< Does Halloween end in 'Halloween Ends?' -

STEPHEN THOMPSON, HOST:

A warning - this episode contains discussion of suicide.

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THOMPSON: The lucrative horror franchise. "Halloween" has spanned more than four decades. That's 13 films and countless bloody deaths at the hands of the silent, seemingly unstoppable killer Michael Myers. And now the series has reached its conclusion with "Halloween Ends." I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about "Halloween Ends" on POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR.

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THOMPSON: Joining me today is writer and film critic Walter Chaw. Hey, Walter.

WALTER CHAW: Hey, Stephen - so glad to be here.

THOMPSON: It is great to have you. So the "Halloween" movie franchise has been in many different hands and gone in many different directions since the debut of John Carpenter's original "Halloween" back in 1978. But the first film provides much of the key backstory. As a child, Michael Myers killed his sister before wreaking havoc on the fictional town of Haddonfield, Ill. He says nothing, wears a creepy, expressionless mask and kills with brutal, dead-eyed efficiency. And in that very first film, he was not able to kill babysitter Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

Cut to 2018, when a new "Halloween" film, titled simply "Halloween," came along as a direct sequel to the 1978 original. Jamie Lee Curtis returned as Laurie Strode, who had spent decades haunted by the events of 40 years earlier. That film ended up kicking off a trilogy of films all directed and co-written by David Gordon Green. The second, which came out last year, was "Halloween Kills." And now we've got "Halloween Ends." In "Halloween Ends," Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson, played by Andi Matichak, are trying to move on with their lives after the grisly events of past "Halloween" movies. But their lives are upended once again when Allyson falls for a troubled loner named Corey, played by Rohan Campbell. The situation only grows stabbier (ph) as Michael Myers returns to the scene. We've got your bloody deaths, your dramatic showdowns and, of course, lots more ruminations on the persistence of true evil.

Walter, we have much to discuss. First up, what did you think of "Halloween Ends"?

CHAW: You know, I was very surprised to love it...

THOMPSON: Wow.

CHAW: ...As much as I did. I was lukewarm at best about "Halloween Kills." I like the first film of this new trilogy fine. I thought it was good - savage, you know, in a really fan-pleasing kind of way. "Halloween Kills," I just thought, was really mean. It is broad. It's oafish. It's metaphors are obvious. You know, it's "Halloween For Dummies," kind of. And I found it all to feel a little nihilistic. But "Halloween Ends" takes a really interesting, I think, left turn. It's thoughtful. It's among my favorites, I think, of the 13 movies at this point. It falls just behind the original, which is an all-time masterpiece, of course. But I also love the third movie, "Season Of The Witch."

THOMPSON: "Season Of The Witch," which was maligned at the time.

CHAW: In much the same way, I think this movie is going to be maligned because it sort of doesn't give what the audience is expecting or wanting much the same way as "Season Of The Witch," which, you know, history has shown to be very thoughtful and intelligent and without Michael Myers, which - this movie for the longest part of time is also without Michael Myers. So a lot of similarities, including the opening graphics, are taken from the third movie. But I love that. And I love Rob Zombie's second "Halloween," "Halloween II." I think it's a brilliant exploration of parental grief.

And I love this movie and, I think, for a lot of the same reasons in that it does explore, a lot like the very first movie, how there is great, chaotic evil in the world and parents are not able to save their kids from it. And, you know, we tell ourselves that there are rules that we can follow to avoid chaotic, evil death - you know, the stabbiness (ph) that you talk about. But that's not true. There are no rules. It's capricious and malign. And there's something really sad about sending our kids out into that kind of world. And this movie - if anything, "Halloween Ends," I think, is really melancholy, which I didn't expect, either. It's an anti-"Halloween" "Halloween" film, which I think are my favorite "Halloween" movies - except for the first one are my favorite ones of this franchise.

THOMPSON: Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, the reviews on this haven't been particularly great. I liked it not quite as much as you did, but I liked it considerably better than "Halloween Kills," which, for me - you mentioned the meanness. But for me, it was just rote and pointless and badly written. And I appreciate what you're saying about the melancholy of this one. And kind of just the tone and pacing of it are a little bit different. This movie has more space to breathe, unlike "Halloween Kills," which is just kind of continuing right on the heels of its predecessor and just has that same super, super-violent tone throughout. This one lets us get to know the characters a little bit more and, like you said, is not as focused on Michael Myers, which, I think depending on your opinions of how interesting that character is at this point after this many movies - I appreciate it as well. I mean, it focuses a lot more on this character of Corey and, you know, whether he might sort of turn the way Michael Myers turned.

CHAW: Yeah. You know, I think it seeks to answer the question that the first movie, all the way back in 1978, asks, which is what is Michael Myers? And, you know, if you remember Sam Loomis, the worst psychiatrist in the world...

