The Halloween franchise ended, again, this year with the aptly titled Halloween Ends. I say “again” because the franchise has ended a couple of times already. 1995 saw the release of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, which functioned as the end of the series for three years until 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later released which was followed by Halloween: Resurrection in 2002. Rob Zombie then made his duology of films in 2007 and 2009, but those are better left ignored.
Nevertheless, Halloween Ends marks the end of the franchise. For real this time! Until Universal Pictures decides to inevitably bring it back because the film industry approaches new ideas like the plague and resurrecting an iconic horror series is an almost guaranteed money maker. As it stands, though, Halloween Ends acts as a fantastic conclusion for the series. It tackles the concept and character of Michael Myers with such a surprising amount of depth and complexity that it almost makes you forget that the same team behind this film also made 2021’s Halloween Kills, a movie that is enjoyable solely because of how bad it is.
Halloween Ends isn’t perfect—the last ten minutes or so descend into mediocrity as it seems to cater to what people wanted rather than stick to its artistic guns—but its cinematography, score, and special effects leave a lasting impression. It should not come as a surprise that the music is great considering that father-son duo John and Cody Carpenter return, alongside Daniel Davies, so you can expect the classic Halloween tune and other earworm beats. What really caught me off guard was the cinematography. Director David Gordon Green and cinematographer Michael Simmonds were by no means asleep at the wheel for the first two installments of this trilogy, as both were beautiful in their own way, but they are here at the top of their game in Ends. One kill, in particular, featuring a blow torch, is shot spectacularly well and has stuck in my head long after my initial viewing. A shout-out is undoubtedly needed for Christopher Nelson, the multiple award-winning makeup artist responsible for many of the effects seen throughout the film. Check out his Instagram account here or his website here to get a glimpse behind the scenes at some of his stuff.
Praise for the technical aspects of the movie aside, the aspect of the film that impacted me the most was how it handled the concept of evil through the character of Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell).
**SPOILERS FOR HALLOWEEN ENDS BELOW**
Corey Cunningham starts the film as an innocent teenager who is just trying to make some extra money. However, an unfortunate accident leaves the kid that he was babysitting dead and his reputation irreparably marked. The town of Haddonfield effectively labels him with a scarlet letter, with citizens regularly scorning and mocking him, if not outright bullying him as is the case with a few high school band students. After one particularly violent incident, one of the band students throws Corey off a bridge and leaves him for dead. There, beneath the bridge, amidst the trash and the brush, Corey's apparently lifeless body is dragged into a sewer pipe where he is, for all intents and purposes, resurrected by Michael Myers. Through that resurrection, Michael’s essence is transferred into Corey, and Corey is led to believe that Michael Myers understands him in a way that no one else does.
Corey proceeds to bring a sacrifice to Michael in of the best sequences in the film, thus allowing Michael to regain his former strength, and the two of them wreak havoc on the town and the lives of its citizens, including, most importantly—at least for marketing’s sake—Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). Unfortunately, for Corey, he soon learns that pledging his life to Michael Myers, a.k.a. evil itself, does not result in a happy ending.
The character of Corey Cunningham is a tragic figure precisely because of his turn to evil and eventual demise. He is a well-meaning kid, seduced and tricked by evil into believing that the only path forward was one immersed in darkness. His actions are deserving of condemnation and his fate is one that is ultimately appropriate, but the fact that he ends up in such a situation is a tragedy in the first place.
Because of our human nature, there is a certain proclivity towards selfishness, evil, and sin that lies within the heart of every human being. You don’t have to try hard to find evidence of that either, I mean, look at how most two-year-old children act at any given moment, and you will find yourself a proponent of pedobaptism and exorcism real quick. Yet, regardless of that proclivity, when someone, anyone, fully and intentionally sins and falls prey to evil, it is a tragedy because they are typically only doing so due to being deceived. That deception comes about when we as humans buy into the idea that we do, in fact, know better than God does. Be it related to sexuality or something as simple as “actually, God does not care if I gossip about people just a little bit,” we either deceive ourselves or are ourselves deceived by the enemy when we go against what God decrees throughout the Bible.
(Are you confused about what the Bible teaches? Understandable, today’s political/religious climate and the ever-presence of social media have made heresies seem like truths because they are repeated so often and with so much passion. And, after all, TikTok “Pastor” #899 said that our beliefs are wrong due to a mistranslation in 1946 and a more accurate term would be— just stop. Instead of trusting viral claims that have few-to-zero historical adherents, refer back to the traditions and teachings of the Church. I promise you that 2000+ years of teaching are not suddenly incorrect and that God just so happens to align with the “ideal” values of a 20th-century secular humanist.)
