The Halloween franchise has gone through different retcons, and not all of them have been beneficial to Michael Myers’ story and the saga in general, but Halloween Kills stands as one of the biggest failures in the franchise, and here’s what went wrong with it. After the underperformance of Halloween: Resurrection in 2002 and the not-so-successful remakes by Rob Zombie in 2007 and 2009, the Halloween franchise was brought back to life in 2018 with a new trilogy and brand-new timeline, serving as a direct continuation of John Carpenter’s original 1978 movie and thus ignoring all sequels that came after it.
Directed by David Gordon Green, Halloween (2018) reunited viewers with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers, as the latter escaped from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returned to Haddonfield four decades after his first encounter with Laurie. Halloween was followed by Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, the latter bringing the saga to an end with the real death of Michael Myers, but the road to that was quite rocky, especially in Halloween Kills. The second installment in the Halloween reboot trilogy did more harm than good to the reboot timeline and the Halloween franchise, and here’s what went wrong with it and how it affected Halloween Ends.
6 Halloween Kills Sidelined Laurie Strode
Just like Halloween II, Halloween Kills picks up where its predecessor ended, but it also repeated one of Halloween II’s biggest mistakes. At the end of Halloween 2018, Laurie’s fight against Michael Myers left her severely wounded as he stabbed her, so after being rescued by a truck driver (along with Karen and Allyson), she was taken to the hospital while the firefighters dealt with the fire at her house… and were killed by Michael Myers, who survived the fire and explosion. Laurie survived but had to stay at the hospital due to her wounds, keeping her away from the action, while Allyson took the lead and went after Michael alongside her ex-boyfriend Cameron and his father, Lonnie Elam, a survivor of Michael’s 1978 killing spree.
Halloween II made the same mistake by keeping Laurie at the hospital, with Michael killing everyone who stood in his way, and only saw her jump into action until the third act of the movie. Halloween Kills made this worse by not having Laurie actively participate at all, instead staying at the hospital with Hawkins, who was stabbed in the previous movie, with whom he talked about what she believed Michael Myers truly was. While it made sense as Laurie had been wounded and needed medical treatment, sidelining the franchise’s Final Girl and main character was a big mistake for Halloween Kills, even worse than when Halloween II did it.
5 Halloween Kills Focused Too Much On Minor Characters
With Laurie at the hospital, Halloween Kills instead focused on secondary and minor characters that, ultimately, didn’t do much good to the story. While Allyson was given the time and attention to become a lead character, which continued in Halloween Ends, the rest of the characters ended up being irrelevant, and most of them didn’t even survive the movie. Along with Allyson were Cameron and Lonnie, who faced Michael at the Myers’ home, with the latter two joining the list of Michael’s victims. Meanwhile, Tommy Doyle, Lindsey Wallace, Marion Chambers, and other Haddonfield residents formed a mob to go after Michael, but it didn’t turn out well as their collective anger and thirst for revenge led to the death of an innocent patient from Smith’s Grove. The mob came close to killing Michael Myers when Karen unmasked him and led him into the angry mob, who proceeded to beat, kick, stab, and even shot The Shape… but Michael, somehow, survived, got back up, and killed the whole Haddonfield mob, so everything they had done was in vain.
4 Halloween Kills Failed To Explain Why Michael Wanted To Go Home
Tommy, Allyson, Lonnie, and Cameron mapped out Michael’s path and the location of his victims and deduced that he was heading toward his childhood home, and they were right. Michael killed the current owners of his family home and stayed there, where he was later confronted by Allyson, Lonnie, and Cameron, and it was even mentioned that, since he was a kid, he had a thing for looking out of the window of his sister’s room. Halloween Kills made the Myers house an important setting but never really explained why, only that Michael wanted to go back home and stare through the window in Judith’s room (again). In the end, the “he just wants to go home” part of Michael Myers’ storyline in Halloween Kills was only used to kill Cameron, Lonnie, and bring Michael to the angry Haddonfield mob, only for Michael to kill them all, with the icing on a very bloody cake being Michael killing Karen in Judith’s room. Halloween Ends completely forgot about this part of Michael’s story, and an Easter egg even revealed that the Myers house was demolished at one point between Carpenter’s movie and the reboot.
3 Michael Myers Killed Laurie’s Daughter
One of the most criticized moments from Halloween Kills was the final kill: Karen, Laurie’s daughter. Karen spent most of Halloween 2018 trying to keep Laurie away from her family as she was tired of her mother’s obsession with Michael Myers, which she had to deal with her whole life. Karen finally believed her and put her training to good use once she saw Michael Myers standing in front of her, and from that moment on, she did everything she could to keep Allyson, Laurie, and herself safe from The Boogeyman. Karen saved Allyson from being killed by Michael, unmasked him, led him into the mob, and shot him in the head, after which she thought he was dead, but Michael survived. As Michael killed the Haddonfield mob, Karen reunited with Allyson on the porch of the Myers’ house, and she later went upstairs to Judith’s bedroom, where she was surprised by a very alive Michael Myers, who killed her.
There were theories and a lot of hope for Karen surviving her encounter with Michael Myers at the end of Halloween Kills, but Karen was confirmed to have died in Halloween Ends. There was no point in killing Karen except to add more tragedy to Laurie’s life, as this loss didn’t even serve as motivation for Laurie and Karen to catch and kill Michael in Halloween Ends, and Karen was just mentioned a couple of times. Karen didn’t even get to mend her relationship with Laurie and she didn’t get a chance to fight back when Michael attacked her, so her death wasn’t just unnecessary, but it was also unfair.
2 Halloween Kills Made Michael Myers Supernatural
Karen’s death was controversial and so was Laurie being sidelined for the entire movie, but the biggest mistake (and complaint) of Halloween Kills was making Michael Myers supernatural again, for no reason and without explanation. As mentioned above, Michael Myers somehow survived being stabbed, beaten, kicked, and shot by Karen and the Haddonfield mob, and he got back up again without a problem to continue his killing spree. The only explanation at the time of Halloween Kills’ release was that Michael Myers was supernatural (again), such as in the infamous Cult of Thorn storyline in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but the reason why and the origin of Michael’s immortality were never explored. Halloween Ends didn’t solve this mystery either, and even worse, it showed that Michael wasn’t immortal at all, as Laurie and Allyson finally killed him and later threw Michael’s body into an industrial shredder.
1 Halloween Ends Forgot About Half Of Halloween Kills
Halloween Kills left a bunch of unanswered questions and loose ends that, unfortunately, Halloween Ends failed to answer, and thus it ended up forgetting about half of the events of Halloween Kills. The above-mentioned “Michael wants to go home” storyline, Michael staring out Judith’s window, and his sudden immortality were completely forgotten in Halloween Ends, as were the deaths of Karen and legacy characters Tommy Doyle and Sheriff Brackett, which did no justice to these characters who, ultimately, died defending Haddonfield. Halloween Kills left a mess that Halloween Ends couldn’t fix, and it did more harm than good to the reboot timeline by giving the trilogy an inconsistent tone and quality.