too before he manages to fight back. That person was another Smith Grove inmate who was used as a guinea pig for Dr. Sartain's experiments involving Michael and as result he started to treat Michael like a God and viewed himself as his disciple.
- Sheriff Barker has resigned following the events of the first two films, with another guy named Nate Scott taking the job.
- Corey's mother is murdered on page, but strangely it's done by Michael rather than Corey himself.
- The whole town of Haddonfield has been in decline ever since the massacre, with many people viewing Michael as a natural force to be summoned to kill every Halloween.
- The reason Corey is able to overpower Michael and steal his mask so easily is because the latter tries to grab him by the throat and intimidate him the same way he did earlier... only to fail because of evil that had been poured into Corey is too strong to siphon out initially. It's not until Corey is gravely wounded later when Michael finally reclaims his strength.
- It is revealed that Laurie tried to hire a cop to have Michael killed back in 1982. Similarly, Dr. Sam Loomis also revealed that another patient went insane and killed two guards before committing suicide, with his eyes resembling the ones of Michael's before his death. In addition, Dr. Sartain is revealed to have deliberately placed other inmates near Michael to see how would they behave. As a result, there is an implication that Michael's evil is ultimately the corrupting force that seeps into other people who already have dark desires and drives them into killing. Said force takes hold on Corey and is implied to have affected Laurie as well by the end.
- Alliterative Name: Corey Cunningham. This is one of many things he has in common with Michael Myers.
- Artistic License – Music: The drummer in the marching band posse that harasses Corey is carrying drumsticks that are not only uncoverednote , but also appear to be skinnier sticks more suited for playing a drum set than a marching snare drum.
- As Long as There Is Evil: One of the film's main themes is that, even though Michael Myers is Deader than Dead, the evil he represented was in no way unique to him. He just happened to be really good at it.Laurie: Evil doesn't die. It changes shape.
- Asshole Victim: Most of the victims in this movie more than qualify, with the only exceptions being Ronald, Margo, and Willy's receptionist.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- Knowing full well that Corey is watching her, Laurie calls 911 to report her own suicide and is seen holding her gun to her chin before disappearing offscreen. We hear a gunshot...but rather than blood and brains, pumpkin guts splatter on the wall behind her, and when Corey arrives, she turns the gun on him, thus letting him know it was an elaborate setup.
- A meta-example with the trailer versus the actual film. The trailer sets up the film up primarily around a big, final showdown between Laurie and Michael, while the film itself barely has Michael in it at all, has hardly any serious horror, focuses largely on characters and relationships, contains a film-specific main character who represents the toxicity of Michael-obsessed fans, and features the final confrontation between Laurie and Michael as more of an epilogue to the overall story rather than its climax. The trailer is fanservice, and the film is a quiet, introspective study of the series' themes — one that could even be said to take misguided fans to task in that it throws for a loop the sections of the Halloween fanbase who aren't there for the themes of what the franchise story is truly about nearly as much as they are for the bloodbaths.
- Batman Gambit: How Corey lures the teenagers to their doom. At the gas station they initially harassed him at, they come out to find that Corey has keyed the word "PSYCHO" into the hood of their car. He sticks around just long enough to see their reaction before taking off on his motorcycle, and Terry's enraged insistence for the group to go after him leads them to the scrap yard, where Corey kills them all.
- Berserk Button: Michael still does not like it when you try to take his mask. He oddly liked, or at least tolerated, Corey until he stole it. Meanwhile, he's so incensed when Laurie takes it off of him in their final confrontation that he briefly gets a second wind, despite suffering from multiple likely-fatal stab wounds.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Maybe. There are a few moments where Corey and Michael seemingly team up for kills. However, Corey eventually overpowers Michael to steal his mask and attempts to cement himself as the new boogeyman, putting an end to whatever partnership they may have had. When Corey gets in the way of Michael's killing later, he is swiftly rewarded with a Neck Snap.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Played With. Corey grows into a formidable killer, even managing to overpower an albeit weakened Michael Myers, but once he goes to attack Laurie, he can't even touch her. Then for an added bonus, as he lays badly wounded, Michael returns and finishes Corey off with a Neck Snap.
- Big Damn Heroes: Laurie holds her own against Michael for a long while, but he eventually has her in a fierce, one-handed chokehold that she can't break. As it begins to appear that the end of the road is on the horizon for her, Allyson rushes in with a scream and breaks the arm Michael was used to strangle her, which enables Laurie to regain the upper hand.
- Big "NO!": Allyson yells one as she intervenes in Laurie and Michael's showdown when Michael attempts to strangle Laurie.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Allyson's colleague Deb is introduced being very warm and friendly to both Allyson and Corey, but slowly through the movie she shows her true colors. She mocks Allyson for falling in love with Corey and compares it to if Laurie had fallen in love with Michael, and she is promoted over Allyson for what is revealed to be an affair with their boss.
- Bittersweet Ending: Michael Myers finally dies — with his body being destroyed beyond recognition so he won't come back — and Laurie and Allyson both survive the massacre and manage to reconcile with each other. But a lot of people are still dead or traumatized by the massacres, and Laurie muses that, with Corey's turn to violence in mind, the kind of evil that created Michael will always exist. It's even worse in the novelization where Laurie is implied to have become corrupted due to Michael passing some of his evil to her via a chokehold, making her a recluse person by the end.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Inverted when compared to Kills, but played straight compared to the original film. While the violence is still R-rated, very few deaths involve gore and dismemberment; some of them even happen offscreen. The only exceptionally gruesome death is the DJ, whose jaw is completely broken and whose tongue gets cut off. Otherwise, the violence is comparable to the original Halloween, just with a bit of extra blood.
