I will like to breathe a slight sigh of relief as this is luckily not the Rise of Skywalker of this Halloween trilogy to me, but it still absolutely is the weakest by a mile.

The second act is extremely sloppy and repetitive. They made Allyson unlikable and naive; I refuse to believe it’s the same character that I saw in 2018 and Kills. Corey is somewhat of an interesting character but he takes up so much screen time from Michael and even Laurie, that he is the main reason this movie gets derailed for a pretty large portion of the runtime. His romance with Allyson is the worst thing I’ve seen in the Halloween franchise since Michael’s mother befriending a unicorn in Rob Zombie’s abomination, H2.

It’s a very sudden change in pacing, going from Kills being a 105 minute non-stop bloodbath, and to this being a slow melodramatic love and revenge story covered in thorns. It’s a really odd choice. It just didn’t feel like Halloween at all. There’s not even really many shots of people trick or treating. Haddonfield just felt empty and not as immersive as the last 2 films.

The film is at its best when Laurie is on screen (duh). Jamie Lee Curtis establishes herself as the ultimate final girl in this movie. The last 20 mins of this movie is the most badass she’s ever been. David Gordon Green’s light bulb suddenly went on in the third act too as for some reason the direction was excellent and Corey’s death scene actually felt somewhat raw to me.

Just like the last 2 films, this movie has some great callbacks to the original 1978 movie. From the reappearance of Laurie’s blue blouse to Corey watching Carpenter’s version of The Thing (a film that didn’t exist until 4 years after the original Halloween).

Despite my many problems with the movie, it at least nails its ending. The final showdown between Laurie and Michael had my heart pounding faster than I thought it would. It’s also refreshing to see a slasher franchise fully commit to the sense of finality and actually show the killer die in an extremely satisfying and drawn out way.

Just like that, Laurie’s journey has finally come to an end after 44 years, and the most prolific horror franchise of all time has come to an end. I actually am going to miss not having another Michael Myers slasher to look forward to. Goodbye Michael, goodbye Halloween.