Halloween Ends

Despite a great performance by Jamie Lee Curtis, the Michael Myers-Laurie Strode relationship comes to an unsatisfying close.

Rather, a Halloween movie has to deliver an escalating series of grisly deaths, even before it provides a resolution (or comfortable resting place) for the most famous monster-final girl relationship in film history. In which case, Halloween Ends is almost passable as a nondescript sequel—a little blood pumped into the carcass of an indefatigable slab of intellectual property. But for a film about people who cannot outrun their legacies, it also feels like a tell that this is no better or smarter an installment than any before it, since more Myers-related mythology has been forgotten over the course of the series than this conclusive trilogy is willing to remember. Although (or perhaps because) some of Haddonfield’s citizens blame her for Michael Myers’ reign of terror—which ended only with his complete disappearance after Kills—Laurie extends compassion to fellow outcasts like Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), who was involved with the death of a local child a few years earlier. Not only is she completely over the murder of her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), but Laurie has fully transformed into a pie-making, Halloween-loving sexagenarian whose chief activities include writing a memoir about her experiences and caring for her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), who’s now a nurse. Instead, Green again attempts to simultaneously deliver a grisly, relentless slasher movie, a measured character study, and an examination of decades-old trauma (or “TROW-ma,” as star Jamie Lee Curtis pronounces it)—in the process leaving viewers without even the benefit of a temporary sugar high.

David Gordon Green's trilogy reboot of the venerable "Halloween" franchise, starring ultimate final girl Jamie Lee Curtis, concludes not with a scream but a ...

But we come to these movies for the thrills, the chills, and the screams, yet even the kills in “Halloween Ends” feel perfunctory at best. Laurie describes evil as “an infection,” which is the main plot of “Halloween Ends,” a story about the lasting effects of violence that ripple outward and can reverberate for generations. So after that strange, yet interesting, diversion, it’s back to Laurie to see if she can wrap things up once and for all, complete with refresher clip packages. “Halloween Ends” returns to where it all began, with a twist. The “boy babysitter,” Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) ends up in prison for aggravated manslaughter, and can’t shake the “psycho” label that he’s stuck with on release a couple of years later. The writers, Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier, Danny McBride and Green, don’t seem interested in writing real characters, but rather in proclaiming vague archetypes and platitudes about “evil,” declared in narration by Laurie Strode (

Bloody Disgusting reviews Halloween Ends, which makes some very strange choices as it finishes out Laurie Strode's epic saga.

That and the desire to subvert the idea of a Halloween film. Here’s the official plot synopsis for Halloween Ends: “Four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and is finishing writing her memoir. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.” There’s admiration to be found in his defiant storytelling and using the final entry to swing for the fences, but the significant tonal and character shifts are jarring from the outset. Ends works best as a standalone feature, but its place in the trilogy and the Halloween canon overall is sure to be polarizing. [on track to smash $50 million](https://deadline.com/2022/10/box-office-halloween-ends-opening-1235141320/) in theaters this weekend. Save for Laurie Strode, the trilogy relies on the tiresome concept of trauma and its toll on a community as the sole connective tissue. In his bid to explore the psychological toll of cruelty and trauma, Green forgets some of the tension and menace from previous entries. In its place is an audacious storytelling swing regarding the handling of Michael Myers. The trauma lingering beneath the surface in Haddonfield comes boiling forth, igniting a new chain of violence when Corey crosses paths with Laurie and Allyson. Laurie may be the town’s freak show, but Haddonfield has a new target of scorn in young Corey ( Since 2018, Michael Myers has disappeared, and his house has been bulldozed to the ground.

'Halloween Ends' thrives as a grounded, slice-of-life character drama before eventually becoming a Michael Myers sequel.

It’s almost a dare to folks complaining that Halloween and Halloween Kills were just the same old thing and/or just Michael killing people for 100 minutes, offering up a Halloween sequel that works (at least initially) as a drama first and a slasher second. Yes, Michael Myers does eventually play a role in this story, and (as shown in the previews) the film eventually gives in and gives the fans what they came for. Halloween Ends works as a mournful and somber epilogue for the Michael Myers/Laurie Strode franchise. Grandma is writing her memoirs (cue the usual naval-gazing voiceover) and really ought to go on a date with Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton). Halloween Kills wanted to play ‘hold my bear’ with the nihilism of Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake while also being a loose remake of Halloween II and The Return of Michael Myers. Meanwhile, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) has bought a (normal) home and is trying desperately to offer a normal, non-traumatic existence for her granddaughter (Andi Matichak).