- Book Ends:
- Corey's Start of Darkness came about after Michael grabbed him by the throat and the two locked eyes, ending in Corey being spared. Corey's arc ends with him yet again at Michael's mercy, but this time Michael has no intention of sparing him, and the Shape's black, empty eyes are the last thing Corey sees before he's finished off with a Neck Snap.
- The original Halloween ended with Michael Myers disappearing and Laurie traumatized by the events of the evening, followed by a montage of all the places Michael had been earlier that night while his heavy breathing is heard. This movie ends with Michael's corpse thrown into a junk grinder and Laurie and her granddaughter finally healing from their trauma, followed by a montage in near-complete silence in Laurie's home, with the final shot being Michael's mask on a table. However, over the montage, his breathing can still be faintly heard in the distance...
- Boom, Headshot!: As Corey's uncle Ronald tries to help Margo, who's pinned under the scrap yard fence, Terry sees Corey standing a short distance away and prepares to shoot him with a rifle Ronald gave him. Unfortunately, Ronald stands up to face Terry, putting his forehead right in Terry's line of fire as he pulls the trigger.
- Bratty Half-Pint: Jeremy acts pretty obnoxiously to Corey. This behavior directly leads to his accidental death.
- Bring It: In the first trailer, as Michael rounds a corner where Laurie is hiding, Laurie can be heard saying, "Come and get me, motherfucker."
- But Now I Must Go: At the end of the film, Allyson leaves Haddonfield, something that she and Corey promised to do, as a way to move on from things.
- Call-Back:
- Halloween (1978):
- Throughout much of the film, Laurie wears the same blue jean & blue button-up outfit that she wore in the original film.
- At one point, Laurie looks out her window to see Corey standing and looking up at her menacingly from behind a bush. This mirrors a famous scene in the original where Laurie looks out her window to see Michael doing the same from behind a clothesline.
- Deb is killed by being pinned to the wall by a knife while Michael cocks his head at her, the exact same way he killed Bob in the original movie.
- At another point in the second trailer, Laurie is shown leaning against a door frame while Michael stands up behind her, in a recreation to another scene from the original movie.
- The scene in which Corey kills his mother is shot in the same first-person POV style as the opening scene of the original film where Michael kills his sister. It also includes a beat of Corey opening a kitchen drawer to retrieve a knife just like Michael, pointing towards it being a direct homage.
- Laurie's final fight with Michael in this film includes her attempting to stab him with a knitting needle, as she did in the original. However, while she successfully blindsided Michael the first time, Michael's already a step ahead now, perhaps having learned from experience, and catches Laurie's hand to drive the needle into her ear.
- Like the original movie, this movie closes on a series of empty scenery shots with Michael's breathing audible in the background. However, the shots are of Laurie's home rather than the Haddonfield neighborhood, and the breathing is far fainter than in the original, implying less that he will return and more that although he is dead, the spirit of evil that he embodied will never fully be gone.
- The credits are scored to Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) the Reaper," which played in the first movie.
- Halloween Kills:
- Once again, Michael kills Allyson's boyfriend, who is already mortally wounded, by snapping his neck.
- Halloween (1978):
- The Cameo: Nick Castle, who played Michael Myers in the original film as well as in a few scenes of the 2018 film, appears briefly at the Halloween Party as an old man dressed as a flasher who Corey bumps into. He also cribs Linda's "See anything you like?" line from the original, just to drive the gag home.
- Diana "Darcy the Mail Girl" Prince appears as the receptionist Corey kills.
- Car Fu: Corey rams the scrap yard's fence right as Margo finishes climbing over it, only giving her enough time to watch him plow into her. She ends up pinned underneath the fallen gate.
- Central Theme: One can invite evil into their life without even knowing, which can infect one's life and rot it from within. After the events of Halloween Kills, various murders, suicides and other tragedies occur the following year that allude to a once peaceful community falling apart due to Michael's corrupting influence. Various characters in the film try to pin the blame of Michael's rampage in 2018 onto Laurie for "provoking" Michael in an effort to make sense of what happened. Corey kills Jeremy accidentally when he was hired by the boy's parents as a babysitter, and it was Laurie who had introduced Corey to Allyson, inadvertently leading to him becoming a spree killer like Michael. By the end, Corey stealing Michael's mask leads to him inviting the boogeyman back to Laurie, Michael killing him for it and Laurie and Allyson killing Michael once and for all.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Several establishing shots of the scrap yard Corey works at put emphasis on a metal shredder in use. Michael's body is eventually disposed of in that same shredder in a town-wide ritual.
- Laurie's fire extinguisher and faulty microwave. Allyson uses the fire extinguisher early on in the film to douse a flaming pie that Laurie left in the oven too long, and later the microwave is shown blowing up any food put in it. When Michael finally comes for Laurie in her house, she sticks a plate of food in the microwave to distract him when the food blows up and then disarms him with the fire extinguisher.
- Contrived Coincidence: In the prologue, Jeremy's parents live in a three-story mansion and are shown to be rich, upper-crust society types. As such, there would be no reason for Jeremy's fortysomething mother to be frequenting a party bar meant for twentysomethings later in the film. Obviously, the plot required it so she could spot Corey, berate him, and further his spiral into depression, but if she felt like morosely drinking alone (which is all we see her doing — she makes no attempt to join in on the festivities), Haddonfield (which is big enough to have its own radio and TV stations) would have much more appropriate bar/lounges for someone of her age and social standing. On the other hand, this could be an indicator that whatever strain happened to Jeremy’s parents following his death also involved them losing their wealth.
