Halloween Ends Footage Reaction: Laurie Strode's Last Stand Will 'F*** You Up' [CinemaCon 2022]
After the success and neverending discourse surrounding "Halloween Kills," horror fans have been anxiously waiting to see what happens at the end of David Gordon Green and Danny McBride's "Halloween" trilogy with Blumhouse. The first installment arrived in 2018, disregarding all other entries that came after John Carpenter's original, with the trilogy centering heavily on the way the events of Michael Myers' 1978 attack impacted survivor Laurie Strode and the trauma inherited by her family and their community. 2018's "Halloween" was the introduction of an older, traumatized version of Laurie Strode, focusing primarily on the way Myers has cast a shadow over her existence. 2021's "Halloween Kills," brought us out of Laurie Strode's survivalist compound and into the streets of Haddonfield, as a community attempted to take back their town from the masked slasher. First look footage just premiered at CinemaCon, and we've got the scoop on how the room reacted and what we can expect from "Halloween Ends."
Horror matters
Jamie Lee Curtis took the stage and paid respect to both the genre and the character of Laurie Strode, a character she first played in 1978 and has portrayed ever since. She even called Laurie "the most important relationship" of her career and views her as more than a Final Girl. Yes, the character holds deep meaning for Curtis herself, but she also recognizes that Laurie Strode has become a stand in or avatar for "many women who face their own figurative boogeymen."
"Horror matters," she said to the roomful of theater owners, who surely believe that, but probably for different reasons. Horror is always a driver of getting butts in theater seats, so Curtis didn't need to twist their arms on that front, but it's clear she recognizes the therapeutic side to the genre. In fact, she said it was a revelatory realization for her when she read that horror lets us confront what we can't control. That could explain why she's been so gung ho on respecting her horror roots when many A-Listers never look back after going legit.
All that said, she confirmed that "Halloween Ends" will be "Laurie's last stand," joking that, "Mom is tired." She used even more colorful language to drive that point home, stating unequivocally that, "'Halloween Ends' will "f*** you up."
To back that up, Universal showed the first footage from this trilogy capper which focused on the confrontation between Laurie and The Shape that we all want to see.
The footage went back and forth between John Carpenter's original film of young Laurie walking down the street and flashes to modern day Jamie Lee Curtis walking those same streets. Text on the screen read, "The face of fear was born 44 years ago," and, "Everything has led to this," which brought us to the meat of the presentation.
Will Halloween end, though?
This "Halloween Ends" scene once again found Laurie in a closet, this time hiding out in a kitchen closet (maybe a pantry) as Michael Myers stalks around outside, breathing heavily. Give him a break, he's an old guy. Laurie notices a hanging light pull switch is quietly swinging against the wall, and she grabs it to keep it from drawing Michael's attention.
We know this older, more prepared Laurie Strode isn't going to be spending her time hiding from the boogeyman. She's waiting to strike and strike she does. She bursts out of the closet, not waiting for him to find her, and goes on the attack. During the fight, her head is slammed through a cabinet, but that's not enough to stop Laurie Strode. She fights back, grabbing a knife and stabbing him through the hand (she's bound and determined to mess up this guy's hands, it seems. She also blew off a lot of his fingers in the 2018 "Halloween" film), and the footage ended with Michael knocked on his back on the kitchen table. Laurie is standing over him with the long knife, making for a nice reversal.
An official synopsis for "Halloween Ends" has not been made available, but the cast and crew have indicated throughout interviews what we can expect. The film has been confirmed to be set four years following the events of "Halloween Kills," and will acknowledge how the pandemic impacted the small town of Haddonfield. In an interview with Jamie Lee Curtis, she described the film as "shocking" and asserted that the film will "make people very angry." At the same time, Green claimed in an interview that the film will be more of an intimate coming-of-age story in line with original "Halloween" director John Carpenter's film "Christine."
"Halloween Ends" will debut on October 14, 2022.