WARNING! This article contains spoilers for Halloween Kills.
David Gordon Green, director of Halloween Kills, has revealed how the film's shocking ending will effect Laurie Strode in the sequel, Halloween Ends. Halloween Kills is the penultimate film in Green's reboot trilogy and a direct sequel to 2018’s Halloween, which picked up 40 years after the events of the original 1978 horror classic. Halloween Kills is set immediately after the closing events of the 2018 film, with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) being rushed to hospital after being stabbed. As she is, firefighters rush to quell the blaze at the Strode residence and accidentally free a trapped Michael Myers (Nick Castle), beginning the cycle of carnage that characterises Halloween Kills.
As Laurie spends the majority of the movie recovering from her wounds, this leaves her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) to defeat the iconic serial killer. This time, however, the Strode’s have a town mob bent on killing Myers on their side. After managing to unmask him, Karen lures Myers to a spot where the mob are waiting for him, and after an intense fight, it seems as if the Shape has finally been defeated. However, Karen makes the mistake however of underestimating Michael Myers’ ability to survive, and after letting her guard down and resting by a window, Myers emerges and stabs her to death at the close of the movie.
Speaking to GamesRadar+, Green discussed what the impact of this pivotal character’s death will have on series protagonist, Laurie Strode. Green outlined discussed how much Curtis’ character had already changed since the original 1978 film, saying the most enjoyable characters are the ones that "evolve." Given this, Green confirmed that Halloween Ends will follow Laurie's experience of "grief and tragedy" after her daughter's death. Read his full comments below:
"Well, if you look at where Laurie Strode went from 1978 over the next 40 years, we found the person in a very different state than we'd left her. The most enjoyable characters to write and watch are the ones that evolve and go through change. There'll be a lot of unexpected character evolution in the next one, and that's because processing grief and tragedy and a massacre like this can only go in any number of infinite directions. And so we just get to pick one and take that journey with her."
At the beginning of 2018’s Halloween, Laurie was riddled with post-traumatic stress after witnessing the massacre 40 years earlier, and had a very strained relationship with her daughter Karen. With Myers’ return, she is forced to confront the trauma of her past and defeat it. In doing so, her relationship with Karen and granddaughter Allyson improves, one of the few positive things to happen to Curtis’ character. It is likely that Karen’s death will have a terrible impact on Laurie and prove just how bad things have gotten, with Myers now closer than ever to killing her and everyone she loves. Given the murder came after two instances where it seemed as if Myers was all but dead, Karen’s death may also increase Laurie's efforts to defeat Myers in Halloween Ends, to bring about an end to his reign of terror once and for all.
Laurie Strode is Michael Myers primary nemesis, and there is no character within the Halloween universe who has endured more suffering at his hands than her. What this also means, however, is that there is no character better poised to vanquish Myers when the trilogy wraps up in 2022. That the writers of Halloween Ends have acknowledged the power of Karen’s death on Laurie’s psyche so soon after Halloween Kills’ release shows just how important it will be to the events of the next film. Whether Laurie is able to overcome this death and channel it to defeat Myers remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that the death of her daughter will have a profound effect on her during the events of Halloween Ends.
Source: GamesRadar+