- Crazy Homeless People: Corey gets dragged into Michael Myers' lair, but escapes. On his way out, a homeless man who had been living near the lair threatens him with a knife and angrily demands to know why he is still alive while calling him a little shit and ordering him to go back inside. He finishes his speech with, "I'm Michael Myers." Corey is forced to kill him to get away.
- Create Your Own Villain: Depending on your viewpoint, it can be said that Haddonfield essentially makes Corey a killer by relentlessly abusing him for Jeremy's death. Multiple characters even imply this in conversation.Mrs. Cunningham: After your boogeyman disappeared, they needed a new one!
Mr. Allen: Did the town do this to him after the accident? Or was it always there? - Continuity Nod: Sondra, the graveyard attendant whose husband was butchered by Michael near the start of the last film, and who was herself stabbed in the throat, is revealed to have survived, albeit mute and in a wheelchair. At the end, she and Julian, Vicky's babysitting charge in the 2018 film, are among the Haddonfield residents who come to see Michael's body finally being disposed of.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: To a lesser extent. Most of the kills here are the standard Halloween fare (slashes or stabs with knives), but a few kills stand out, such as Terry getting his face burned off with a blow-torch, Billy getting stabbed in the eyes with his own drumsticks, and everything that Michael is subjected to — pinned to a table by having knives driven through his hands, legs crushed by a refrigerator, stabbed in the chest, throat and wrists slit, and finally turned into gibs by a giant grinder.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: After decades of preparing for Michael and several run-ins with the killer himself, Laurie has no trouble taking on Corey, who unlike Michael is very much not Immune to Bullets.
- Darkest Hour: Near the end of the film. Laurie defends herself from Corey after his murder spree, but he attempts to kill himself just to spite her and to drive a wedge between her and Allyson — which it then does, as Allyson assumes that she killed him in cold blood. She drives off and Laurie is devastated. And then Michael sneaks into the house…
- Dead Guy on Display: After finally killing Michael, Laurie and Allyson are allowed to drive him all around town before disposing of the body, to show the people of Haddonfield that their boogeyman is not only mortal, but also is finally, truly dead.
- Deader than Dead: Michael Myers is mutilated, has his legs crushed, gets stabbed multiple times in the chest, gets his throat and wrist slit as well as his arm broken, and finally has his body mulched into bits by a car shredder on screen. Michael Myers is definitely, decisively not coming back, hence the title of the film.
- Deadly Prank: The movie opens with one that ends up killing the prankster. Seeing Corey scared, the kid he babysits attracts him to a dark room and locks him within, all while taunting Corey with shouts of "Michael Myers is coming for you!" Unfortunately, once Corey breaks out, he accidentally pushes the boy with enough force for him to topple over the balcony and fall to his death.
- Death of a Child: Corey causes the death of Jeremy by accident. It's as traumatic for him as it is for Jeremy's parents, and though he is legally cleared of the accusation that he deliberately killed Jeremy, the people of Haddonfield keep reminding him of it and harassing him for it, brandishing him as "the psycho babysitter." The dead boy's mother is firmly among this group, flying into a fury at Corey when she finds him partying in a bar, but the father admits that he pities how Corey's been treated and attempts to be more reasonable. However, it seems like Corey is too far gone down the dark path by this point.
- Death Seeker: Laurie fully expects Michael to kill her off during the final confrontation, even daring him to choke her to death. However, Allyson steps in and breaks his arm, allowing Laurie to deal the final blow.
- Demoted to Extra:
- Sheriff Barker only has one scene at the end of the film and one line in said scene, despite being a more important player in the previous two films. However, his role is something of a Small Role, Big Impact, since he approves of the destruction of Michael's corpse.
- Lindsey Wallace is featured in only 2 or 3 scenes after being a much more prominent, active character in Halloween Kills.
- Dented Iron: While never said outright, age and injuries have caught up to Michael heavily in the movie. While still lethal, he needs Corey's help to kill a cop he lures to Michael. Later in the movie, Corey overpowers Michael and steals his mask, and Laurie is able to eventually mortally wound and pin him down on her own. Overall, he performs only a few of the kills in the movie, with most going to Corey.
- Dirty Old Man: Dr. Mathis is sleeping with the much younger Nurse Deb and gives her a promotion over Allyson because of it.
- Dog-Kicking Excuse: Most of the townspeople who bully Corey are just using Jeremy’s death as an excuse to channel their cruelty at an easy target. Even Jeremy’s father mentions that they took his son's tragic death and made it about themselves.
- Doing In the Wizard: As part of its theme the film comes down firmly on the "mundane" side of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane zigzagging on Michael Myers. He's feeling his age and untreated injuries and ultimately dies from blood loss. Controversial with fans as if Michael is human, most of his injuries from the prior film are barely or not survivable with medical treatment, let alone all together and without.
- Dramatic Shattering: In one scene, Corey buys a small glass bottle of chocolate milk from a gas station. As he walks out, he runs into a group of teens, with one of them (Terry) trying to pressure him to buy beer for the group. When he says no, they recognize him from Jeremy's death and begin taunting him, which leads him to unconsciously break the bottle in his hand from his anger.