THOMPSON: Seriously (laughter).

CHAW: Yeah, I wouldn't want him to be my shrink. But, you know, he says at one point in "Halloween," he says, you know, that is just the personification of evil. It's almost like a Werner Herzog monologue about the malign nature of true evil. And so through the years - you know, the last decades with the 13 movies - I think there's always been this question of the Neil deGrasse Tysons in the audience where it's like, are you telling me a guy could get shot six times and...

THOMPSON: (Laughter).

CHAW: ...You know, be hit by lightning and he's still...

THOMPSON: Oh, my gosh.

CHAW: I think Michael Myers is an idea. And the first movie happens at the end of a decade, the '70s, where we were asking a lot of those questions about what's reliable anymore? What's safe? Is the family safe, or the police safe? Is the government to be trusted? Or is the church to be trusted? And "Halloween's" very much a part of that tradition, I think. And it says, you know what, there is malign evil in the universe, and it doesn't have to do with your parentage. It doesn't have to do with any kind of, like, demonic possession. It is just malignant. It was born this way, and it's in the middle of your neighborhood - Haddonfield, Ill., the most bucolic, Rockwell-esque neighborhood I can think of. Here it is. It's evil. And it's out to get you. Why? I don't know. Can you stop it? No, you can't.

There's something about this movie, I think, that really ambitiously tries to tackle that by saying, look, it's not really about Michael. It's about the sort of legacy of trauma that violence leaves behind, and it can infect an entire community. And here's this really sad film about the absolute inability to prevent the passing on of trauma. And the Laurie character who's been in, you know, half of these movies - she is a victim of trauma, obviously. And she's trying very hard in this one to be over it, to write a book to exorcise it, to bake pies, to be the surrogate foster mother for her grandchild. She's trying to be normal in a social sense, and she can't because she's traumatized, and trauma is not fixable this way. It's a really fascinating, I think, mature film that has a lot of silly elements. I'm not saying that this is Bergman.

THOMPSON: (Laughter) No, it is not.

CHAW: Yeah, no, but it is not without Bergman-esque elements, you know? And if you remember, Bergman made some really great horror films - "Hour Of The Wolf" and "Virgin Spring." These are these questions that we ask, is, where does evil come from, and how do we dispel it? Is it even possible?

THOMPSON: Yeah. And I think it's really interesting the points you're making about generational trauma, which is a huge, huge theme of this particular trilogy - like, how you are affected by being raised by somebody who is still reeling from trauma. You also made a really interesting point, I think, about the Neil deGrasse Tyson-ness of the audience. When you're sitting there watching these movies in which a seemingly unkillable serial killer is shot and stabbed and beaten with bats and just keeps right on ticking, I got really hung up on it. I turned into Neil deGrasse Tyson watching "Halloween Kills"...

CHAW: (Laughter).

THOMPSON: ...Where I just sat there irritated, A, by how stupid everyone was, and B, by how just mathematically impossible Michael Myers' survival was. And I thought about that so much less watching this film, even though it has some of the same elements. And that, I think, is a sign the rest of the movie's working. If the rest of the movie isn't working, then you turn into Neil deGrasse Tyson because all you're watching is this guy going through and cutting everyone to ribbons. And I think this movie just had more to offer than that.

CHAW: Yeah, I think there's a real richness to this text, you know? And again, I'm not saying that this is "Moby Dick" or something, but I think the richness that you can mine from this text is actually useful. It isn't just sort of self-aggrandizing or masturbatory, you know? There's something really useful that you could pull out of this text. It's essentially about two pairs of lost souls that are trying to find a relationship and belonging with one another. There's the younger pair, played by the granddaughter and Corey, the kid that becomes the center of this film. And then there's the older couple played by Jamie Lee Curtis and Will Patton, who are sort of flirting with each other in the grocery store and things like that. And they're both trying to navigate each other's baggage.

And so much of the dialogue, I think, is explicitly about the impossibility of really fixing people, that you can only really begin to live with it better or dampen the noise, but the noise never goes away. We wear trauma. We can't un-wear it. And it begins to question, I think, too, what Allyson's motives are in trying to fix him. You know, our best intentions of trying to help people who are traumatized sometimes are dangerous or more self-serving than they are altruistic. And, you know, there's a device that's going to be nailed, I think, too, in the court of public opinion, where Laurie is reading out of a book that she's writing about it, and it serves as sort of a voiceover narration, and people - oh, what a crutch. What a storytelling crutch.

THOMPSON: (Laughter).

CHAW: But I will also say that by the very end of it, it felt less like a book that she was writing than a suicide note.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HALLOWEEN ENDS")

JAMIE LEE CURTIS: (As Laurie) Fear moves through all of us, and we decide when to surrender. I've said goodbye to my boogeyman, but the truth is, evil doesn't die. It changes shape.

