For 44 years at this point, fight has been seething in Haddonfield between Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Stepped, and covered lunatic killer Michael Myers – a relentless (or is he?) blade using stalker who won’t remain down. Presently, they’re going to at long last go head to head unequivocally in Halloween Finishes, the last portion in David Gordon Green’s new set of three.A showdown? Between Michael and Laurie? It’s about damn time! Except, across the entire Halloween franchise – encompassing three separate strands of continuity (and the Rob Zombie remake and its sequel, though we won’t talk about those right now) – Curtis’ Laurie and Michael Myers have faced off several times before. In fact, they’ve come to blows in every decade from the ‘70s to now. No wonder they’re both exhausted!
1) Halloween (1978)
The classic for a reason. While Carpenter’s original film is an all-timer from front to back, you can trace the enduring appeal of Halloween and Michael Myers to one precise chilling moment: Laurie thinks she’s taken out her masked attacker, puncturing his eye with a coat-hanger and plunging a kitchen knife into his chest – but as she sits in the doorway catching her breath, Myers silently sits bolt upright behind her. It’s masterfully done – and in the tussle that follows, Laurie actually, for once, succeeds at unmasking the man behind her misery. The genuine legend of Myers is brought into the world in this fight, an evidently mortal man whose impenetrability to cut injuries or shots recommends (yet never affirms) something more extraordinary – and subsequent to tumbling over the gallery, he quickly vanishes into the ether. A finale procured Laurie, Michael and the actual film legendary status – generating all that would come since. Blissful Halloween, kids.
2) Halloween (2018)
There are flaws in David Gordon Green’s 40-years-on sequel, ignoring everything but Carpenter’s original, but they’re mostly to be found in its opening act – come the closing reel, he’s firing on all cylinders, delivering one of _Halloween’_s greatest finales. This timeline finds Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode having gone all Sarah Connor, so by the time Michael comes for her again she’s spent four decades waiting for the chance to kill him. Cue a brilliantly tense traipse round Laurie’s trap-laden house, locking down rooms one on one as she closes in on the boogeyman. Not only is it thrilling to see a horror hero with a plan (and see that plan work very well), but witnessing three generations of Strodes unite to take Michael down – Laurie, her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) – is a perfect pay-off to the film’s ideas of inter-generational trauma. It went out in a blaze of glory – maybe, it really should have ended there.
Halloween II (1981)
Considering how spine-tinglingly splendid the closure of Halloween is, the whole of Halloween II feels a piece pointless – yet a totally strong spin-off proceeds with Myers’ frenzy in the Haddonfield Dedication Clinic. Furthermore, since he disappeared toward the finish of the primary film, the continuation is basically ready to furnish a more noteworthy feeling of resoluteness with a subsequent standoff (until Halloween 4 turned the tables and brought Myers back, while likewise killing Stepped off-screen). With amazing exactness, Laurie shoots Michael in every one of his eyes (a move however merrily metal as it seems to be doubtful) in the working room, before Dr. Loomis floods the room with gas and takes Myers out in a gigantic fireball. There’s a genuine fear to seeing Myers some way or another lurch out of the room while blazing from head-to-toe – before at last imploding in the hall. Prompt ‘Mr. Sandman’!
It’s impossible to really get into Halloween Ends without major spoilers – but safe to say, it does offer a resolution to the Michael-vs-Laurie showdown, and that resolution is pretty great. It’s just, the rest of the film doesn’t set it up in a particularly satisfying way – so, like a rusty knife, it gets the job done but with a bit of a dulled impact. Still, there’s an image here sure to go down in Halloween history as some of the squelchiest stuff the series has brought to the screen, and there’s an actual sense of finality to David Gordon Green’s trilogy-capper. Halloween Ends, really, y’know, ends.
Halloween Resurrection (2002)
Halloween Resurrection (2002)Fifteen minutes. That’s how long Laurie Strode lasts in the much-maligned H20 sequel. What an insult! Everything about this showdown is wrong. The bizarre reveal that H20’s ending was a fake-out (bafflingly, always planned back in ’98)? Wrong. Bumping Laurie off in the opening reel? Wrong. Having Laurie kiss Michael on his masked mouth before she plummets to her death? Wrong, wrong, double-triple-wrong! If we’re being charitable, Michael chasing Laurie through the hospital corridors has some disorientatingly woozy camerawork. But on all accounts, this showdown needs a knife sticking in it.