- Dramatic Unmask: As she's killing Michael, Laurie takes off his mask. While it's never filmed from the front to give a clear look to his face, his full head can be seen, even prompting her to note, "I thought you were the boogeyman... But you're only a man."
- Drink-Based Characterization: Corey is shown to have a liking for chocolate milk on two occasions — grabbing a jug out of the fridge at Jeremy's house, and buying a bottle of it at a gas station. Interestingly, both occasions occur just before something bad happens to him.
- Due to the Dead: A variation. Instead of a conventional funeral, there's a service of sorts where the people of Haddonfield follow Laurie and Allyson to the junkyard where they destroy Michael's corpse. Unlike most examples, this is not a matter of paying respects to the dead so much as ensuring that a collective source of trauma is finally killed for good.
- Ear Ache: During her climactic fight with Michael, Laurie (once again) attempts to attack him with a knitting needle. However, Michael catches her hand and drives the needle into her left ear.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: For Laurie Strode. After all the fear and trauma she endured from Michael Myers, she finally kills the boogeyman who has haunted her for most of her life. Through her memoir and her relationship with Hawkins, she is able to finally come to a place of peace. Allyson knows her grandmother is safe and can leave Haddonfield to live her life in the world
- End of an Era: Unlike the previous Halloween films, this one doesn't end on the Halloween theme, instead ending with "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." It's fitting, given how Michael is finally gone for good.
- The End... Or Is It?: The very last seconds of the film show still images of Laurie's house with Michael's very faint breathing over the top, suggesting that, though Michael himself may be gone, the evil that he represented will never truly die.
- Everyone Has Standards: One of the bullies, Stacy, is gleeful in mocking Corey but has a horrified reaction when Terry throws him over a bridge.
- Excellent Judge of Character: Unlike his mother, Jeremy’s father sees through his grief that Corey could not have harmed his son on purpose and that it was an accident. He’s also keen on the fact that something dark has come over Corey in the three years that passed since then, and he’s not the same person anymore.
- Eye Scream: Terry finds Billy's body with his own drumsticks stabbed through the eyes.
- Fingore: Subverted. At one point in their climatic showdown, Michael grabs Laurie's hand and tries to force it into a garbage disposal, presumably as revenge for her shooting off several of his fingers, but she manages to get out of the situation.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the showdown between Michael and Laurie, Michael manages to free a hand Laurie had pinned to the table with a knife (ripping open the top of it in the process) and begins strangling her. As she goads him to follow through on killing her, we flash back through a rapid montage of encounters between the two across the original Halloween and this trilogy's past installments. The montage ends with Allyson getting a decisive lick in on Michael in the ending of the 2018 Halloween...at which point Allyson arrives in time to break Michael's arm.
- Foreshadowing:
- Corey's villainous turn is foreshadowed by his dismissive attitude when it comes to babysitting. Previous representations of this relationship (Laurie, Vicky, etc.) showed the babysitters and their charges getting along quite well, with the worst being some snarky banter between Vicky and Julian. However, in comparison, Corey puts on an obviously inappropriate movie for Jeremy and the kid is nothing less than a complete ass toward Corey. Later, Corey also slowly walks up to the attic when he hears screams, a stark difference to when Vicky frantically ushered Julian away in Halloween (2018).
- Corey and Allyson discuss a metaphorical desire to burn Haddonfield down to be free from their bad experiences there. Corey takes this idea literally; after killing Kid Willy, he sets fire to the shock jock's radio station. Seeing the blaze as she drives away from Laurie's house is what makes Allyson realize just how twisted Corey had become.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Corey goes from a sweet, shy, and bullied young man to a full-on Michael Myers copycat.
- Good Stepmother: Corey's uncle is much nicer than his mother, giving him advice on how to avoid pissing her off and giving him some friendly advice about love. By the end of the film, he ends up being the only victim who isn't killed by Corey or Michael, as he is accidentally shot dead by Terry.
- Gory Discretion Shot: In a noticeable stylistic change for a trilogy defined by its gory elements, this film visually downplays or cuts away entirely from several kills. Corey kills the radio station receptionist in the blurry distance of a shot, the shot in which he takes a blowtorch to Terry's face is focused on Margo's horrified reaction, and Stacy, Billy, and Corey's mom are all Killed Offscreen.
- Grand Finale: The film serves as the conclusion of the revival trilogy and indeed the entire tetralogy, formally ending the conflict between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers once and for all in the official, John Carpenter-approved storyline.
- Hand Wave: The only justification we get for Allyson never moving away from Haddonfield is her saying, "All my memories are here."
- Hate Sink: The teenagers who bully and torment Corey are depicted as thoroughly unlikable assholes who ultimately track him down and toss him off an overpass. Margo is the only one who seems to have any sympathy, and she does little to stop their antics.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Of sorts. The majority of the runtime is spent on Corey Gaining the Will to Kill before ambushing Michael Myers, stealing his mask and going on a rampage. However, Laurie takes care of him fairly easily and Michael returns to be the Final Boss of the film.
- Hit Me, Dammit!: Laurie deliberately leaves her door unlocked as though baiting Michael into coming for her in particular, although the one who comes in is Corey dressed as Michael.
- Hospital Hottie: Both Allyson and her friend Deb are attractive nurses, although they wear realistic scrubs rather than the classic sexy uniform.
- Hypocrite: The townspeople, who blame Laurie for Michael's murders as they believe she egged on a mentally ill man until he snapped, yet have no problem tormenting her or Corey, who eventually snaps from all the abuse the town throws at him and goes on a rampage himself.
