Hollywood Icon Jamie Lee Curtis returns as “final girl” Laurie Strode in David Gordon Green’s final act of his reboot of John Carpenter’s classic slasher flick, in HALLOWEEN ENDS now in theaters.
The town of Haddonfield was wracked with terror ever since the night that Michael Myers escaped from the institution he had been placed in since stabbing his teenage sister to death on Halloween night. When the psychopathic killer returned to his old neighborhood, a lot had changed, but he exacted his brand of mayhem on its citizens, and then met his match in Laurie Strode, the one baby sister Myers hadn’t bargained on who fought back. 40 Years Later…Hollywood legend Jamie Lee Curtis returned to the role that made her an overnight sensation.
Curtis was still a young, emerging talent when she starred in filmmaker John Carpenter’s original Halloween, the little more than an indie movie that would revolutionize the horror genre, and catapult the slasher film craze into blockbuster status. Curtis herself would synch a niche starring in several horror films following the success of the 1978 film, before ultimately becoming one of the film industry’s most bankable talents, but the fandom surrounding Halloween — like its white-faced villain — wouldn’t die! The franchise would continue, and then would get a refresh!
Director and screenplay writer David Gordon Green was hoping to resuscitate the franchise and approached David Blum with the idea of rebooting Halloween wiping out the majority of its cinematic mythology and presenting a story that revisit the town of Haddonfield 40 years later, but it would only work if Curtis could be convinced to return as Laurie Strode. Intrigued by the idea of playing a dramatically different aspect of the original film’s heroine, Curtis indeed reprised her role in Gordon Green’s Halloween, and a brand new trilogy was set in motion.
In true classic form, the promotional art for HALLOWEEN ENDS is centered on the iconic visage of serial killer Michael Myers, who first terrified movie-goers over 40-years ago in the movie that many critic as having launched the “slasher film” genre.
Ends!
In the middle act of his epic re-imagining, 2021’s Halloween Kills the town is brought to its knees when it realizes that Michael Myers has returned to finish what he’s started. The townspeople have experienced a unique trauma caused by the events of Myers’ original rampage in 1978, and Laurie Strode was forever changed by the event, into a hardened survivalist determined to protect herself and those that she loved from the evil that had been unleashed, but alas at the conclusion of that film, Michael Myers disappears without a trace and isn’t heard from again, until…
Halloween Ends promises to conclude the conflict and bring finality to Laurie Strode’s story that decades of sequels wouldn’t provide. When Ends opens up, the audience is taken back to 2019, a year after Myers’ disappearance. Without the proper sense of closure, the town hasn’t had a proper opportunity to heal, and every Halloween is terrorized by the memory. Teenager Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) is an optimist and is working very carefully to make a future for himself outside of Haddonfield, and when he’s asked to babysit on that night, it goes horribly wrong!
Frightened by his bratty charge, Corey is locked in an upstairs attic and when he breaks himself out of the locked room, he accidentally causes the fatal tumble that kills a boy and brands him forever. Now trapped in the “curse” of Haddonfield, Corey earns a meager living, while Laurie Strode does her best to provide a home for herself and her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), who are both together working to heal from the trauma of the loss of their families at the hands of Michael Myers three years ago on Halloween night.
The specter of our villain doesn’t appear until the climax of the film's first act, as we’re introduced to Corey and how badly a turn his life has taken since the accident. He’s ridiculed and bullied and although finds a friend in Laurie and Allyson, it isn’t long before his isolation lands him opposite the ghost of Michael Myers. Corey assumes that he has found a kindred spirit in Allyson and that with Myers’ blessing he can become an instrument to exact revenge on those that have wronged him, but it isn’t long before that unravels and eventually proves his undoing.