How Green’s Latest Update on the Myers’ Mythology Sets the Stage for HALLOWEEN ENDS
Spoilers abound. Consider yourself warned.
David Gordon Green’s Halloween was essentially a sequel/reboot that functioned very much in the same way Jurassic World did to Jurassic Park. It jettisoned the lackluster sequels and their narrative baggage to tell a much more streamlined story that stuck to the nostalgic beats of the original for it’s updated take. 2018’s Halloween ended rather conclusively: Laurie Strode blowing up serial slasher Michael Myers in her booby-trapped home, made just for that purpose. Never one to shy away from franchising up, or a challenge, Jason Blum announced shortly thereafter that we would get not only one sequel, but two films shot back to back allowing Gordon Green the breadth to deliver an even more satisfying conclusion to his take on this story. Even though the previous film basically delivered just that.
For Halloween Kills, (Which just hit theaters AND Peacock streaming) Green surprisingly decided to crib from Halloween II (1981) in the same way he did the first. Like that ’81 film, Strode is in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital (Same name/logo!) after her attack as the town reels from the paranoia induced aftermath of Myers’ carnage and his still ongoing siege of the town. It’s just a HELL of a lot gorier. As a fan of the franchise, it’s hard to pass a conclusive judgment on this first film, since it was envisioned as one half of a whole and feels very much as a “part one”. Thanks to this the film also ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, which will no doubt have some on Peacock confused and wondering where the hell the rest of the film is. The Sequel to Kills, Ends, was originally meant to shoot back to back with this film, but thanks to COVID, it should should be finished in time for Halloween 2022.
Like Halloween (2018), Green is not satisfied with simply rehashing and resculpting the pre-existing narrative, but also reigning in the unwieldy and convoluted mythology. In the same way he retconned the sibling relationship in the last film of Michael and Laurie there’s another big point of contention where Halloween Kills and Halloween II diverge from its cinematic predecessors — it’s that Michael isn’t actually after Laurie. That first film’s attack is now technically attributed to his psychiatrist, who we discovered last film was a bit of a homicidal fanboy when it came to his admiration of the killer. He not only orchestrated his escape but sort of guided him into Laurie’s path to see what would happen. This course correction by Green feels like a bit of a retcon on his own film, removing any and all motive from Myers, returning him to the embodiment of evil —mercilessly killing anyone in his path. He is now once again the Boogeyman.
Green’s plan reveals itself rather spectacularly in that final act of Kills, combining the film’s most sympathetic thread with its goriest. This had the survivors of the first attack going full Bonanza around Haddonfield, rounding up a posse led by Tommy Doyle (The young boy Laurie Strode babysat in the original film) to rid the town of evil plaguing in for the last 40 years. In a rather spectacular fashion, they eventually catch up with Myers and we see the town go full tilt on the killer in a blood soaked orgy of violence as everyone lines up to take their kill shot, BUT HE KEEPS GETTING UP. It’s then revealed, via voiceover from Laurie as we get the final piece in Green’s grand design and he pays off that removal of purpose from Micheal’s path and his return to the Boogeyman.
But you can’t kill the Boogeyman.
Myers is then revealed to be a conduit of evil. He feeds on it, it makes him stronger and he then unleashes that he takes in, on those unfortunate enough to land in his path. This not only explains him surviving the explosion from the last film, but also what happens next as he returns every blow dealt to him, taking out half the town in the process.
It’s this unstoppable killer piece, while nothing new to the slasher genre, does unground the film a bit from its previous entry and complicates how this will wrap up in the next film. So that is why I think I am going to just say, I can’t say if I truly love it or I hate it, just yet, but damn was it entertaining. That being the case, thanks to the aftermath of that battle between Myers and Haddonfield, with Laurie’s daughter Karen (Judy Greer) being one of the dead, the stage is one again set for Laurie Strode to take on evil. My only question is, how do you kill the Boogeyman? It’s the one thing I think all of these films fail at whenever they go down this route, because how do you kill something that effectively has been rendered into an idea, a force of nature? Out of respect for the first film and how it resurrected this very dead franchise I am going to say the jury is still out for me until Halloween Ends. Just how will David Gordon Green kill off what he has now made unkillable, and make it even half as satisfying as that first film’s take down is an surmountable feat; but one I will wait to see.
If you have a theory feel free to drop it below in the comments.