- Idiot Ball: Some might find it pretty hard to swallow that Allyson wouldn't see the warning signs for Corey going down a "dark path," to the point that she believes him (a guy she just met) instead of Laurie (who she's basically known all her life), and who's the resident expert on all things evil and Michael-ish.
- If I Can't Have You…: Corey doesn't take Laurie's rejection of his relationship with Allyson well, outright telling her that if he can't have her, no one will. Once Laurie has him pinned to the ground and calls him out on deceiving her granddaughter, Corey says "If I can't have her..." again before stabbing his own jugular.
- It's All About Me:
- Allyson, so much so that she seems more overly obnoxious and selfish compared to her prior appearances in the sequel trilogy. Laurie, who she once had a good relationship with, tries to point out the oddities in Corey's behavior after she begins seeing him. However, she refuses to hear anything bad about him, always countering with how good he is to her, how he's as much a tragic victim of circumstance as she was, and how he's made her happy for the first time in a long time, on top of also blaming Laurie for ruining her life by causing her friends' and family's deaths.
- Jeremy's father voices his disgust at how the people of Haddonfield have taken the tragedy of his son's death and made it about themselves by giving themselves free rein to harass Corey.
- Jack the Ripoff: Much like Roy Burns before him, Corey becomes one to Michael Myers. Corey's plan by the end is to leave Haddonfield with Allyson and remove anyone who stands in the way of that. To this end, he steals Michael's mask to commit a spree of copycat murders that would inevitably go down as another Michael Myers massacre, ending with the death of Laurie, and allowing him and Allyson to be together. Of course, the plan falls apart once he actually goes for Laurie, who easily outwits him and fills him with holes.
- Jerkass Realization: Allyson is quite cold to Laurie over the course of the film, antagonizing her for trying to warn her about Corey and blaming her for the tragedy and trauma that has stricken her life. When Corey frames Laurie for his murder, Allyson falls for it hook, line and sinker, but seeing the radio station ablaze as she drives away from Laurie's home makes her realize the truth. This motivates her to rush back in time to help Laurie defeat Michael, and she admits later on that Laurie had Corey's number as an untrustworthy murderer all along.
- Kill the Cutie: Margo is the nicest member of the group of teenagers that torment Corey and the only one who actually takes pity on him, so it's a little startling when she's killed by Corey stomping her head in and then driving over her corpse.
- Lampshade Hanging: In the cold open, Corey teasingly tells Jeremy, "Boogeyman's gonna get you!" Jeremy replies with "He's not gonna get me. Michael Myers kills babysitters, not kids." One scene later, Jeremy is missing, a lamp has been knocked over, and Corey takes time to stand the lamp back up and fix the lampshade. Michael doesn't kill kids, but Corey isn't Michael.
- The Last Dance: Michael and Laurie's final confrontation ends up being this. Michael's age and injuries from the prior films are taking their toll, leaving him weakened beyond repair, and Laurie is at an emotional low point, believing that her granddaughter is never coming back. Neither of them has anything left to lose, so it doesn't matter if they both die trying to kill each other.
- Leitmotif: Corey has one in classic "spooky" music Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, specifically the first three notes. Jeremy's father plays the full melody during the first scene, and Corey awkwardly plinks the first 3 notes on both his return trips to the house. Non-diegetically, the same three notes appear on occasion in the soundtrack during many of Corey's scenes.
- Lighter and Softer: After the Bloodier and Gorier tone of Kills, this movie takes a more ambitious and atmospheric/supernatural tone in comparison and is more on the level of the 2018 film. However, there are still some gory kills near the end, and the film is much gloomier and more downbeat, lacking most of the Black Comedy of its forebears.
- Made of Plasticine: Margo survives being hit with a truck and pinned under a chain-link fence, but her head caves in like a pumpkin after one stomp from Corey.
- Make Sure He's Dead: After seemingly killing Michael, Laurie opts to make absolutely certain by having his corpse destroyed by a car crusher.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Both Defied and Played Straight.
- On the one hand, after over forty years of speculation as to whether Michael Myers was or wasn't the boogeyman, this film reveals he was, truly, mortal, with most of his seeming supernatural-ness coming from people's fear and paranoia being projected onto him.
- On the other hand, Corey's first interaction with Michael can either be interpreted as Michael sensing a likeness to himself in Corey due to all he's been through or as a supernatural evil passing from Michael to Corey, corrupting him.
- The scene where Michael kills Doug. He was weak during the confrontation, but after killing him, he seems to stand up straighter and move better for the rest of the movie. This can either be Michael getting his groove back or literally gaining strength from the kill like Laurie speculated he could do in the previous movie.
- Misplaced Retribution:
- Corey kills two guys and the girlfriend of one of them who had all bullied him...and also kills Margo, the only teenager in the group who refused to bully him, by stomping on her head. She may have done little to actually stop the bullying, but it still seems cruel and unfair.
- Corey also kills the receptionist at the radio station when his target was only the DJ.
- Mythology Gag:
- There are multiple references to Halloween III: Season of the Witch:
- The opening and end credits use the same font and color as the opening and end credits of Season of the Witch.
- Dr. Mathis is very similar to Dr. Challis, the protagonist of Season of the Witch, in that he too is a doctor who has an illicit relationship with a younger woman.
- Season of the Witch is infamously known as the sequel without Michael Myers, although he does have a cameo when Dr. Challis watches the original Halloween at the bar. Similarly, Michael has a relatively diminished role in this film, playing a supporting role as Corey's mentor.
