Peter Bogdanovich’s Targets central resonance is that it’s a horror movie in which it’s acknowledged that the last thing which should provoke actual fear is Frankenstein’s monster. Once random mass murder entered the American social fabric — how does kindly old Boris Karloff provoke more fear than Charles Whitman or the Trenchcoat Mafia or Stephen Paddock ever again?

This movie, Halloween Ends, is not anywhere in the same universe as Targets. Hell, it’s barely even a Halloween movie. But, to the credit of Gordon Green and Co. — I see what they were trying to do: make Halloween movies that also reflected modern real life terror.

Unfortunately, any aspirations to Targets are undermined by some of the stylistic choices in Ends, like the “previously on Halloween” intro, JLC’s exposition-y “oh-just-writing-a-novel-here” narrations and, especially, the weird, seemingly-supernatural bond between Michael and COREY. It all detracts from the real-life implications they’re going for.

Formally and thematically, I vacillated a lot between appreciating some of the cool, reverse-Fire Walk With Me aesthetics and just totally rejecting some of the digital, borderline YouTube-grade cinematography.

Ultimately, this is a tough movie and trilogy to rate because there’s been a lot of piling-on. I don’t think many are rating these movies objectively. I’d like to think I’m not so precious about Halloween that any deviations from the established formula of this particular franchise-as-genre register as completely galling as they are to some. I’ve watched all of these movies and a lot of them are pretty bogus — so, by all means, fuck em up.

I like the focus on COREY. I like the idea that Michael Myers is so old you can just push him over. Gordon Green has a sure directorial hand. I like that this bears certain similarities to Targets — particularly how frenzied and grim the killing spree at the end is.

But, ultimately, this just ain’t so great.