The latest trailer for Halloween Ends seems to imply that the slasher sequel will fix one of the most notorious missteps featured in another recent horror franchise reboot. It is not easy to reboot a classic horror series, but the Halloween franchise has taken a pretty good stab at it since 2018. Director David Gordon Green’s Halloween 2018 was a lean, brutal slasher that retconned every sequel after 1978's Halloween and brought back the effective, sparse horror of that original movie in the process.
Admittedly, its sequel struggled with critics (although it was a box-office hit), and the question of whether to kill off Laurie Strode means Halloween Ends' attempt to find its perfect ending will present a significant challenge. However, the latest trailer for Halloween Ends implies that the slasher sequel will get one important trope right. Unlike an earlier horror franchise reboot, Halloween Ends will offer viewers something they have wanted for decades.
Viewers of the original Halloween, and countless slasher movies since, have often wished that the Final Girl would just shoot the villain. Something that the Scream movies took advantage of in their punchy, effective climactic fights. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 attempted to subvert this trope but ended up frustrating many viewers with a pointless scene where the returning franchise heroine Sally Hardesty holds a gun to Leatherface only to freeze at the worst possible moment. The sight of Laurie holding a gun to Michael in the first Halloween Ends trailer could have led viewers to conclude that this was a new Final Girl slasher trend, but fortunately, the filmmakers must have seen the online reaction to the widely disliked Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022 scene. While it probably won’t kill him, the final trailer for Halloween Ends unambiguously promises that Laurie will shoot Michael.
How Halloween Ends Can Fix Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022’s Worst Scene
To be fair to Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2022, the scene was clearly intended to illustrate the freeze response to trauma, a real-life phenomenon. The problem is, it occurred in a movie that was otherwise goofy, over-the-top, and cartoonishly unrealistic. Meaning a realistic depiction of a victim feeling unable to act when faced with their tormentor didn’t have the intended emotional impact when it was surrounded by scenes of larger-than-life ultra-violence. A similar issue occurred when the indie slasher hit Terrifier had its killer simply shoot the movie's supposed Final Girl, a surprise that might have been effective in a lighter movie but instead came across as relentlessly bleak.
Evidently, Halloween Ends learned from these missteps, with its trailer offering viewers a more satisfying shot of Laurie finally, mercifully, just shooting Michael as viewers have angrily demanded for decades. Odds are, this fateful shot will either miss the aging killer or won’t be enough to take him down, knowing how supernaturally powerful Michael Myers has proven throughout the slasher series so far. However, Halloween Ends is at least following through on the promise of its heroine shooting her attacker, unlike another recent slasher reboot.
