October 31. What does this date mean to you? Perhaps for most residents of this world, this date does not mean anything, but for those who are connoisseurs of the horror genre in movies and games, this date means a lot. After all, it is precisely one of the most fun holidays in the world, Halloween. And for horror fans, “Halloween” of 2022 will be a holiday with a capital letter.
Not so long ago, a reboot of "Hellraiser" came out, which surprisingly turned out to be quite good (I advise you to check it out). There were also good sequels to "Scream" and a "Predator" prequel called "Prey".
But usually, for all horror films, the phrase Halloween and horror will most likely is associated with the cult film by John Carpenter "Halloween". The "Halloween" franchise has a rather strange fate. It was constantly dying and then reborn. And according to this, the film “Halloween Ends” was announced by producers Malek Akkad and Jason Blum as the completion of the story of Michael Myers.
As a long-time fan of this franchise, I was waiting for this film with a little skepticism and, in fact, the finale of the franchise left me with an ambiguous aftertaste.
Well, before starting, I will talk about the technical component of the picture. All the scenery and costumes, as well as the color scheme, were made in the film enough good, within the budget, of course. And by the way, most importantly, the film conveys the atmosphere of the Halloween holiday itself very well.
To do this, they didn’t even forget to add pumpkins which improve atmosphere. The scenes with murders are also set at a high level, although there are not many of them here. Well, of course, how not to mention the soundtrack, written not by anyone, but by John Carpenter himself - the director of the original Halloween, it is simply divine.
Next, let's talk about the characters and the acting. The actors in the film were surprisingly chosen quite well, and each of them plays his part as well as he can. Well, the main star in Halloween, of course, was, is and remains Jamie Lee Curtis, who once again played Laurie Strode. And she did great as always. Her heroine remained the same charismatic and interesting fighting grandmother, who has seen the sights and is able to fight her fears.
As for Michael Myers, played by Nick Stahl, and then ... it's still the same Michael Myers. He is slow and unhurried, but at the same time, frightening and calculating. I can’t really tell you anything new about him, because he is one of those characters who don’t have much more to develop. The rest of the characters turned out to be somehow faded and uninteresting. Well, this is probably already a standard problem for most slashers.
And now we will talk about the most probably ambiguous, but interesting part of the film - the plot. It seemed very curious to me that this picture was decided not to be a classic slasher, but rather a drama with elements of a slasher. And in fact, I personally do not see anything wrong with this. Since the dramatic elements are added to the film in moderation and where necessary, the dramatic moments are staged quite soundly.
But because of all this, many fans of the franchise can be disappointed enough, and it is generally understandable. After all, the main problem of this part of the franchise - its slow tones of the story. Sometimes, Halloween ends up trying to be not Halloween, but some kind of dramatic arthouse, which is why the film has a sufficient number of very drawn-out moments.
There are very very few murders in the film, but they are crammed with screams. Well, the final battle is generally something from the category of yard showdowns of pensioners on a bench, which is why the aftertaste remains so itself.
From the middle of the film, all the most interesting things begins, including a huge amount of bloodshed and murder. I didn’t feel fear while watching; there was tension in some moments, but not strong.
It seems to me that if I had not waited for the release of this film, then the impressions from it would have been weaker. The film is worthwhile, but by no means five stars.
There were implausible and unnatural scenes, but I turned a blind eye to this and do not want to delve into the shortcomings. I wanted to watch this movie and enjoyed it.
ON A FINAL NOTE
As a result, I can say that "Halloween Ends" turned out to be a strong slasher-drama, which turned out better than "Halloween Kills", but worse than Halloween 2018. In general, you can watch the film once, but you should not expect anything extraordinary from it. And I hope that this will really be the finale, and there will be no more returns by Halloween.
You will see new heroes, a town that has been slaughtered many times and the story of an unfortunate guy who was turned into a maniac by chance.
Myers is no longer the same, he is a man worn by life, a shadow of the past monster, as if he understands that he has come to an end. It is sad and slightly nostalgic series that showed the end of the famous maniac.
And I will end this review with the phrase "two were enough", and it's true, the franchise could have ended back in 1981, when the second part came out.
It is a new reading of the history of the cult maniac. Rest in peace Michael!
It's hard to recommend this movie to anyone. Fans of the original will not see anything new, and maybe they will be disappointed, since Michael is no longer the same. So, this film is a horror movie for one time just in time for Halloween.
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Thank you for reading. You are always welcome to check my posts.
All photos are screenshots from oficial film trailer as I watched this movie in a cinema.
"Do what is right, not what is easy nor what is popular" - R. T. BENNETH.