- As in Halloween: Resurrection, Michael is reduced to eking out an existence in Haddonfield's sewers, only being provoked back into murder when someone invades what little he calls home.
- The film also bears quite a few similarities to Halloween II (2009), with Michael having lived as a hermit for a few years by the time of the movie's events, a main character's book being a part of the plot, and perhaps most notably, both it and Halloween II are the only ones in the franchise where Michael is clearly killed at the end (unless you also count Halloween II (1981) where he suffered a permanent death that was retconned in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers), and both times by Laurie to boot if one takes the theatrical ending of the latter into account.
- There are multiple references to Halloween III: Season of the Witch:
- Neck Snap: How Michael kills Corey, who wasn't quite dead as initially thought despite stabbing himself in the neck.
- Never My Fault: After Terry throws Corey off a bridge, much to the horror of some of the people tagging along with him (Margo, established as the relatively nice and empathetic one in the group, and Stacy, who was on-board with Terry's past acts but was even shocked by this), he repeatedly insists that Corey fell on his own and that he "didn't push nobody."
- Never Trust a Trailer: The trailers for the movie focused heavily on the final confrontation between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. While this is important to the end of the film, this decision to emphasize on what is just one short part of the film hides a lot about the rest of the story and does little to convey that Corey Cunningham is the central figure in setting the events of the plot in motion. Corey's presence in the marketing was downplayed despite the central plot of the film involving his deteriorating mental state as a result of being blamed for an accidental death and finding Michael Myers. Fans were less than pleased.
- New Old Flame: It's implied that Laurie and Officer Hawkins rekindle their romance at the end of the film.
- Not Quite Dead:
- Sondra, one of Michael's victims in Kills, is revealed to have narrowly survived — though she's left mute by what he did to her.
- After stabbing himself in the throat with a knife, Corey has just enough life left in him to try to stop Michael from grabbing the knife before Michael breaks his neck.
- Not What It Looks Like:
- In the opening, Jeremy's parents arrive home to hear Corey yelling that he's going to kill Jeremy, then shortly after see their son fall several stories to the floor, dying with his face covered in blood, as Corey watches from above with a knife in his hand. In actuality, Corey yelling was him being angry and scared from Jeremy locking him in a dark room, Jeremy fell because Corey accidentally kicked a door in his face (which also is why his face was covered in blood), and he had a knife because he picked it up (finding it ominously abandoned on the stairs) in case he needed to defend himself from a possible home intruder.
- Allyson arrives at Laurie's home only to find her standing above a dying Corey with a bloody knife in her hand. In actuality, Corey had just plunged the knife into his throat to frame her for his murder, and Laurie had pulled it out in shock. While Allyson screams at Laurie and drives away without giving her a chance to explain, her seeing the radio station on fire makes her realize that her grandmother didn't murder Corey, and she goes back to help her.
- Odd Friendship: Strangely enough, Michael gets along with Corey, or at least possesses no initial willingness to do harm to him, unlike literally anyone else. It's not until Corey attacks Michael so he can steal his mask that things go sour between the two of them.
- Outliving One's Offspring:
- The film confirms that Karen did indeed die by Michael's hands at the end of the previous film, thus predeceasing Laurie.
- Corey accidentally kills Jeremy Allen, the boy he is babysitting, while his parents are attending a Halloween party. He is cleared of all charges, but the folk of Haddonfield refuses to let him live it down, thus setting off the events of the film.
- Terry, the leader of the teen group that bullies Corey, is brutally burned to death in the third act, outliving his father whom we briefly see earlier on.
- Passed-Over Promotion: When Allyson is in line for a promotion at the hospital, it ends up going to her colleague Deb just because she's sleeping with their boss.
- Pay Evil unto Evil: Corey is already dying of a self-inflicted neck wound, but then Michael arrives and ensures he'll inflict some painful final moments to the guy who beat him, stole his mask, and is slowing him down from going after Laurie.
- Rasputinian Death: Laurie stabs and slices Michael repeatedly to make sure he bleeds to death — and in between, he even manages to get one hand free to attempt strangling her. Once the body is immobile, it's taken to the scrap yard and put into a metal shredder, as after all, It's the Only Way to Be Sure he won't return.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Sheriff Barker, in his sole scene in the film, okays the idea of Laurie and Allyson driving Michael's dead body around the town before disposing it in a junk grinder. Typically this would be wildly illegal, but it gets a pass because he saw how Michael brought the worst out in the town, and this is the closest thing that they can get to a catharsis over generations of tragedy.
- Red Right Hand: After Corey first encounters the high school students, he accidentally gets cut with a bottle after they provoke him with his tragic backstory. Laurie takes him to Allyson to help stick up his wounds, managing to keep it from being infected. After Corey slips into villainy and starts killing people, Allyson notes that the wound is infected, the idea of evil being an "infection" that corrupts Corey being a metaphor used by Laurie.
- Rejected Apology: Played with. When Laurie is out grocery shopping, she crosses paths with a woman outside the store who starts yelling at her. Confused, she asks, "I'm sorry?" — as in, "Who are you and what are you talking about?" The woman gets even angrier and yells that "sorry" isn't good enough before revealing she is one of the many people who blame Laurie for Michael's previous attacks.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Corey's Halloween victims are those who've been bullying and berating him.