Forty-four years, 13 movies and innumerable corpses later, it sounds naïve to think "Halloween Ends" will really mark the end of anything, but like the ...

Laurie also has a sweetly uncomfortable encounter with the local cop (Will Patton), so the efforts to inject touches of romance into the movie occur on two generational tracks. As noted, this longstanding horror franchise has been too reliable an attraction for Universal and its partners to stay dormant forever, although an extended rest seems prudent. That’s not to say those who go to the theater (or tune in via Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service) won’t be treated to jump scares, twists, an homage to director John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” and moments of extremely over-the-top gore. In fact, Laurie takes the initiative and introduces Allyson to Corey (Rohan Campbell), a shy guy bearing emotional scars from his own Halloween-timed tragedy, which risks making them the weirdest possible soulmates. Part of that has to do with an attempt to connect this slasher franchise to deeper contemplation about the nature of evil, which merely yields laughably awkward moments in the wrong places. Yet if the wait was shorter this time, the rewards are again small.

Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode in 'Halloween Ends,' the last of David Gordon Green's trilogy. Despite Curtis and Andi Matichak it's bad.

[Subscribe to azcentral.com today](https://offers.azcentral.com/specialoffer?gps-source=CPNEWS&itm_medium=onsite&itm_source=TAGLINE&itm_campaign=NEWSROOM&itm_content=BILLGOODYKOONTZ). Subscribe to [the weekly movies newsletter](https://profile.azcentral.com/newsletters/azcentral-at-the-Movies/). Facebook: [facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm](https://www.facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm). One of the many mistakes in “Halloween Ends” is not staying true to that mission — there are far too many detours, time spent on characters who are not central to what the franchise has always been about: namely, Laurie trying to stay alive. Various films in the franchise have taken that premise and messed with it. Things get strange from there, and it would ruin the film to say how. It has been since that first Halloween night in 1978, through sequels and reboots and reimaginings. It’s a title in search of a story, and it never finds it. To be clear: John Carpenter’s original “Halloween,” which premiered in 1978, is one of the greatest and most influential horror movies ever made. “Halloween Ends” takes place four years after “Halloween Kills,” which was a rotten movie, full of absurd vigilante justice and not much else. It would also be difficult because not all of the plot elements make sense. Andi Matichak returns as Allyson, Laurie’s granddaughter who survived the previous two films, and she’s quite good trying to make some sense of a character that too often doesn’t.

"Halloween Ends," the last of David Gordon Green's trilogy about Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, comes to an end. Review.

And who better than Jamie Lee Curtis — daughter of [Psycho’s Janet Leigh](https://www.looper.com/182476/why-janet-leigh-was-never-the-same-after-psycho/) and Tony Curtis, who struggled with [addiction](https://people.com/movies/jamie-lee-curtis-celebrates-22-years-of-sobriety/) — to speak out about the intergenerational traumas of Hollywood? Allyson breaks the cycle of living and dying in Haddonfield. There's a pleasure in the messiness of discovering the meaning on our own. The resilience of Laurie Strode and Curtis's pontificating on her plight was not yet a thing of morning television-made In the end, Halloween Ends has some silly plot developments that I won’t reveal for the sheer pleasure of letting the reader find out on their own. On one hand, you have Laurie and Frank doing the work to heal themselves in the hopes of enjoying their later years, despite the frisson of melancholy that follows them both like the Muzak rendition of "Don’t Fear the Reaper" that plays over their supermarket conversation. It recalls the ending of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, when Meanwhile, Laurie is writing her memoir, and she also enjoys the occasional flirt with Officer Frank Hawkins (Will Patton), who is learning Japanese and hoping to visit the cherry blossoms now that he’s retired. Her chaotically healing trauma queen is a crone icon for the ages. Laurie may be a Final Girl par excellence, but she’s also a grandmother who’s concerned with the love life of her one remaining blood relative, Allyson (Andi Matichak). “Are you the psycho or the freak?” she says, offering him a hand up. Green and his team step away from John Carpenter’s relatively bloodless 1978 vision for multiplex-friendly gouts of gore and a plot stuffed with a weird love story, and more heavy-handed messaging about trauma and healing and second chances.

Halloween Ends, the final film in David Gordon Green's horror trilogy, is a satisfying end, but a middling film.

