The following contains major spoilers for Halloween Kills.
This weekend, the 200th Halloween movie arrives in theaters. Ok, that’s something of an exaggeration, but Halloween has become one of the most prolific horror franchises ever, spawning not only multiple sequels but a couple of reboots. The new film Halloween Kills follows 2018’s Halloween, the sequel to 1978’s Halloween, and franchise fans will need to get ready because the Halloween Kills ending sets up a killer showdown for Halloween Ends.
In a perfect world, we would have seen this movie last year and we would have gotten Halloween Ends as a 2021 movie. And considering where this movie goes, it's just going to make the wait that much harder.
Halloween Kills picks up right where 2018’s Halloween left off. It also gives us some brand new backstory connected to the original film which introduces us to some new old characters as well as fill in the events of what happened 40 years ago that brought us here. Here’s what happens at the end of Halloween Kills and what it all means for next year’s franchise conclusion.
How Halloween Kills Ends
When it comes to the Strode family, Halloween Kills picks up right where 2018’s Halloween ends, with a burning house and an injured Laurie Strode. Laurie spends the entirety of the new film at the hospital recovering, believing that Michael Myers will eventually find his way there because his only goal is to kill her. But the big piece of information that Laurie and her family get from Deputy Frank Hawkins is that this has never been about Laurie Strode.
Michael is simply a violent monster, and the only reason he tried to kill Laurie in the last film is that he was set on her path. In actuality, Michael’s only goal has been to return home. A fact that is ultimately fatal to the gay couple that has knowingly taken residence in the Myers house.
Laurie’s daughter Karen, once learning that Michael will go home, heads that way as well, knowing that her own daughter, Allyson, is hunting Michael, and knowing that if Allyson finds him, she’ll almost certainly end up dead.
And Karen’s not wrong. Allyson and ex-boyfriend Cameron confront Michael in the house. Cameron is killed, and Allyson ends up severely injured when Karen arrives. She stabs Michael with a pitchfork, and by removing his mask before he can recover, gets Michael’s attention. Karen runs off, and Michael follows after.
Except, Karen leads Michael into a trap. Several of the citizens of Haddonfield are waiting for Michael, and they surround him. They’ve all had enough of Michael and have been itching for a fight all night. Michael is stabbed, shot, and beaten with every manor of blunt object. Eventually, Karen stabs Michael’s prone body in the back with the knife Michael himself had previously been using, before walking off to let the people finish him off.
But of course, it’s not that easy. When Michael appears dead, the people let their guard down, and that’s all Michael Myers needs. He proceeds to eviscerate every remaining townsperson They are unable to stop him, and it doesn't appear that Michael has left a single survivor.
But the death is not over yet. Karen goes back into the Myers house, and stands up in the window that belonged to Michael’s sister, the one we’re told he used to spend all his time staring out of as a child. She’s in Michael Myers spot, and he does not take kindly to that.
While it’s unclear how Michael made it past paramedics and police, he has done so and he brutally kills Karen, seemingly while her own daughter is having her wounds tended to downstairs. Cut to black.
How Halloween Ends Will Probably Start
It’s still Halloween night in 2018 in the world of these films, and while it’s unclear exactly how many hours are supposed to have elapsed over the course of Halloween Kills, the sun isn’t up yet. So it’s still Halloween night.
We should fully expect that when Halloween Ends opens next year, it will pick up right from this moment. At least temporarily, as director David Gordon Green did tell CinemaBlend's podcast, ReelBlend, that Halloween Ends will have a time jump at some point. But back to Halloween Kills. Maybe it will start with Karen’s body being discovered. Perhaps Michael is not done yet, and he plans to kill every person in and around his house, and the next movie will open with an absolute blood bath.
While I’m not sure motivation to destroy Michael Myers is necessary, Laurie and Allyson certainly have it now. Laurie’s greatest fear has now come true. The thing she trained her daughter to hopefully prevent has happened, and Allyson has now lost both her parents to the Shape.
How Do You Kill Michael Myers?
The final moments of Halloween Kills get us ready for what this entire franchise branch has been building towards. A final stand off between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers. We see both of them looking into windows, both of them knowing this night is not over yet. Michael may not have any interest in specifically targeting Laurie, but the feeling there is not mutual.
But how they will possibly stop Michael Myers is a question we certainly can’t answer right now. Over the course of Halloween Kills, Michael has been beaten, stabbed, and shot multiple times. These movies have never tried to explain how Michael is able to do what he does, how he is still standing, and it’s doubtful they ever will, but how do you kill somebody who doesn’t stop moving even after you’ve unloaded a pistol into him?
At this point, there aren’t very many characters left for Michael to kill, the only significant characters to appear and live through both movies are Laurie, Allyson, Deputy Hawkins, and the town Sheriff. That’s it. We’ll likely be introduced to several new characters in Halloween Ends who we’ll get to know just well enough to feel bad when they’re dead.
But we should also get ready to lose characters we know. Laurie Strode makes it clear in this film that she’s willing to sacrifice her own life if it means killing Michael, and so we should probably start to come to terms that something like that is very likely. Deputy Hawkins also blames his own actions 40 years ago, preventing the police from killing Michael in cold blood, for every death that has happened since. Since he blames himself, seeing him sacrifice himself isn’t too much of a stretch either.
In 12 months time we’ll get another movie, and however this story resolves itself, the title, Halloween Ends, promises that we will get some sort of resolution.
