While Halloween Ends does provide something close to the catharsis that long-time fans of the franchise may be seeking, it does it in a manner that still feels a tiny bit lacking.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 18, 2024

Some of it is gory; the opening is good. None of it is scary. Worse, none of it has any tension whatsoever.

| Jan 3, 2024

“Halloween Ends” is a bummer. And everything about it makes it seem like it’s willing to go. We should let it.

| Dec 6, 2022

Halloween Ends is notable mainly for its cockamamie plot and its reverence for the original.

| Nov 3, 2022

“Disappointing, given the most recent films have had a grounding in a very modern context…. There’s nothing more disappointing than a sequel that’s just there for the sake of it, and that’s what this is for me.”

| Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 1, 2022

They say this is “Halloween Ends.” I say: Can we get that in writing?

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 20, 2022

An engaging and suspenseful psychological thriller that could have functioned totally independently of the Halloween series, but works in concert with what’s most interesting about Green’s prior two entries.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 19, 2022

Who ultimately survives Michael's rumble with Laurie ends up not mattering, since the film itself shows such little signs of life.

| Oct 19, 2022

This fast-paced, well-acted thriller – in the psychological and slasher sense – carries us to an answer that may or may not be definitive.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 18, 2022

Did you want closure in a satisfyingly coherent way? That’s not what you’ll get. Did you want to see Curtis in one more (we think) badass performance as durable Laurie Strode, whom she’s been playing for some 45 years? You’ll get that.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 17, 2022

It’s time that Myers and his mouldy old mask were laid to rest. Let’s hope nobody decides to disinter him yet again.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 17, 2022

If [Laurie Strode] is a pastiche of her original John Carpenter iteration, then so is the movie. But it’s just got enough fresh ideas, laughs (mostly intentional) and queasy jump scares to make for a raucous Friday night at the movies.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 17, 2022

David Gordon Green’s third and presumably final entry in the Halloween series winds up being the pleasantest of surprises.

| Oct 15, 2022

So dreary is this latest go-round that the film’s title resonates less as a guarantee than as a cruel taunt.

| Oct 15, 2022

All of this lofty thematic stuff feels very cheap and insincere because, at the end of the day, this is a slasher movie, and not a very tense or effective slasher movie.

| Oct 15, 2022

Loaded with big swings and compelling ideas. They just don't belong on the path established in the 2018 film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 15, 2022

[The film] essentially shrugs its shoulders midway through and delivers a tedious plethora of gory, often misogynistic torture-porn killings. The franchise tank is officially empty.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Oct 14, 2022

Curtis goes through her final dance, crosscut with scenes from the prior movies, and while it would be bad form to reveal more, you can't help but come up with something better in your head. Perhaps that's the point.

| Original Score: C | Oct 14, 2022

Your goosebumps will remain dormant.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 14, 2022

It's easy to admire its wide swings at doing something different with a trilogy closer, but Green and his team can’t figure out how to wed their undeniable ambition to something that’s coherent.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 14, 2022