Me personally I never liked Kills. I re-watched it last month and my feelings on the movie didn’t changed. Although I do like some of the music, beyond that I don’t like this movie, and would place it near the bottom.
I was mostly indifferent towards Halloween Ends. I wasn’t a fan of the 2018 or Kills, so I went in with pretty much zero expectations. The acting in Ends was definitely an improvement over 2018 and Kills. The storyline was much more coherent compared to 2018 and Kills. My opinion on Ends is still the same a year later.
I think the biggest problem with Ends is the story having nothing to do with what happened in the two previous movies, and the fight between Michael and Laurie being randomly tacked on at the end.
This was not the final film in a trilogy like it was marketed to be. It was a spin off stand alone story, that had a few Halloween characters randomly thrown in. If you wanted to, you could easily make this an original film with just a few minor tweaks here and there.
I enjoyed kills despite the “evil dies tonight” cheesiness. Myers was a beast in this film and imo that movie had some of the most evil…messed up kills ever
As for Ends…I hated watching some newbie character messing up myers. His death ( final one ) was a definitive realistic way to completely destroy this vessel of pure evil…but I honestly expected him ( before I watched it) to somehow survive the movie and slink away into the night.
Got to say my least favourite was the first movie. Not because it was the worst of the 3 (movie wise it wasn’t) but just because it didn’t live up to the hype. I’m not a huge fan of Rob zombies H1…but I honestly preferred that over H40:myers:
I’d say out of this trilogy, 2018 was the one I disliked the least. There were a couple moments of Michael being stealthy. The moment of him dropping the teeth just to scare the podcaster was very in character for Michael. And I really liked the babysitter, she should’ve had Allyson’s role. Out of these three movies, 2018 is the only one that feels like it’s at least attempting to be a Halloween movie. Also the soundtrack in 2018 is honestly one of the best in the franchise.
I still dislike 2018, but there’s at least more things for me to enjoy about it compered to the other two movies.
Halloween 2018 was the first Halloween movie I was old enough to see in theaters, although it didn’t introduce me to the franchise as I had already been a lifelong horror fan, I’ll always remember being excited to finally see a Halloween film on the big screen. The hype and buildup to the release was insane.
As far as the film itself goes, I think it gets a lot right. From a production standpoint it’s one of if not the best, James Jude Courtney was badass, some great sequences and kills and I think the basic set-up was good. Although I do have quite a few issues regarding the script and dialog, I also wasn’t a fan of retconning the whole franchise. Overall it’s a decent B+ film and the best since Halloween 4, although not nearly as good but 2018 is a solid entry.
Halloween Kills is probably the most re-watchable of the three but it’s easily the worst written of the trilogy. It’s great for a slashsr and Michael action but as far as story and characters it’s lacking. Not a great film but not as bad as some say.
Halloween Ends I’m extremely mixed on. I like a lot of the character moments with Laurie, I think it’s Jamies best performance in the franchise honestly. I think the story surrounding Corey and the themes explored are really interesting but it just doesn’t work for the final chapter of the trilogy. I think there’s a really good idea for a movie here but I don’t think it was executed all that well. Ends is nowhere near as bad as most people make it out to be, but it’s also not some underrated misunderstood masterpiece. It’s just a messy at worst decent at best, but overall disappointing finale.
Kills I like less now than I did at first (I never actually liked it, but it was tolerable). I was never a fan of it, but visually the lighting and scenery was the most Halloween-like of the post-6 sequels so that clouded a bit of my judgment, but as a film itself it feels like a bit of a slog. They also ruined probably the best part of the movie in the first '78 flashback’s ending with the callback to the final shot of the opening to the original film, the callback being the police and Michael standing frozen as the camera pans out; they ruined that by a second flashback right after that that takes away all the power, imagination, and ambiguity of that scene.
Ends had potential, but became laughably ridiculous. I mean all three Blumhouse movies had some pretty ridiculous bits, but ends went off the deep end. It’s a shame as in between the oft absurdities Corey was being built up decently for the first 40 minutes or so due in large part to Rohan Campbell, then you have 70+ minutes after that of ridiculousness, not to mention the terrible treatment of Michael, The Shape this was not. Not that any of the Blumhouse films did the character right, but then again the only sequels in the franchise that came close to The Shape character in Halloween '78 were 4 and 6 (he did show planning and intelligence in 5 but there were a lot of other bits in that one that hurt his portrayal). Allyson was pretty much ruined in Ends as well, which is a shame as she was one of the better parts of the previous two films.
I just didn’t care for any of the Blumhouse trilogy films, none of them felt like Halloween films and they tried to be serious but had so many absurd moments that just took me right out of the films. I mean Rob Zombie’s films had some out there moments but they felt tonally consistent so they didn’t jump out at you as much whereas the Blumhouse films felt tonally all over the place so it was jarring.
My opinion of them is basically the same. I’m not a fan of Kills but there are a few things I appreciate about it. I thought Ends was entertaining but has some missed opportunities and flaws:
The lack of Hawkins is very strange. He had all this backstory introduced in Kills and it seemed they were building up his character for something, but all this was completely ignored in Ends.
It’s never acknowledged in the film if Laurie believed Hawkins when he told her in Kills that Michael wasn’t obsessed with her and wasn’t targeting her specifically. I thought that would’ve been a huge blow to her since that belief caused her so much paranoia and ruined her relationship with her family, but in Ends it’s never mentioned if she realized her mistake and how it affected her. Michael did eventually attack her again in 2018 but not for the reasons she thought. So I thought part of her character’s arc should’ve been realizing the mistake she made.
The townspeople blaming Laurie for Michael’s rampage is sort of believable since some people jump to conclusions without having all the details, but I thought it was weird that Laurie didn’t defend herself. Even Allyson blamed Laurie for what happened which doesn’t make sense because she knows Laurie isn’t at fault. It almost seemed like the film was suggesting that Laurie actually was partly responsible for Michael’s mayhem.
When Corey enters Laurie’s house at the end she doesn’t doesn’t react to the fact that he’s wearing Michael’s mask. Once she saw the mask she should’ve been surprised and tried to find out where he got it since that means he’s probably had some kind of contact with Michael and knows where he’s hiding. But she doesn’t comment on the mask at all. For a large part of the movie Laurie suspected that Corey was going down a dark path, and when the evidence for that dark path is made obvious (wearing Michael’s mask), that should’ve tipped her off that Michael had something to do with it and might be returning to kill again. Having her ignore the mask is bad writing in my opinion.
Another thing about the encounter with Corey that I thought was strange was the fake suicide. What was the point of it? All she had to do was get her gun and then shoot him when he entered her house. Why did she slowly walk upstairs, light a jack-o-lantern, pour herself a drink, and look at the manuscript of her book? Why do all these things if she knows Corey is about to break into her house? The whole climax is just very sloppy in my opinion.
Despite all this I’m still able to enjoy Ends because at least there’s a story and some entertaining sequences.
) was a definitive realistic way to completely destroy this vessel of pure evil…but I honestly expected him ( before I watched it) to somehow survive the movie and slink away into the night.
