Link Copp-Millward’s review published on Letterboxd:
Hooptober - Entry 17
How is it that both the Halloween Requel trilogy and the Jurassic World requel trilogy follow practically the same quality arc from "I enjoyed this to I'm not sure what they're doing here to wow, that was a cash grab, huh?" but I can't even call this film a cash grab because it seems like it's going out of its way to not give the audiences what they want (I'm not even a Halloween fanboy but this is such a big swing, who is this even for?) It doubles down on its subplot/theme from Kills and just goes from there. This film feels like it has a lot in common with Stephen King's IT, with Michael Myers's legacy as our malevolent "Pennywise" type force, tainting and infecting the town of Haddonfield.
So much of Halloween Ends is specifically NOT about Michael Myers but his impact on Haddonfield. I would say the main character of this new trilogy is Haddonfield, it's not Michael, it's not Laurie, and it's not Allyson, which... hey, interesting idea, it's different. Unfortunately it just doesn't come through in the execution (or the marketing, I assume the studios had no fucking clue how to market this film which is why we saw so little of it in the 2 or 3 trailers we got.) Also unfortunately... I just never quite know what the fuck we're trying to say with these films? The 2nd felt like some vague attempt to comment on "fake news" and fearmongering and how that can turn normal people into monsters. This one however... I'm not exactly sure? There's too many weird twists and turns for me that character motivation feels tossed out the window for some half-hearted story about trauma and bullying?
The first part of this trilogy was perfect and like Jurassic World they shouldn't have made it a trilogy, you nailed it the first time around so don't tempt fate. You can't turn Laurie vs. Michael into a 3-movie spectacle so you have to come up with other ideas. So on the one hand I "enjoyed" the ideas being presented and the attempt at doing something different with these last two parts. Unfortunately they're such weak follow-ups to a fun requel that felt like a good send-off to Jamie Lee Curtis' legacy (although she DOES give a really good performance in this, I love this version of Laurie), so that taints it. I think the ideas explored in Kills and Ends would have made a good limited anthology series after the film. Each episode dealing with a different citizen of Haddonfield and exploring all the Kills/Ends themes about trauma, legacy, and evil. Overall like... I dunno y'all... maybe a decade or two from now we'll all come around on this like we did Halloween 3, but right now, no thanks.
Random Musing
I know we're all about trope subversion nowadays, but... marching band bullies???? lmao
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