Four years after her last encounter with masked killer Michael Myers, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is living with her granddaughter and trying to finish her memoir. Myers hasn’t been seen since, and Laurie finally decides to liberate herself from rage and fear and embrace life. However, when a young man stands accused of murdering a boy that he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that forces Laurie to confront the evil she can’t control.

Beginning with 2018’s Halloween, director David Gordon Green had a grand vision for the Halloween franchise and a desire to bring back the fear in the form of the original bogeyman himself, Michael Meyers. Returning to John Carpenter’s original cinematic landscape, he has continued the story of cinema’s first ‘final girl’, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and through this new narrative, Green has unleashed the plague of Michael Meyers upon Haddonfield once more, with the kill counter growing with each new chapter. Now with Halloween Ends, Green sets out to tell the final chapter of the Halloween mythos, and the narrative takes an interesting turn with this story.

In Halloween Ends, Green turns his attention away from Laurie and focuses outwards on the town of Haddonfield and its almost cursed existence thanks to the crimes of Michael Myers. While I don’t want to run too deeply into it for fear of spoilers, Haddonfield is a place where evil, suffering and pain linger and even with the disappearance of Michael Meyers at the end of Halloween Kills, the pain still lingers. This presence of a curse and Michael’s personification as a literal force of evil leads to some very interesting moments within the narrative of Halloween Ends. This is particularly apparent in relation to Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and her new boyfriend Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), a young man with a tragic past who has felt first-hand the presence of Michael Meyer’s evil.

Green plays against the expectations of the audience with Halloween Ends, and you go in thinking this film will be one thing, and it turns out to be something else entirely. There’s a freshness to this narrative, and be prepared for some very creative jump scares that will have you leaping out of your seat out of fear and fright. The kills are nasty and intense, and the film’s narrative leads to some interesting slashing moments that are sure to shock fans.

But in the film’s final act it all comes down to a showdown between Laurie and Michael. And it’s particularly gnarly and gruesome. There’s no complication of excessive fight choreography, this is a messy, nasty brawl for survival with Laurie throwing everything at her monster. Knives stab, and blood flows, and in this final act we see Laurie putting an end to the fear, pain and horror of the past. Be prepared to be on the edge of your seat in this gritty final brawl that once and for all leaves a final statement on the evil that is Michael Meyers.

Halloween Ends is the definitive final moment of the Michael Meyers saga, and the gore and blood flow, and audiences seeking a fright will get it with this film.

Image: Universal Pictures

The post ‘Halloween Ends’ – Review appeared first on SpicyPulp.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) comes face-to-face for one final encounter with Michael Myers, 40 years after his initial killing spree on Halloween night.

As my all-time favourite horror film I was incredibly intrigued when I saw that a new Halloween movie was on its way to theaters and director David Gordon Green didn’t disappoint with this re-imagining of a classic tale that reconnects everything back to the classic 1978 horror masterpiece that spawned a genre, and with this long awaited sequel he really brings the terror to the big screen.

Halloween is an exercise in tension and every minute that ticks by is guaranteed to make your blood run colder. The premise is simple and to the point as Michael Myers manages to escape while being transported to a maximum security hellhole and thus  begins his rampage on the inhabitants of Haddonfield, Illinois, all over again.

I was really impressed with the tone and pacing of this long awaited Halloween sequel and as a director Green was certainly able to make the film his own, while still reconnecting it back to the original work by John Carpenter, who serves as an executive-producer on the project. Green strikes the right balance between the heightened suspense of the original along with nailing the lashings of gore that modern audiences expect from today’s horror cinema and he certainly had me cowering behind my seat.

The original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis also returns to Halloween and her portrayal of Laurie Strode definitely catches you by surprise. Forty years on Laurie is a burnt-our survivalist nutcase who has a really bad case of PTSD and who has spent her entire life training and laying in wait for the return of Michael Myers so she can finally end his evil……all to the detriment of her family and her own sanity. It’s the most unhinged role that I’ve ever seen Curtis play and you really buy into her paranoia and obsessive preparation to confront this ultimate evil.

Halloween is very much the portrait of an American family of women from grandmother Laurie to her uptight and fairly normal adult daughter Karen (Judy Greer) who is oblivious to her mother’s panic at Michael Myers and finally to Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson, played by a scene stealing Andi Matichak, who knows of the stories behind her families dark history and who shares a special bond with her grandmother.

When these three generation of Strode women have to confront Myers you get a full picture of the alpha mother persona, the character of mother as protector who no matter the threat or predator is willing to go to extreme lengths to protect her young. This persona is present in all three of the Strode women and I was very happy to see how their fight for survival was captured up on screen.

If you’re talking Halloween then you must talk about serial killer, and the original slasher icon, Michael Myers….and he’s back and more scarier than ever here. Described as the personification of pure evil, Michael Myers is a figure who will most certainly haunt your dreams and here he returns with a vengeance to take back Halloween night. In a cool twist we get to see the return of the original Shape himself in the form of Nick Castle who reprises the role of Myers and who alongside James Jude Courtney really brings this savage killer to life.

Green masterfully uses suspense and the threat of increasing shock to make you shiver in your seat and jump up right when Myers does indeed strike. In terms of the horror I really liked that Green didn’t rely solely on jump scares to build tension through the film and instead works to create what I would described as a ‘terror film.’ The cinematography of Michael Simmonds also comes into play here in building the film’s heightened level of suspense and features an incredibly complex steadicam shot that takes you right into the very heart of the carnage. It’s a masterful scene and I was mesmerized by its construction and how it helped to play out the journey of Michael’s rampage through the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois.

And the twists and shocks along the way, well….they certainly come at you and while I won’t mention spoilers I will say that the narrative certainly zags when you think it will zig and this made Halloween one of the most original horror films I’ve seen for a very long time.

If you like your horror with a sharp edge to it then I can most certainly recommend Halloween….but you might want to sleep with the light on and pray The Shape doesn’t come looking for you.

Image: Universal Pictures

The post ‘Halloween’ – Review appeared first on SpicyPulp.