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Halloween Ends

Content Caution

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Halloween Ends 2022

Credits

In Theaters

Cast

Home Release Date

Director

Distributor

Reviewer

Bob Hoose

Movie Review

Laurie Strode is still living in the little town of Haddonfield, Illinois.

Believe it or not.

Yes, this is the same place where she’s been repeatedly terrorized by a masked killer named Michael Myers since 1978. But with a new home and her work on a tell-all memoir, Laurie feels like she’s on her way to healing from the trauma of her past.

That’s not to say the other residents of Haddonfield are all on the same restorative pathway. I mean, they still live in this town and decorate their porches for Halloween, too. But many harbor anger over Laurie’s, and granddaughter Allyson’s, role in the past attacks and deadly town-wide torment.

However, Laurie, Allyson, and that illusive evil killer aren’t the only ones earning the town’s ire this year. There’s another target in its citizens’ collective bullseye.

A few years back, an accident took the life of a small boy who fell into a crushed, bloody heap at the bottom of a three-story staircase. The blame was placed on the boy’s college-age babysitter, Corey. And this year, Corey is back in town.

Is he a bad guy? No. He’s plagued by that horrible event in his past, but in his heart he’s still the nice but fragile dude he always was. Allyson sees that. She works as a nurse at the local hospital. And when Corey comes in to be stitched up after cutting his hand, the two lock eyes and immediately recognize each other as kindred spirits.

But hey, everybody loves to find someone to hate and maybe push around, don’t they? Well, everyone in Haddonfield does. The more the merrier. And so, when they’re not growling out their displeasure at Laurie or Allyson, they torment and manhandle that hapless “baby killer,” Corey Cunningham.

But what does that kind of unwarranted battering do to a fragile young man’s psyche? And what if that wounded soul also finds his way into the hidden-away sewer lair of a mass-murderer named Michael (who apparently survives there on rat droppings)? And what if that masked killer sees a kindred spirit of his own in this wounded young man?

I mean, can festering evil infect someone else, much like a COVID virus?

Ohhhh, something bad is about to happen in Haddonfield once more.

Watch out Laurie, watch out!  

Positive Elements

The film suggests that people wounded by trauma can move forward in productive ways—even to the point of finding love with someone who understands them. (But the positive side of that suggestion is quickly upended by death and destruction in this particular case.)

Laurie and her granddaughter, Allyson, have a strained and broken family bond that is eventually repaired.

Spiritual Elements

Laurie wears a cross necklace. In a short scene, Allyson and her girlfriend use Tarot cards. It’s stated that evil never dies, it just changes shape. And it appears that Corey’s spirit is transformed or altered when he looks deeply into Michael Myer’s eyes.

Sexual Content

We see some young women at a Halloween party in form-fitting and/or cleavage-baring costumes.

Allyson and Corey kiss. Later she takes him up to her bedroom and then we see them in bed together after a tryst, apparently naked but covered. At first, Laurie encourages Allyson’s attraction to Corey, wanting her to find someone she can “rip off her shirt” over and be passionately sexual with.

Corey is called a “pedo-creep” by a group of tormentors. A doctor at the hospital where Allyson works is having an affair with a much younger nurse. We see them go to his home, and the woman walks into another room to take a shower. She’s initially wearing a slinky dress, then a silky robe, but we don’t see her fully undress.

The camera spots a poster of a bikini model on the office wall of a small business. A radio DJ reads a pornographic magazine in the middle of his show (though we never see the pictures he’s gazing at).

Violent Content

The flesh-rending, ripping and hacking here is exactly what you’d expect if you know anything about this infamous slasher franchise. Not only are men and women beaten and viciously stabbed with large knives, but we also see people choked, lifted off the ground by their necks and stabbed. Some are even pinned to walls and tables by sharp blades, while others get shot repeatedly.

A boy falls to his death; we witness that brutal impact and see his skull being crushed and his neck snapping before a gush of blood pools beneath him. A man’s body is fed into a huge metal shredder, and we watch as its bones and skull are ground down and pulped. People’s throats are slashed open. Someone commits a gruesomely bloody suicide.

A man gets shot in the head. A teen girl is run over and then has her head crushed with a boot heel. Someone applies a blowtorch to another teen’s face. Etc.

Of course, all of these flesh-ripping moments are played to a wincingly grisly effect with spurting and gurgling blood. For example, one guy has his face brutally pounded on a tabletop until his facial bones smash and his jaw breaks off, scattering his teeth and letting his tongue hang loose. His attacker then takes a pair of scissors and cuts off the man’s tongue and watches the body part fall amid gore and splatter.

(I’m sure you get the idea by now.)

Crude or Profane Language

The dialogue includes more than 30 f-words and 10 s-words, along with repeated uses of “b–ch,” “h—,” “d–n” and “a–hole.” God’s name is misused 10 times (six of those in combination with “d–n”), and Jesus’ name is abused once.

We hear a couple of crude references made to the male and female anatomy.

Drug and Alcohol Content

People drink beer, wine and harder alcohol at parties, a bar and at home on multiple occasions. A doctor gives Corey an injection of a wound-numbing agent.

Other Negative Elements

We see several instances of aggressive bullying as well as some property destruction.

Conclusion

Someone once described the Halloween movie series—with its multiple timelines, remakes and reboots—as the “choose your own adventure” of horror movie franchises. And as we reach this, the 13th pic in the collection, that colorful reference is eminently applicable.

You can pick a plot point here and a plot point there in the course of Halloween Ends and maybe construct a semi-coherent storyline. But you’d still have to throw your suspension of disbelief into hyperdrive to do it. I mean, why would a town plagued by years of Halloween night massacres still be celebrating, dressing up and sending the kids out on October 31st? Or why would anyone still live in this maniac-haunted burg?

For that matter, this movie’s character choices are senselessly bizarre, often doubling back on themselves for no particular reason. The massive, masked villain and his once nubile scream queen are now both limping senior citizens. And the latest evil—I guess you could call it a “twist”—is barely coherent and quickly discarded like an unwrapped piece of candy at the bottom of a greasy treat bag.

The one thing that is consistent with the whole series is Halloween Ends’ deluge of grotesque carnage and death-dealing. Men, women and children are insanely hacked, slashed and broken, pinned to multiple surfaces with sharp implements, and left to gush gallons of goo.

Oh, and as far as that promised End is concerned: We’ll have to wait and see this year’s box office numbers to determine how accurate that declaration is.

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Bob Hoose

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.