Halloween Ends looks to conclude the Laurie Strode/Michael Myers saga - at least for now - and there's one perfect location to set the bulk of it in. The Halloween franchise has now been active for over 40 years, and in that time it's carved out multiple distinct continuities that ignore the others. In the current Blumhouse continuity, none of the prior Halloween movies after John Carpenter's original actually took place, meaning the revelation that Michael and Laurie were siblings never occurred.
Instead, Michael simply laid dormant in Smiths Grove, the mental hospital he was sent back to after his 1978 rampage through Haddonfield. In that time, Laurie never recovered from the trauma of that night, becoming a survivalist-type, and planning for what she believed to be Michael's eventual return. She was right, as Michael did go on another killing spree 40 years later, even if that didn't entirely make sense, considering he'd be nearing retirement age.
Halloween 2018 justified all this retconning by becoming a hit, both critically and commercially. Now, after an additional year-long delay due to Coronavirus, Halloween Kills arrives to continue the story of Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode in October 2021, with Halloween Ends planned to show up in October 2022. While no one really expects this to be the true end of such a lucrative and beloved franchise, Halloween Ends could at least provide a true conclusion to the saga of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. If this happens, there's one perfect place in which to stage the final showdown: Smiths Grove Sanitarium.
Michael Myers History With Smiths Grove Sanitarium
On Halloween 1963, a 6-year-old Michael Myers brutally murdered his teenage sister Judith in their family home with a huge kitchen knife. Michael was wearing his Halloween clown costume at the time, just to add to the craziness. Michael was then committed to Smiths Grove Sanitarium, not too far from his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois. Michael spent 15 years at Smiths Grove, sitting silently for most of that time, albeit somehow finding time to be taught how to drive. As. Michael's psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis puts it, he spent eight years trying to reach Michael, and then seven more trying to keep him locked up because Loomis knew that what was behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil.
Then, on the night before Halloween in 1978, Michael stages an escape, stealing Loomis' car and terrorizing Nurse Marion Chambers. He of course goes back to Haddonfield and proceeds to stage "The Night He Came Home," otherwise known as the killings of John Carpenter's original Halloween. In the original Halloween timeline, Michael continued that rampage directly into Halloween 2, but as mentioned previously, Halloween 2018's continuity ignores that sequel. Instead, Michael remains at Smiths Grove for 40 years, before embarking on another Haddonfield killing spree. It's unclear why exactly he waited so long, since in this version, he's not focused on killing any particular person, and there's no ridiculous Cult of Thorn guiding his actions behind the scenes.
Why Halloween Ends Should Take Place In Smith's Grove
Despite being such a pivotal location in Michael Myers' life and the mythology of the Halloween saga as a whole, Smiths Grove has never really been used for a big showdown between Michael and his protagonist of the moment, despite part of Halloween 6's finale being set there. At the same time, that sixth movie in the long-running horror franchise is widely seen as one of the worst in the entire collection thus far, so it likely wouldn't take much to convince fans to forget about its use of Smiths Grove and go with a better take. Outside of Paul Rudd's casting as Tommy and Donald Pleasance's final performance, Halloween 6 is really best left in the past.
There are several reasons why setting Halloween Ends, or at least its last act final showdown, at Smiths Grove would be a great move. For one, mental hospitals - and hospitals in general - tend to be inherently creepy under the right conditions, and Smiths Grove at night, after most of the staff has gone home, could be a suitably unsettling location for Laurie to battle Michael in. Then there's the factor of Michael possibly using his often overlooked intelligence to unleash some of the other criminally insane patients held there on Laurie and whoever might be accompanying her. Plus, a claustrophobic setting could work wonders for Halloween Ends' scare factor, as either Laurie or Michael could lock the facility down to prevent the other from escaping, only to later really, really regret that decision.
Michael Should Die (For Good) In Smith's Grove
While, as mentioned previously, there's no realistic chance Halloween Ends actually ends the franchise, it will likely end the saga of Laurie and Michael, at least when it comes to the involvement of Jamie Lee Curtis. With that in mind, it's time to finally give Laurie the moment she's deserved since 1978, as she gets to send the psycho who ruined her life off to burn in Hell, assuming such a place exists. Curtis wanted Laurie to get that moment in Halloween H20 when she chopped off Michael's head, but producer Moustapha Akkad disagreed, leading to Halloween: Resurrection's frustrating retcon that ruined H20's ending. Now it can really happen, for keeps this time, at least in this branch of the Halloween multiverse.
There's no better, or more symbolic, place for Laurie to kill Michael than inside Smiths Grove, where he spent most of his life seemingly becoming more and more evil. Dr. Loomis fought like a madman to keep Michael's evil locked up, and to see it ended back at Smiths Grove would also be a fitting tribute to the deceased psychiatrist that saved Laurie in 1978. Of course, there's one other factor to consider, albeit one that's a bit unlikely, that being Laurie getting killed off as a shocking twist in Halloween Kills. Should that happen though, the role of killing Michael could easily be switched over to her daughter or granddaughter, avenging the murder of their matriarch. Michael needs to die in Halloween Ends, and a Strode needs to end him, preferably inside the concrete walls of Smiths Grove Sanitarium.