Halloween Ends seems to be an attempt to give Halloween fans something new, something unique, and something a little different from what they had seen before, and unfortunately, it doesn't work. He is never sent to prison for Jeremy’s death, though the details of why are never disclosed, but he is a pariah in town, and his mother is overbearing to the point of abuse. The theme of Halloween Ends seems to be, like with all Halloween films, the essence of good versus evil, with Michael Myers representing evil and Laurie Strode representing good. The final showdown between Laurie and Michael Myers is pretty thrilling, perhaps because we know that this is the last time we will ever see the pair face off (supposedly). Laurie is working on a memoir, and has returned to some of the activities she enjoyed doing in the original 1978 Halloween: knitting and baking. Halloween Ends takes place four years after the events of the Green's first two Halloween movies, which were set on Halloween night in 2018.

The “final” film in the celebrated 'Halloween' franchise sees Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers supposedly square off once and for all.

Allyson is a bland presence and Corey is the sort of wannabe madman that’s all surface—a situation exacerbated by a repeated back-and-forth in which he’s labelled the “psycho” to Laurie’s “freakshow.” Continuity lapses prove as common as clichés (no surprise that Allyson’s highly sexual coworker is doomed), lending the proceedings an overarching slackness that neuters any flickering potential for tension. The speed with which Allyson takes to Corey is whiplash-inducing, and Halloween Ends wants to cast them as a couple bonded by the bloody pain of their past and the ostracism they still endure in the present. Halloween Ends indulges in a moderate amount of gruesomeness, if only one notable kill involving the severing of a tongue. Laurie eventually senses that not all is right with Corey—in large part because he starts lurking around her front-yard hedges à la Michael—but given that she introduced him to Allyson, she finds that breaking up the pair puts her relationship with her granddaughter at risk. Laurie is writing a book about her Michael-related experiences as a means of coping with her emotional scars, and when she sees Deputy Frank Hawkins (Will Patton) at the supermarket, she’s stable enough to flirt. (Just kidding.) Green’s purported closer is more of the same scare-free nonsense gussied up with blather about evil, survival, and suffering.

David Gordon Green's Halloween ends. There has never been a Halloween film that ends quite like this one.

In such a definitive act of destruction, Halloween Ends boldly goes where no other film has gone before in terms of how it dispatched the killer at the center of the story. The longer they go, the more people join them as they head to the local scrapyard with the intent of disposing of the killer once and for all. Laurie has used a knife to pin each of his hands to the kitchen table and pushed the fridge down on him for good measure. The two take part in a battle to the death that ends with Michael trapped. Taking no chances, they all arrive at the scrapyard with the intent of putting Michael straight into a crushing machine typically used for metal. The film opens a year after the events of Halloween Kills with Corey (Rohan Campbell) who is going to babysit for a local family just as Laurie did all those years ago. This is followed by Corey splitting away from Michael and stealing his mask to go on a rampage throughout Haddonfield. Eventually, Laurie starts to pick up on what is happening and tries to get her granddaughter away from Corey who wants to run away with her. However, instead of Michael coming into the situation, it is Corey who accidentally kills the young boy that he is meant to be watching. The moment is shocking and, when the film flashes forward to four years after Halloween Kills, we see how it has inexorably altered the lives of all who were involved. He ended up brutally killing her daughter Karen ( [Judy Greer](https://collider.com/tag/judy-greer/)) in the film’s closing moments. Laurie Strode ( [Jamie Lee Curtis](https://collider.com/tag/jamie-lee-curtis/)) had spent years waiting for his return after he initially attacked her decades prior, but spent the majority of the previous film in a hospital while Michael roamed the streets.

This week, Slate's Sam Adams and Jeffrey Bloomer spoil the 13th entry in the Halloween franchise, the alleged final showdown between Jamie Lee Curtis's ...

Note: as the title implies, the podcast contains spoilers galore. Listen on your device:RECOMMENDED Listen on your computer:

The story so far: 1978: In suburban Haddonfield, Illinois, teenage babysitter Laurie Strode meets suburban man of mystery Michael Myers for the first time. She ...

