With Halloween Ends poised to conclude the franchise, it's time for Laurie Strode to kill Michael Myers - for real this time. A common tagline used in the world of horror movies over the years has been "evil never dies." In practice, that seems to be the all-purpose explanation for why any popular horror villains, and sometimes even ones without much of a fanbase, never seem able to stay in their graves for good. No matter how conclusive their demise appears to be, they just keep coming back.
This is especially true of franchise slashers, with Jason Voorhees probably being the biggest offender, dying onscreen in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, only to return as a zombie in Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives. He later got taken to Hell by Freddy Krueger in Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, only to return from the netherworld for more adventures. Michael Myers is no slouch in the undying department though, surviving six bullets and a balcony fall in the first Halloween, then a hospital explosion in Halloween 2.
At the end of Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Michael finally looked to be conclusively offed, with his sister Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) chopping off his head with an ax. Until four years later, when Michael was brought back through the magic of a really terrible plot twist in which the silent killer managed to switch clothes with a paramedic and crush his larynx, setting up Laurie to kill an honest man. If director David Gordon Green truly wants to live up to the title Halloween Ends though, he needs to follow through on Laurie killing Michael Myers.
Halloween H20 Was Designed To End The Series
It's been over 20 years since Halloween H20's release, and four additional films in the franchise have been released since then. With that in mind, many viewers might not be aware that the original plan for Halloween H20 was for the franchise, or at least the Laurie Strode vs. Michael Myers part of it, to end after the credits rolled. When Laurie appears to chop a trapped Michael's head off, that wasn't meant to be a red herring. Instead, it was supposed to provide a cathartic conclusion, giving fans a satisfying instance of Laurie finally conquering her evil brother.
To be fair, the ending of H20 did indeed provide that catharsis, at least for a little while. That changed when Halloween: Resurrection was officially greenlit, guaranteeing that Michael would be returning from the grave somehow, as Halloween III: Season Of The Witch had taught franchise producers the Akkad family that movies without Mr. Myers don't do well at the box office. Sadly, while star Jamie Lee Curtis and director Steve Miner both wanted H20 to end the series, late producer Moustapha Akkad refused to let Michael die. Akkad had been guiding the franchise for more than a decade at that point, following John Carpenter fully leaving it behind, and saw Michael as an iconic character that should never truly be gone from screens.
How The Series Flaked Out On Halloween H20's Promise
While many viewers would no doubt agree with Moustapha Akkad that Michael should never truly go away, what really stings is the ham-handed explanation for Michael Myer's survival. The idea that he would escape from Laurie instead of finishing the fight just didn't ring true to his character, and made most fans roll their eyes. Plus, Michael is a big guy, and the low chances that some random paramedic would exactly fit in his clothes and share the same body type made the scenario more laughable. That plot point was a compromise made partway through H20's production, as Curtis threatened to leave when she found out Akkad wanted Michael to survive.
In the end, the two sides agreed that Laurie would get her big moment of killing Michael to end H20 - but it would be undone in the next film, and Curtis would only come back long enough for Laurie to die at Michael's hands. The awful retcon of Michael's death and the unceremonious killing of Laurie were big factors in why most Halloween fans despise Halloween: Resurrection and many consider it the worst entry in a series with several underwhelming sequels. While the franchise and Michael Myers would've eventually returned, and viewers would've been fine with that, H20's perfect ending could've still concluded the Curtis portion of the saga, leading to a reboot the next time out. Such a reboot did happen when Rob Zombie took over the franchise in 2007, but that's another topic entirely.
Halloween Ends Can Finally Deliver On H20's Promise
Just as with Halloween H20, no one really expects Halloween Ends to truly live up to its title, and end the franchise forever. Of course, no one really wants it to either, as like Dracula or Frankenstein's Monster, Michael Myers is a horror villain so beloved there's no reason he should ever vanish completely. Still, Halloween Ends can indeed conclusively end the trilogy of Blumhouse-produced Halloween movies directed by David Gordon Green, and finally allow Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode to fully defeat her nemesis Michael Myers, once and for all.
While Michael will eventually return for a new rampage, it should feature new characters and a new storyline surrounding him, and be completely unconnected to Laurie Strode or Green's new films. This new Halloween entity should be a total reboot, keeping the slasher that audiences can't get enough of, and possibly the Haddonfield setting but forging a new path with everything else. Laurie should get her victory over Michael, and it should never be retconned, allowing her continuity to remain intact, or at least the Blumhouse variant. The Strodes should finally get to live happily ever after, free of Michael and free of fear. Otherwise, Halloween Ends will just be another disappointment to Curtis' decades of work building Laurie into a heroine for the ages, and all she's gone through at the slasher's hands.
