A lot of adjectives have been used to describe the divisive sequel Halloween Ends, but only its staunchest defenders would claim the movie was too intellectual and profound for its detractors to understand. Those are also the words used by Jamie Lee Curtis when she described two alternate endings that were considered for the film, including one that would have taken place in a mask factory (a setting that brings to mind Halloween III: Season of the Witch – and maybe a bit of Child’s Play 2). According to Curtis, these potential endings were rejected because they were too intellectual and profound!
Curtis covers the alternate endings in the new book Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years of Blumhouse, which is available for purchase at THIS LINK. Curtis explained (with thanks to our friends at Bloody Disgusting for sharing the passages), “The original ending of Halloween Ends, originally entitled Halloween Dies, was a scene in a mask factory. You see a conveyor belt of masks being manufactured. They’re Michael Myers masks, which was saying, ‘We’re all monsters if we put on the mask. It’s not just Michael. It’s all of us, if we wear the mask.’ And yet somehow, it didn’t satiate. I think it was too intellectual for this finale. It was a big swing, and I honor and support the big swing. There was also an ending in which we explored and filmed a sort of transference between Laurie and Michael. In the final killing of Michael, Laurie almost became him. In this second of glory – taking the life of Michael Myers – she became Michael Myers. She has to go away at that point. She has to revert back to the Laurie we met in the first film. She has to isolate herself for the rest of her life because she now has a piece of Michael in her. [But] it was too dark and too profound to satisfy the hunger of this 40-year journey. And we changed it to this procession, where the town of Haddonfield quietly bears witness to the end of Michael. Then Laurie goes back to her house for the final scenes.”
David Gordon Green, who was also at the helm of Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills, directed Halloween Ends from a screenplay he wrote with Danny McBride, Paul Brad Logan, and Chris Bernier. The film has the following synopsis: Four years after the events of last year’s Halloween Kills, Laurie is living with her granddaughter Allyson and is finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham, is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to finally confront the evil she can’t control, once and for all.
In the closing moments of the finished film, viewers are given some hope that Curtis’s Laurie Strode might finally be able to move on with her life. The last shot shows the Myers mask sitting on at table in her house. Curtis said, “I think there was an ambiguity to it, intentionally. I think it has the same effect that the original idea for the mask factory spewing out Michael Myers masks would have had.“
What did you think of the ending of Halloween Ends? Would you have preferred an alternate ending set in a mask factory, or the one where some of the evil is transferred to Laurie? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
