In 2018, a grey-haired Laurie Strode turned up with an arsenal of weapons and 40 years of serious trauma piled up from her near-death experience when the mysterious Michael Myers haunted her in October 1977. It was a great homecoming for the franchise despite it being the eleventh Halloween film. The movie was so successful it spawned an all-new trilogy starring Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie and Michael Myers or “The Shape” against the backdrop of where it all began: Haddonfield, Illinois. The second film Halloween Kills comes this October and it concludes with Halloween Ends (due out in 2022). Ahead of more Halloween movies unfolding, we have a few questions to talk about.
Halloween Kills will pick up right where 2018’s Halloween left off, which had Laurie Strode, her daughter and granddaughter setting their house on fire, hoping for The Shape to go up in flames with it. In true tradition for the slasher character, of course he’s not dead yet. As we go into the next two films, here’s the major questions we have about the horror franchise’s next steps.
How Will The Haddonfield Townspeople Move The Plot Forward In Halloween Kills?
If you’ve been following the Halloween Kills marketing closely, you may be aware that the movie will bring together the townspeople of Haddonfield rather than solely our original scream queen. Laurie Strode has some injuries to attend to, but the rest of the town will wrestle with their own traumas with Michael Myers in Halloween Kills when it hits theaters and Peacock this October.
The key question that comes with this is how this element will be important to the Halloween trilogy at hand. Remember this Halloween trilogy is ignoring all the other movies from the franchise prior to the original movie, however there are a few characters in Halloween Kills that fans will remember from subsequent movies to the 1977 classic. Will Halloween Kills actually decide to interconnect with the other nine movies? And how exactly will getting other townspeople involved raise the stakes for Halloween Ends. So far my rough guess is that Michael goes on a serious Haddonfield rampage in this one leaving Laurie no choice but to kill that beast.
Will There Be Any Explanation As To Why The Shape Persists?
Halloween is one of those movie series that doesn’t necessarily do well with too many injections of logic. Even so, I’m quite curious if Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends will go this route as it finishes up the trilogy. Will we find out why The Shape continues to survive and persist to kill all that surrounds him and especially Laurie Strode? Does he in fact have a vendetta of some kind against Haddonfield or will it continue to be a mystery?
Throughout the franchise, Michael Myers has been defined as “pure evil.” John Carpenter once described the icon as “almost a supernatural force” that is “unkillable.” Oof… that doesn’t sound good for Laurie Strode. Back to my own guesses, as a longtime fan of the franchise and the awareness that this Halloween trilogy is very much a tribute to the original, I don’t see there being some grand reveal as to why Michael Myers is unstoppable, but I wouldn’t hate a good old fashioned twist in Halloween Ends.
Will Michael Myers Be Unmasked By The End Of The Trilogy?
That brings me to this next question. Will Halloween Ends dare unmask Michael Myers? In the latest trailer on the film, there is a huge tease that his mask will come off as Laurie says she wants to see his face as he dies. (At this point I wonder if it's just an empty space above his neck). Even so, the franchise has sought to build the character’s backstory before and it’s not unfathomable that David Gordon Green’s version could go this route.
In the sixth film, 1995’s The Curse of Michael Myers the explanation decided on is that The Shape was cursed with the “Thorn” from Gaelic lore and he must kill his next-of-kin every Halloween. Welp, but fans didn’t like the backstory and Halloween’s timeline was partially backtracked after that film with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, which brought back Jamie Lee Curtis and changed up the timeline. It ended with Michael killing Laurie in 2002’s Resurrection. Between that movie and the current timeline, Rob Zombie completely rebooted the series in the early '00s with two films. All that messy context is a reminder that “unveiling” Michael Myers has never landed quite yet.
Will Laurie Strode Kill Michael Myers Or Die Trying?
Last time Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode returned to the Halloween franchise, as we just reminded, she in fact died trying to escape Michael Myers. Will history repeat itself again with Halloween Ends? It seems like it would be an uninspired conclusion for Universal to revitalize Laurie Strode’s story only to kill her off again. But at the same time, Michael Myers being defeated doesn’t necessarily follow with the definition of the character and him remaining a horrifying slasher antagonist. You can’t really kill “pure evil” can you?
Perhaps the key to all of this is Laurie Strode confronting her trauma and finding a healthy way to bury it without Michael Myers necessarily dying once and for all? This is a tough one to predict, thankfully I’m not the one in the writer’s room here, because I’m not even sure how I’d like Halloween Ends to play out.
Will Halloween Ends Really Be The Last Of The Franchise?
That brings us to one final, but ultimate question. Should Halloween Ends end the franchise here? This depends on a lot of factors that cannot be predicted, but from where I see it Hollywood can’t kill this horror beast. Sure, this trilogy could end with the death of Michael Myers, but because the character is so written in the fabric of slashers, filmmakers will want to resurrect him one way or another. But at least this Halloween trilogy can try to finally do some justice to Laurie Strode’s legacy and finish her arc 45 years later in a way that will please fans.
Halloween Kills comes to theaters and Peacock on October 15 and Halloween Ends is set to be released a year later on October 14, 2022. Check out what other upcoming horror movies are soon coming our way here on CinemaBlend.