His Pádraic is a man who's beginning to suspect that people are ridiculing him as a dullard behind his back, and he hasn't the first idea what to do about it. And Barry Keoghan as Dominic, the village simpleton, manages the difficult feat of giving a full account of his seemingly uncomplicated character without condescending to him. "I'm not putting the donkey outside when I'm sad," he says.) The stars, Brendan Gleeson and (especially) Colin Farrell, mine their seemingly simple characters—two men paying out their days on a rustic island off the western coast of Ireland—for every nugget of human complexity they can gather, and at the end we behold them, if not transformed, at least reconstituted. This is not a very good movie, but at least the dialogue is overdone in an amusing way. ) Allyson is the granddaughter of the aging Laurie Strode, whose house burned down in the last movie with Michael inside. He lives in a small cottage with his sister, Siobhan (Kerry Condon), and tends a clutter of sheep and cows whose milk he sells. The movie's writer-director, Anglo-Irish playwright Martin McDonagh, last guided Gleeson and Farrell through his wonderful 2008 film In Bruges, which followed two expatriate Irish hitmen from London, where they made their violent living, to the twinkling medieval city of Bruges, Belgium. Unlike Colm, who thinks only of spiritual expansion, Pádraic is entirely content with his lot in life. The movie feels longer than it is (a little under two hours) because of a serious Michael Myers deficit in the early innings. There are only so many variations on a knife in the eye or a bone-crunching tumble from a high bannister that can hold up against endless repetition, and only so many shameless jump-scares that even the least discerning viewer will tolerate. Which, in what will become a tradition, is very bad.

This review discusses a handful of plot points from Halloween Ends, all of them from the first 40 minutes or so of the picture. Spoilers, they have been ...

Yes, fear is a cancer that infects a community, but there’s good reason to fear the raving lunatic murderer who cannot be killed and who kills again and again. *Not to be confused with Halloween (1978), to which Halloween (2018) is a direct sequel. Sure, unfocused mobs are bad, but not as bad as the raving lunatic murderer who cannot be killed and who kills and kills again. Except Corey can’t always get the job done, so Myers has to shadow him around, filling in some of the murder gaps. It would be one thing if Myers straight-up infected Corey with his evil and turned him into a killing machine, Corey in turn infecting Allyson and turning her against Laurie. She lives with granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), whose parents were murdered by Myers in the previous two films in the series, Halloween (2018)* and Halloween Kills.

Michael Myers has defied death many times before, but he may have finally met his match in Laurie Strode.

The only potential wiggle room would be if the film takes a more subversive understanding of the ending and establishes that there could be a new Michael who takes up the mantle by putting on the mask. For all the ways that Michael has managed to evade his demise time and time again, there is just no way that he is getting out of this one in the current timeline that this most recent trilogy is taking place in. She then goes to the fridge and for one magnificent moment it almost seems as though she is going to leap atop it to jump down on Michael like she was in a wrestling match. The only way that Michael is going to be coming back is if there is some sort of magical resurrection or a new timeline is created. For the first time in any of the films in the franchise, Michael Myers has met a permanent end from which there is no coming back. In the middle of this, he manages to free one of his arms and lunge at her. For those new to this, that rascal Michael does this type of thing a lot and isn't particularly considerate of others' personal space when he gets his mind set on murdering. In triumphant fashion, Laurie stands up on top of the machine and gives the final push that sends him down into the hungrily awaiting blades. Michael is removed from the roof and put on the edge of a giant crushing machine. Laurie then proceeds to start cutting into Michael as this isn’t her first rodeo, and she knows that he will keep coming back unless you are absolutely sure that he is dead. When he was awoken from his semi-slumber, he began making a comeback and getting back on his usual grind of murder. [Michael Myers](https://collider.com/tag/michael-myers/) has endured a lot over [several decades of films across multiple timelines](https://collider.com/halloween-timelines-explained-what-order-to-watch/).

Universal and Blumhouse's Halloween Ends earned $5.4 million in Thursday preview showings. That compares to the $4.9 million earned by Halloween Kills via ...

Anyway, a straight 10% Thursday-to-weekend split (like the last two) gets Halloween Ends to a terrific $54 million, while a split like It Chapter Two ($91 million from a $10.5 million Thursday) gets it to $47 million for the Fri-Sun weekend. I appreciated its left-field turns and (especially for the first act) its existence as very much a Halloween film from the guy who directed All the Real Girls and Snow Angels. The reviews are slightly better than this installment (45% and 5.3/10 on Rotten Tomatoes versus 38% and 5/10 for Halloween Kills). That compares to the $4.9 million earned by Halloween Kills via previews this time last year and the $7.7 million Thursday preview gross for Halloween in 2018. Universal and Blumhouse’s Halloween Ends earned $5.4 million in Thursday preview showings. Zero more days till Halloween Ends, Halloween Ends, Halloween Ends.