- Scarily Competent Tracker: Michael easily tracks Corey down twice, first to kill Nurse Deb before she can escape or call the police, and again when Corey is lying helpless and dying in Laurie's home.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Discussed at one point. Haddonfield descends into a period of cruelty and paranoia following Michael's disappearance, and with their boogeyman gone, they inadvertently bully a damaged Corey into becoming a new one, leading to yet another violent killing spree. The film poses the question of whether Corey was always this way or the town's cruelty brought it out of him.
- Shock Jock: The DJ of the local radio is definitely not above using mockery against people like Laurie, Corey, or Allyson for his broadcasts. Corey not only kills the DJ and the radio station's receptionist, but burns down the station.
- Shout-Out:
- Corey watches The Thing (1982), another movie by Halloween director John Carpenter. Since the characters in the original Halloween were watching The Thing from Another World, this shout-out is shouting out to another shout-out!
- Corey's uncle is watching Hard Target while his son is slaughtering teens in his junkyard.
- During the climax, Michael's right hand is split between the middle and ring knuckles, just like Jason Voorhees' was in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Fittingly, like that film, this one has the injured killer die violently shortly afterwards.
- Corey Cunningham's name homages two people from Friday the 13th: Corey Feldman, who played Tommy Jarvis, and the original film's director, Sean Cunningham.
- Shown Their Work: What Corey is going through when he encounters Michael is folie à deux, a rare and legitimate psychological condition in which two or more people share the same psychosis and act on it.
- Stalker with a Crush: Allyson's ex-boyfriend is a police officer named Doug who's still mildly obsessed with her. While off-duty, he has a confrontation with Corey and Allyson at a diner. After Corey drops off Allyson, the cop follows him to the sewer. After discovering a dead body, instead of calling for backup, he ends up ambushed and killed by Michael and Corey.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- To the point of almost deconstructing the Invincible Boogeymen trope, Michael is now older by the time this movie starts and struggles against his victims, including even getting overpowered by Corey. Michael is still a human by the end of the day, and no matter how strong he might have been, he is naturally going to get weaker with not just age, but also because of all the damage he has taken over the last two movies.
- Corey is inexperienced as a murderer and lacks Michael's superhuman strength; the kills he manages to get are dependent on the element of surprise or his victims being in no shape to fight him. He comes close to failing to kill Deb entirely because he takes too long killing Dr. Mathis, and the instant he's up against Laurie, who has made it clear that she sees the darkness in him, Corey is down for the count in no time.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Jeremy's father toward Corey. Even though Corey killed his son (albeit by accident), he pities the young man as the townspeople have taken things too far by treating him so poorly and disgustedly believes they're just using Jeremy's death as an excuse to hurt Corey because they need someone to direct their fear and anger on now that Myers is missing.
- Take That, Audience!: The Blumhouse Revival Trilogy carries a running theme that the essence of Halloween is bigger than Michael Myers and that he's not the point of the series; evil itself is. This film runs on that theme and drives it home as hard as it can, creating a gigantic subversion of expectations as a message to Myers-worshiping fans who don't care about or even notice the themes, subtext, and meaning of the story. note Let's break it down:
- A lot of plot threads teased or dangled in Kills are dropped without explanation in favor of more thematically-driven writing which serves the purpose of reminding people of the themes that Halloween is really about.
- The film is far less intensely horrific than the previous two films and doesn't even have as much humor to it as they did, focusing on actual characters and relationships, and has a much lower body count.
- Myers is barely present, and although he technically has more screen-time here than he did in the original '78 film, he's not even lurking around anywhere near as much here as he did in that film, leaving his presence feeling extremely minimal.
- To that effect, he's severely weakened due to a combination of old age and all the heavy abuse he took over the course of the previous two films, even at one point winding up powerless over a young man who beats him up and steals his mask.
- Speaking of that young man, we're given an Audience Surrogate of a new main character who gets close to Myers and even gets to run with him for a while and help him kill people until he becomes an example of This Loser Is You when his obsession only gets him killed just like all the other Myers-obsessed characters throughout the trilogy (with the sole exception of Laurie, who finally learns to let Myers go and get back to living a peaceful, happy life).
- The big, final showdown between Laurie and Myers that was teased in Kills and in the trailers for Ends is greatly minimized, with Myers being virtually infirm at this point.
- Myers is finally Killed Off for Real in a way that feels pretty undignified, first by being rendered virtually helpless and bled out, then by being carried through the town as a final sendoff so the town can see that he's dead and finally move on before they drop him into a junk shredder to make absolutely certain that he can never come back.
- To top it all off, the film goes out with Laurie monologuing and spelling right out exactly what Halloween is really all about.Laurie: Evil doesn't die. It changes shape.
- Taking You with Me:
- In the second trailer, Laurie speculates that the only way Michael can die is if she dies, too. This line is not in the movie.
- In the movie itself, as Michael is dying from the wounds Laurie's inflicted on him during the climax, he grabs her throat to try and choke her as he bleeds out. Fortunately, Allyson shows up in time to stop him.
- Tempting Fate: After successfully overpowering Michael and stealing his mask, Corey derides him as "just a man in a Halloween mask" and asks what he's going to do about it. Michael sits up seconds after Corey leaves and proceeds to hunt him down to the Strode residence, take back what's his, and show him.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Corey's Jumping Off the Slippery Slope comes off as this. Since people think of him as a killer for an Accidental Murder, he decides to follow the steps of the town's boogeyman and become a killer as bad as him.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted this time around; a bit of throwaway dialogue indicates that Laurie has been seeing a therapist since Michael's 2018 massacre.