Look back at the introduction of sin into the world in the Book of Genesis. Adam and Eve both sin because they are deceived by Satan into eating the forbidden fruit. He tells them that God does not want them to be equal to Him, and that they are missing out on something very, very good. Satan painted himself as a tragic hero, someone who was shunned by God for daring to question Him. The devil makes himself seem appealing because if he were to appear to everyone as a horned, Darth Maul-esque creature that looks like a Spirit Halloween costume, most would flee from him immediately.
That appeal of Satan is something that is touched on by St. Paul. In his second letter to the Corinthian Church, he describes Satan in a similar way: “…for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light,” (11:14, NASB). That description may seem weird when Satan is typically portrayed as a pitchfork-wielding, horned devil in both popular culture and Christian media, but it makes sense when you consider the reality of who Satan is. He is an angel, intentionally and lovingly created by God. The 28th Chapter of the Book of Ezekiel goes further into Satan’s appearance and nature through a declaration against the leader of Tyre. I never noticed the parallels until recently, so check them out for yourself below:
12“Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD,
“You had the seal of perfection,
Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.13“You were in Eden, the garden of God;
Every precious stone was your covering:
The ruby, the topaz and the diamond;
The beryl, the onyx and the jasper;
The lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald;
And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets,
Was in you.
On the day that you were created
They were prepared.14“You were the anointed cherub who covers,
And I placed you there.
You were on the holy mountain of God;
You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.15“You were blameless in your ways
From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness was found in you.16“By the abundance of your trade
You were internally filled with violence,
And you sinned;
Therefore I have cast you as profane
From the mountain of God.
And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub,
From the midst of the stones of fire.17“Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty;
You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.
I cast you to the ground;
I put you before kings,
That they may see you.18“By the multitude of your iniquities,
In the unrighteousness of your trade
You profaned your sanctuaries.
Therefore I have brought fire from the midst of you;
It has consumed you,
And I have turned you to ashes on the earth
In the eyes of all who see you.19“All who know you among the peoples
Are appalled at you;
You have become terrified
And you will cease to be forever.”’”Ezekiel 28: 12-19, NASB
Read verses 12-14 again and think about what it would be to truly see Satan, or any of the fallen angels—now demons—that went with him. We would be awed. Satan knows that and he capitalizes on it.
As he “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” (1 Peter 5:8, ESV), he does so as appealingly as possible. The reason that I included an illustration of Satan as portrayed in John Milton’s Paradise Lost is because that epic poem creatively shows how Satan most likely views himself and wants others to see him.
The phrase “Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n” gets its origin in this piece of literature. You see, to Lucifer and the fallen angels, any sort of restriction of their “rights” is evil, and thus God is evil by placing boundaries on what they should or should not do. He wants everyone else to think the same way. He wants other angels, and especially human beings, to believe that restrictions on oneself are cruel and that personal desires are inherently good, no matter what they may be. He wants to be seen as a victim and hero of sorts, someone who stands up to an oppressive authority. He does everything that he can to make that image be what sticks, but the reality of his situation is that he is a prisoner of Hell and he wants everyone else to be as lonely and as defeated as he is.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy shows Satan for the pathetic prisoner that he is, and makes his evil be the consuming feature of his appearance. Winged, horned, multi-faced, and monstrous, the Satan of the Divine Comedy is Satan at his most low and disgusting. It is obvious that he is miserable, and it is unfortunate that more people in the real world do not see that version of Satan when they are tempted to stray from God.
The duality of the devil makes him the ultimate mouse trap. He sounds like the voice of reason, he seems like a legitimate option. Yet, when you choose him, the sole conclusion is death. Accordingly, our response to when we see someone choose evil should be, partially, one of compassionate mourning. That is not to say that we cannot also be filled with righteous anger. When someone’s decision to commit evil affects an innocent life, I think that there is plenty of justification to mourn the victim more than the perpetrator and to seek holy, righteous, decisive justice to ensure such a thing does not happen again. There is a reason why, at the end of time, God will throw Satan and his followers into the Lake of Fire for all eternity. However, we must simultaneously keep in mind that the perpetrator is a victim as well. It should break our hearts that anyone will have to suffer the same fate as Satan or, to a lesser extent, a fictional character like Corey Cunningham.
For although Corey Cunningham is a made-up person in a horror movie, his story represents a very true reality that happens every day. Moment by moment, more and more people fall to the wayside, chasing a lie that the devil makes them believe is true.
And that, dear reader, is a tragedy.
Thanks for reading.
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Good read!