From Universal, Blumhouse and Miramax, it opened in 3,200 theaters and will expand to 3,901 locations on Friday, in addition to launching on NBC's streaming ...

There have been a handful of other “Halloween” sequels and two rebooted films directed by Rob Zombie, but the new trilogy retcons those and catches up with Laurie and her family 40 years later. The “Halloween” timeline is as full of holes as one of Michael’s victims, but the latest movie caps off a trilogy of modern-day sequels that began with 2018’s “Halloween” and its 2021 sequel “Halloween Kills.” The three movies follow the events of John Carpenter’s original 1978 horror, which introduced audiences to Curtis in her film debut and the soon-to-be slasher icon Michael Myers. “Halloween Kills” had a $4.9 million Thursday opening.

The third Halloween movie from David Gordon Green in a subset trilogy within the franchise is set to make around $55M this weekend at 3,901 theaters. Halloween ...

The movie is expected to ease 55% in its third go-round. Green’s first Halloween movie back in 2018 which brought back an older and wiser Laurie Strode played by Jamie Lee Curtis is the best grossing of the trio with $7.7M in Thursday night previews, a $33M opening Friday and $76.2M first weekend, which was exclusively theatrical. [Halloween Ends](https://deadline.com/tag/halloween-ends/) cost $30M before P&A. Last year, Uni went theatrical day and date on Halloween Kills out of caution for moviegoers during the pandemic, and also to spike Peacock subs. That figure is +11% from last year’s [Halloween Kills](https://deadline.com/tag/halloween-kills/)‘ previews, which were $4.85M. Opening limited this weekend is United Artists Releasing/Eon’s Chinonye Chukwu directed drama Till at 16 locations in five markets. Again, it’s not that Universal doesn’t have any faith in theatrical, Peacock at [15M paid subscribers](https://deadline.com/2022/10/nbcuniversal-jeff-shell-peacock-million-subscribers-primetime-hour-affiliates-1235135158/) needs more subscribers. Critics largely liked Green’s 2018 Halloween at 79% on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences giving it a B+. [which is set to lose as much as $100M](https://deadline.com/2022/10/amsterdam-box-office-flop-david-o-russell-movie-1235140204/), ended its first week with $9M at 3,005 theaters. [Smile](https://deadline.com/tag/smile/) grossed an estimated $1.5M yesterday, -8% from Wednesday at 3,659 putting its two week running total at $58.6M after a $26.4M second week. Till will expand to additional markets and theaters in coming weeks. [Universal](https://deadline.com/tag/universal/)’s release of [Blumhouse](https://deadline.com/tag/blumhouse/), [Miramax](https://deadline.com/tag/miramax/) and Trancas’ [Halloween](https://deadline.com/tag/halloween/) Ends saw a Thursday night of $5.4M from 3,200 theaters with showtimes beginning at 5 p.m.

I wrote in my review of the 2018 reboot of “Halloween” that the team behind the film didn't “really understand what made the first film a masterpiece.

A shocking amount of “Halloween Ends” is poorly executed with clunkier editing, framing, and writing than the other two films, as if the team were hired to make this one as a contractual requirement and were trying to get through it as quickly as possible. To say the love story between Corey and Allyson is underwritten and unbelievable would be an understatement. When the kid decides to play a prank on Corey, it results in an accident that leaves the little scamp dead, turning Corey into a pariah. He’s babysitting for a kid in Haddonfield who’s a little scared by all the murder around town. [Halloween Kills](/reviews/halloween-kills-movie-review-2021)” didn’t prove me right then the baffling “Halloween Ends” certainly does. There will be another “Halloween” movie somewhere in the future, which will make this even more of an odd tangent in the history of a horror legend.

Michael Myers (aka The Shape) in Halloween Kills, directed by David Gordon Green. Video Ad Feedback. Blumhouse heads: Horror's ' ...