- This Loser Is You: Corey Cunningham, a pretty normal young man who has a run-in with Michael (who lets Corey live because he senses a kinship in him), becomes obsessed with him, and gets to run around with him playing serial killer sidekick for a short while before paying dearly for his obsession by Michael's own hand. Corey is a stand-in for Michael Myers fanboys/girls who think Halloween is all about him and don't even stop to think about or notice the bigger themes and meaning of the series, which itself is one of the biggest overall messages of this film and the sequel trilogy as a whole.
- Time Skip: The opening scene is Halloween 2019, a year after the previous two movies, and then it skips forward three more years to the days leading up to Halloween 2022.
- Token Good Teammate: Downplayed. Among the group of teens that harass Corey, Margo is the only one shown consistently taking pity on Corey, being uncomfortable with the group's abuse of him and calling out the group leader Terry for continuing to hurt him. However, the definition of "good" is only relatively so because Margo doesn't do anything to stop the bullies, so she is essentially just as guilty as the rest of them. Either way, Corey reciprocates her sympathy by stomping her face into mush and driving over her corpse.
- Tongue Trauma: Corey kills the DJ by smashing his head repeatedly into his equipment, resulting in his jaw breaking and his tongue flopping loose. He cuts off the tongue with a pair of scissors before finishing him off, and the tongue falls onto the record player, causing the needle to skip around the record being played.
- Took a Level in Dumbass: Allyson acts far more short-sighted here than in the past films, revolving primarily around how dangerously head-over-heels she becomes for Corey. After knowing him for a very short time, she's ready to skip town with him and join him on his mission to "burn [Haddonfield] to the ground" (although she may be interpreting that as a metaphor). Even with Corey showing signs of still-existing issues, she cannot take a hint that he is more than he claims to be, let alone actively going down a path dark enough to resort to becoming a murderer, to save her life. She even takes his word over that of Laurie, who she's known all her life, and believes her well-placed and well-experienced concerns to have an ulterior motive.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Allyson has a Broken Pedestal dynamic with Laurie around the middle of the film, going from caring for and loving her in the previous installments to outright blaming her for ruining her life with the deaths of her friends and family and how she's been facing bad luck ever since. She initially seems to have a good relationship with Laurie, but once she finds out Laurie's interfering with her life by trying to keep her away from Corey, she vents her true, bitter feelings toward Laurie and disowns her on the spot. The friction worsens when she finds Corey seemingly dead and Laurie standing over him with a bloody knife in her hand, with absolutely nothing able to change Allyson's mind from the reality that Laurie killed him. However, after seeing the radio station burning down as she angrily drives away, Allyson has a Jerkass Realization and goes back just in time to save Laurie from being strangled by Michael. (It should also be noted that most of Allyson's hostility was provoked by Corey's words, suggesting that he was manipulating Allyson to turn her against Laurie rather than Allyson feeling that way on her own.)
- Tragic Villain: Corey would have seemingly had a normal life if it wasn't for a mix of rotten luck and abuse from an unforgiving town. He had killed a kid he was babysitting the year after the last two films, being arrested and traumatized for committing involuntary manslaughter in what was clearly an accident. After he repays his debt to society and tries putting his life back together, he is seen with distrust and hostility after Michael's rampages sew distrust in the community, making him a convenient "boogeyman" for the townspeople to use to vent their fear through constant verbal if not physical abuse. This, combined with his encounter with Michael Myers, leads to him spiraling until he becomes Michael's unofficial protégé.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Corey starts the movie as a cute, kind of nerdy young man. By the midway point, he's snapped and become a Serial Killer.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: In trying to help Corey and play matchmaker for Allyson by having them meet each other, Laurie inadvertently causes Corey to begin his descent into madness and Allyson to fall into a toxic relationship with him, along with causing Michael to surface one more time.
- Voiceover Letter: The segments of Laurie's memoir that we see her write are spoken by her in voiceover as she types them on her laptop.
- What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: In-Universe. After putting it on for them to watch together, Corey starts worrying that The Thing (1982) might be a little too violent for 10-year-old Jeremy to watch that night when he gets to the infamous defibrillator scene (in which a man's hands get viscerally chomped off by the monster). This is despite the fact that there's already some pretty child-unfriendly content in the movie before that point, with the dog's frightening transformation into the Thing and other bits of gruesome Body Horror happening in the preceding hour and fifteen minutes leading up to the bite.
- Whole-Plot Reference: To John Carpenter's Christine. Both films follow a nebbish wimp with the last name Cunnigham being ambiguously corrupted by an external evil force, gaining confidence and arrogance after losing his glasses, killing his high schooler bullies, and eventually meeting his own end shortly before the corrupting influence is killed in an auto repair yard via being crushed by a piece of heavy machinery.
- Worf Had the Flu: Michael is in bad shape in this movie, struggling to overpower a single police officer after slaughtering dozens of people in the previous two movies. Justified as he has been living in a sewer for the past four years (as opposed to a mental hospital where he was fed and given proper exercise), and his age and injuries have finally caught up to him.
- World of Jerkass: Most of the new characters, bar Corey and a few others, are absolutely godawful people who are clearly not meant to be sympathized with. Noted in-universe that Michael's last rampage has made the townsfolk paranoid and distrustful of each other, one of the things that have led to fear and suspicion of both Corey and Laurie. This film also makes Allyson, one of the more likable characters of the trilogy, take a level in jerkass and turn against Laurie.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Before confronting Laurie one last time towards the end of the film, Michael finishes off a nearly-dead Corey by snapping his neck.