CHAW: And if you look at it as a suicide note, as a sort of like, I've been through this terrible thing and I'm choosing not to let it get to me, but it keeps getting to me, I'm not really sure if I can ever end the suffering without ending myself, then it begins to really sound like a suicide note to me. And, you know, the last sequences and - you know, we're not giving anything away, but the last sequences really deal heavily. And suicide is even mentioned throughout the course of the film as a means to finally escape Michael Myers. The only way to do it is to extinguish yourself. And so - but by the end of it, it really becomes this wrestling, you know, almost Kierkegaardian wrestling with, you know, fear and loathing of the self and whether or not it's ethical to maintain consciousness or, you know, sentience in a world that's so malign. There is something really, I think, fascinating to unpack and useful even to unpack to victims of trauma about this film. If you can stomach the gore...

THOMPSON: Right.

CHAW: ...Especially this DJ who gets, you know, used in most...

THOMPSON: That scene is not very Kierkegaardian.

CHAW: You know what? As a lover of vinyl, you should never treat a turntable the way that it's treated in this movie. So anyway - but there's a lot of stuff for the fans. But I think they don't want something different. They want the same so that they can compare it against their expectations. You know, it's almost like, you know, OK, well, this was OK, but Michael moved too slow. This is OK, but he would never do that to a dog. They want this. It's kind of reassuring for people to be able to complain about the one thing that they maybe know a lot about. So this is a movie that actually takes a really dangerous turn and they challenge you to look at grief in a different way and consequences to violence in a different way. This is not a fun movie. This is not a roller coaster ride. You know, this is a - I'll say it - it's magnificent, Stephen. And I - you know, I went to this movie expecting "Rise Of Skywalker" and I got "The Last Jedi" instead, you know. And all of these movies are imperfect, right? I'm not saying any of these are masterpieces. I'm just saying there's something really challenging about this film that I think is usefully challenging instead of just exasperating.

THOMPSON: Well - and I think one area that this film really benefits from is that they're finally given an opportunity to resolve this story a little bit. They're not just keeping a franchise alive by resetting it. They're able to kind of reach a conclusion instead of just kind of making this movie like I felt with "Halloween Kills" where you just feel like, what was the point of the movie? You didn't solve anything. This felt like it had a resolution. And I do think there are some fine performances in it as well. And we haven't really talked about the performances, but I think Rohan Campbell as Corey, I actually had to look up, like, is he related to Willem Dafoe? Because he's got a little bit of a Willem Dafoe presence. He's got a little bit of a Joaquin Phoenix presence. He's got a little bit of a Bruce Campbell presence, even though he's not related to Bruce Campbell. I thought he showed a lot of promise. I'm very interested to see him. I think he could do other horror movies really effectively.

CHAW: Oh, man, he is so good. And I think he's so good because he earns our empathy immediately. This is a good kid. You can tell. And there's someone in the movie, I think, that says that he doesn't look the same and his eyes are different.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HALLOWEEN ENDS")

JACK WILLIAM MARSHALL: (As Mr. Allen) The kid who used to mow our lawn didn't kill my son. I know that. But the guy I saw on the side of the road was down a dark path.

CHAW: It's like, that's true. He doesn't seem the same. And that's a testament to that performance. You're absolutely right. And I love, you know, what you're saying about the closure because this is a trilogy that one person was allowed to see through from beginning to end. I didn't love "Halloween Kills." I didn't maybe even like it, but I like it better now after "Halloween Ends" because I understand it now as a second act to a completed piece. We begin with this "Halloween" from 2018, was it? And we come all the way through now to "Halloween Ends."

And, you know, when he says ends, we all know. This is like a comic series. This is a franchise, a lucrative one. It's never really going to end. There's going to be, like, 13 more "Halloweens," I'm sure, by the time I'm, you know, in my dotage. But the thing is to have a movie series that begins and ends with a single voice - whether or not you think he's saying something, it is one voice. And I get it. I understand Michael from beginning to end. I understand what he's doing with the movies. I can see it. I don't have to do any, like, outrageous homework. I can watch the first one, the second one and the third one by David Gordon Green. And I have a pretty good idea of the story, and I appreciate that. It's rare now.

THOMPSON: I hear you completely. We want to know what you think about "Halloween Ends." Find us at facebook.com/pchh and on Twitter @pchh. That brings us to the end of our show. Walter Chaw, thanks for being here.

CHAW: It's such an honor to be here, Stephen.

THOMPSON: It is a pleasure. Of course, thank you for listening to POP CULTURE HAPPY HOUR from NPR. This episode was produced by Candice Lim and edited by Rommel Wood and Jessica Reedy. Hello Come In provides our theme music. I'm Stephen Thompson, and we will see you all tomorrow when we'll be talking about "House Of The Dragon."

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