By Ava Cassidy / Columnist and News Editor
Spoiler Warning!
The Halloween franchise always seems to spark conversation around, of course, Oct. 31. The franchise began in 1978 with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which tells the story of Michael Myers’ escape from a mental institution and subsequent killing spree. Michael’s main target is Laurie Strode (played by Jamie Lee Curtis), a high school girl babysitting on Halloween night.
Nearly 50 years later, Curtis is still playing that same role. Halloween Ends, the latest update to the 13-movie franchise, began showing in theaters on Oct. 14. Michael and Laurie have certainly been on a long journey together.
Even though Michael Myers never seems to finally die, the franchise has clearly deteriorated over time. John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween was marked by incredible lighting choices, a suspenseful storyline, and has become a classic.
However, most of the movie seemed more like a romantic comedy with a jumpscare every so often rather than the finale of an epic horror franchise. In fact, Michael Myers does not appear on screen until nearly 45 minutes into the movie. Furthermore, Myers only appears on screen for 10 minutes, a minute portion of the film’s nearly 2-hour runtime.
In between jumpscares and shots of Michael Myers standing ominously inside a sewer, the main characters spent their time going grocery shopping and baking pies with no mention of Michael Myers or any other tragedies that befell the fictional Haddonfield, Illinois. I’ll admit that I spent most of the movie wondering, “Where is Michael Myers, and who is this new guy?”
‘That new guy’ is Corey, the movie’s main antagonist. Corey’s story begins when he accidentally kills the boy he is babysitting and is subsequently shunned by the town. He then steals the iconic Michael Myers mask and goes on a killing spree–while dating Laurie Strode’s granddaughter. Truly, the whole plot seems like a bad mix between a soap opera and a slasher flick. Halloween Ends seems to forget that it is part of the Halloween franchise.
However, Corey’s story does bring forth one of the movie’s only redeeming qualities. Corey’s arcs begs the question: does society make a person evil or are they born that way? Unfortunately, food for thought can’t fix the movie’s other issues.
The ending of the movie makes me worry that Jamie Lee Curtis will be playing Laurie Strode for 50 more years. Michael Myers seems to be definitively dead by the end of the movie. In fact, after he is killed by Laurie and her granddaughter, Allyson, Michael Myers’ body is paraded through town on the top of their car with a police escort. The entire town joins in and processes to a junkyard where Myers’ body is ground up in a scrap shredder. After that whole fiasco, Laurie states that evil never dies, it just takes a different form. Despite its title, Halloween Ends perfectly sets up another movie in the franchise, which this reviewer believes to be its worst feature.
The Halloween franchise has had a long, slow decline over the past few decades, and it desperately needs to end.