“You get much more frightened in a movie theater when there are a bunch of people around, you want to grab the person next to you, you want to hear people screaming.” Despite being available at home, “Halloween Ends” is set for a big opening of $50 million or more in North America. Then they’re finished and I join with the forces of Hollywood to get them out into the world.” [“Halloween Ends,”](http://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/entertainment/halloween-ends-review/index.html) the trilogy’s final film, hits theaters and streaming this weekend. “So these movies are produced in a cocoon, very much away from the forces of Hollywood. “We’re really known for low budgets because low budgets are profitable,” he told CNN Business. This has been the template throughout Blumhouse’s history: 2020’s “The Invisible Man” was made for $7 million and brought back $144 million. “There’s some movies that do better… The model cuts down risk at the box office since the films don’t have such a high budgetary bar to clear. The film, which stars Ethan Hawke, made $160 million worldwide, according to Comscore But one company that doesn’t seem too frightened of the future is best known for scaring others: That includes hits like “

Movie Review: In Halloween Ends, director David Gordon Green and star Jamie Lee Curtis bring the classic slasher series to a surprisingly entertaining end.

The new movie is maybe not quite as goofy, but it has a similarly irreverent spirit, a refusal to fit into the demands of the broader slasher genre and a cavalier attitude toward this specific slasher’s so-called lore. Luckily, with Halloween Ends, he’s found a way to make one of these movies his own, sans scares but with tons of atmosphere and a sense of queasy, gathering dread. Watching the slow-building romance of Corey and Allyson against the backdrop of this dead-end small town, it feels at times like director Green has finally brought to the series some of the charm of his earlier independent films. (Relax — it’s not a spoiler if it’s the first thing that happens in the movie.) Although he ultimately gets off, Corey’s life is ruined. We might know where the story is going generally, but individual scenes retain the element of surprise, as the story takes unexpected emotional detours. (“As he was locked away in his prison, I disappeared into mine.”) Her new attempts at a soft-focus life notwithstanding, Laurie secretly wants to mix it up. He’s an outcast in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, a place that knows a thing or two about child murders. Eventually, the movie does begin to indulge in gore and other typical genre kicks, which can feel like a bit of a letdown, in part because Green, despite having co-written and directed all of the entries in this most recent crop of Halloween sequels, isn’t really a horror guy. Indeed, the craziest thing in Halloween Ends might be its opening scene, which takes place on Halloween night 2019 and features a teenage babysitter, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), taking care of a young boy who’s a little too fond of pranks. There’s no desperation to escalate, no tiresome fetishization of the gruesome. The only person who seems to show Corey any kind of grace is longtime franchise survivor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), who after the events of the previous film appears to be trying to shed much of her gun-toting, survivalist persona. After the carnival-belly inanity of the previous movie,

For fans of the previous two films in the trilogy, the final battle offers a decent payoff, but overall, the movie is a flimsy finale.

Green could have stopped with the first movie in this trilogy and accomplished as much if not more by continuing on with two more bad to mediocre efforts. Carpenter paid his respects to director Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece “Psycho” with the movie, but Myers, while less realistic than Hitchcock’s Norman Bates, is a more intimidating predator because Carpenter reveals less about him than Hitchcock did Bates. Laurie, who is somewhat of a town pariah as she is blamed for Jason’s last two rampages, befriends the ostracized Corey, although she is a bit leery of him as she gets to know him. Laurie now has physically recovered and is living with her granddaughter Allyson (And Matichak), but she is struggling over Myers’ murder of her daughter in the previous film. Carpenter wisely made her the audience’s on-screen surrogate. It’s brutal and gnarly and perhaps offers seeds for the future of “Halloween,” but overall, the movie is a flimsy finale that’s not worth the price of admission. Now, this movie is the third part of a sequel trilogy to the original 1978 movie. Thankfully it’s not the kind of movie that will haunt me. The child died from a gruesome fall. This film takes place four years after the middle picture which saw the townspeople of Haddonfield, Ill. The trilogy, directed by David Gordon Green, erases all the other Halloween sequels from continuity. I would have skipped this one, too, if there had been another new film opening in our area this week to review.

Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Christy Lemire and Justin Chang review this weekend's new movie releases in theaters, streaming, and on demand platforms.

[Christy Lemire](http://christylemire.com/) and [Justin Chang](http://www.latimes.com/la-bio-justin-chang-staff.html) review this weekend’s new movie releases in theaters, streaming, and on demand platforms. Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Christy Lemire and Justin Chang review this weekend’s new movie releases in theaters, streaming, and on demand platforms. FilmWeek: ‘Decision To Leave,’ ‘Till,’ ‘Stars At Noon,’ ‘Halloween Ends’ And More