Halloween Kills saw many deaths, including that of one of the reboot’s main characters: Karen Nelson, Laurie's daughter. However, there’s a chance that she’s still alive, and she might even be the franchise’s next villain in Halloween Ends. The horror genre has seen various remakes and reboots in recent years, and one of the most popular ones has been that of the Halloween franchise. It all began in 1978 with John Carpenter’s Halloween, which is now one of the most influential horror movies ever, and the one that made the franchise as it’s now known possible.
Halloween tells the story of Michael Myers, who on Halloween night 1963, when he was six years old, murdered his older sister, Judith, for no apparent reason. Michael was sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium, where he became the subject of many studies as he never spoke again, and was the patient of Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who concluded that Michael Myers is the incarnation of evil. Fifteen years later, on October 30, 1978, Michael escaped and returned to his hometown Haddonfield, Illinois, where he began to stalk Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends, with Laurie being the only survivor. Halloween spawned a franchise with 13 movies (including Rob Zombie’s remakes and the upcoming Halloween Ends), and it has gone through different retcons, and it’s currently on a reboot timeline that is repeating some of the franchise’s past mistakes.
The reboot trilogy began in 2018 with David Gordon Green’s Halloween, which ignores all movies in the Halloween universe that came after Carpenter’s original, becoming a direct continuation to the first movie. This means that, in the reboot timeline, Laurie and Michael aren’t siblings and her daughter Jamie Lloyd (Danielle Harris) and son John Tate (Josh Hartnett) never existed. Instead, Laurie was given a different family: an estranged daughter, Karen (Judy Greer), and a granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), who joined Laurie as the final girls of the new trilogy. However, this changed in the second movie, Halloween Kills, when Karen was stabbed by Michael right at the end – but there are some hints throughout the movie that this won’t be the end of Karen, and she will end up continuing Michael’s reign of terror.
Halloween Kills Made Michael Myers Supernatural Again
Michael Myers has gone through a variety of explanations on why he kills, and the most controversial and nonsensical of all linked him to supernatural forces. By making Michael Myers supernatural, the writers got away with having him survive all types of impossible scenarios, starting with being shot multiple times in the first Halloween movie and later casually walking out of the hospital fire in Halloween II. Michael Myers being supernatural was explored deeper in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, which introduced the Cult of Thorn and a curse that haunted the Myers family, which was what drove Michael to kill, mostly those related to him, and the cult was also behind his supernatural “abilities”.
Michael Myers being supernatural was retconned in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, a direct sequel to Halloween II and in which Laurie finally killed The Boogeyman by decapitating him, but this satisfying end was retconned when the sequel, Halloween: Resurrection, arrived. Resurrection explained Michael’s return by saying he attacked a paramedic and swapped clothes with him in order to trick Laurie and the rest, so she decapitated an innocent man. Now, Halloween 2018 didn’t give any hints at Michael Myers being supernatural, but Halloween Kills went back to that. Michael was lured into the mob’s trap by Karen, who then let Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) and the rest of the residents of Haddonfield beat, stab, and shoot Michael. As the angry residents left Michael Myers unconscious and seemingly dead, a voiceover by Laurie explained that no mortal man could have survived everything he has gone through, that the more he kills “the more he transcends into something else, impossible to defeat”, and his true curse was the fear he spread. Michael got up again and killed those around him, and by the end of Halloween Kills, he found Karen in Judith's bedroom, staring through the window, and stabbed her, supposedly killing her.
How Karen Could Still Be Alive After Halloween Kills
There are some details from the scene where Michael Myers stabs Karen that have made fans believe Karen survived the attack. First off, her “death” happens too quickly, and Michael has taken his time to kill his victims in the past, mostly to ensure that they are really dead, and he didn’t do the same with Karen. There’s also how Michael failed to deliver a final blow that would end with Karen for good, just like she and the mob did with him when no one shot him in the head or snapped his neck, as he did with poor Cameron (Dylan Arnold). Of course, if Karen survived, she will be severely injured, even if she tried to block the stabs with her hands, but also the way the scene was edited gives the idea that those wounds weren’t fatal, and Karen’s supposed death was nothing more than a hook to keep the audience interested in the franchise and the upcoming Halloween Ends.
Theory: Karen Takes Michael Myers’ Place In Halloween Ends
Karen’s actions and attitude through Halloween Kills have made some fans believe that the movie was preparing the audience to see Karen taking Michael Myers' place as the villain in Halloween Ends. A Reddit user even listed the major clues to this that they found through Halloween Kills, most notably how she was staring at her reflection while Hawkins told them about Michael doing the same at Judith’s room, when she stared at a six-year-old Michael Myers at the Myers house, and how she subtly tilted her head in a very similar way as Michael does when Hawkins was brought in at the hospital. Now, with Michael Myers being supernatural again (though exactly why and how it’s unknown), it wouldn’t be surprising if it was something that can be passed on or if he can “possess” or control others to act as an extension of him, and all these details could point at Karen being the chosen one, with the attack on her being part of the “process”, though some fans have suggested that she was the one who killed the mob, as when she took Michael’s knife, that’s when their link was established.
Karen Replacing Michael Repeats Previous Halloween Stories
Karen taking Michael Myers’ place as the villain and being under his control wouldn’t be something new in the Halloween franchise, as two past storylines already covered similar ideas: Jamie Lloyd’s arc in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, and Laurie’s in Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. Jamie Lloyd was part of the timeline where Laurie and Michael were siblings, meaning that she was Michael’s niece. At the end of Halloween 4, Jamie approached an unconscious Michael and touched his hand, which created a link between them, and when she was taken back home, she was possessed by her uncle’s spirit and, still dressed as a clown, stabbed her foster mother. In Halloween 5, the telepathic link between them continued and she had seizures whenever Michael committed a murder.
Rob Zombie’s Halloween remakes followed the same basic premise of Halloween and Halloween II, but he made some significant changes, mostly adding to Michael’s story during his time at Smith’s Grove and over-explaining his family background, while also adding a strange connection with his mother. In Halloween II, Laurie starts having hallucinations that mirror Michael’s past and also include her acting out his murders, and thanks to Loomis’ (played by Malcolm McDowell) book, she learns she’s Michael’s sister and that she also has his “illness”. In the theatrical cut of the movie, in the end she stabs her uncle to death with his own knife and is later locked up in isolation in a psychiatric ward, where the hallucinations continue, so it’s implied that, if she was free, she would have carried on with her uncle’s legacy.
Now, even though the idea of another character (and a female one) replacing Michael Myers or being under his control isn’t new, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Halloween Ends using it would be a good decision. Halloween Kills repeated many past mistakes, and although it would be interesting to see how Michael could have some control over Karen without them having a link in any way, having her take his place as the villain would perpetuate the idea of him being supernatural and invincible, and it would risk making the reboot timeline as unbelievable and borderline ridiculous as past ones. It’s only a matter of waiting to see if all those little hints sprinkled all over Halloween Kills will have a meaning and impact on Halloween Ends or if they are just a fun and perhaps unintentional addition.
