Halloween Ends (2022) * *

Directed by: David Gordon Green

Starring:  Jamie Lee Curtis, Rohan Campbell, Will Patton, Andi Matichak, James Jude Courtney

Michael Myers is barely seen for the first hour of Halloween Ends and I didn't miss him,  Over the course of forty-plus years and way too many sequels and reboots, Michael Myers has grown tiresome.   He is a killing machine who can't be killed himself no matter what you do to him.   If a guy can survive an incinerator with only a few small burns, then how would anyone reasonably expect to subdue him with a baseball bat?

The first hour of Halloween Ends, once you get past Laurie Strode's excessive voiceover narration of a book she is writing of her experiences with Myers, focuses mostly on the troubled Corey Cunningham (Campbell), who was accused of killing a young boy he was babysitting on Halloween night a few years ago.   The boy's death was indeed an accident, but that doesn't Corey from becoming a pariah in Haddonfield, Illinois, a town which should bypass Halloween or simply erase it from the calendar.   Corey makes for a sympathetic figure and this portion of Halloween Ends had me holding out hope for a new direction.   But it wasn't to be.  

Corey falls in love with Laurie's granddaughter Allyson (Matichak), who lives with Laurie and as they grieve the death of Allyson's mother from the previous film, Halloween Kills.   Corey is soon terrorized by a small group of bullies who throw him over a bridge and to the ground below.   Demonstrating recuperative powers rivaling Michael's, Corey recovers to find Michael hiding in a sewer pipe and soon becomes his apprentice in becoming a serial killer.   How did Michael survive in the pipe in the time since the last Halloween movie?   This isn't the movie where you should ask. 

Michael Myers is soon reintroduced and assists Corey in brutal murders which are par for this rebooted franchise.   The inevitable showdown which turns out to be underwhelming at best with Laurie Strode is still delivered on cue.   Laurie must have some of Michael Myers' genes in her, because she can take a beating and keep on coming.    By now, I'm Halloweened out.   Everything you can conceive happening to Michael Myers has come to fruition, and now it's high time to move on.