Halloween Kills really lives up to its name. Light on plot and heavy on killing, Halloween Kills picks up immediately following the finale of David Gordon Green’s 2018 Halloween and sees Michael Myers killing his way across Haddonfield. Meanwhile, Tommy Doyle, the kid who Laurie was babysitting in the original 1978 film, is all grown up and gathers a mob of people to kill Michael Myers.
But what about that ending? How does Michael Myers escape? Who does he kill? Why does Officer Hawkins (Will Patton) feel so responsible for Michael’s rampage? We've got you covered with a quick rundown of what happened in Halloween Kills, how it ended, and what it's setting up for Halloween Ends.
How Is Officer Hawkins Responsible?
In the hospital with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), Hawkins thinks back to 1978, when he first crossed paths with Michael. Through flashbacks, we see Hawkins and his partner confront Michael in his old house. Hawkins, still a rookie, shoots his partner instead of Michael Myers. He is wracked with guilt. When Michael is beaten on the lawn and surrounded by officers, Loomis approaches, intending on shooting the boogeyman. Hawkins admits to Laurie that he was “lost in his regret” and couldn’t stand to see anyone else die, so he stopped Loomis from shooting Michael.
How Is Michael Myers Ultimately Stopped?
Well, he’s not. He’s Michael freakin’ Myers. Michael has returned home, where he kills Lonnie (Robert Longstreet) and his son Cameron (Dylan Arnold), before turning his sights on Allyson (Andi Matichak). Allyson stabs him a few times, but it doesn’t slow him down. Before he can kill her, her mother Karen (Judy Greer) shows up and stabs him in the back with a pitchfork. She removes his mask and uses it to lure Michael across the street, where an angry mob of townspeople, led by Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall), wait.
The townsfolk start beating Michael with baseball bats and other assorted blunt tools. He ends up on the ground, and Karen stabs him once in the back with his own knife. Satisfied that that killed Michael, Karen goes back to the old Myers house to comfort her daughter. The rest of the mob sticks around, and Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers), not satisfied with Michael’s easy death, is about to shoot him. But he hesitates, and Michael jumps up, grabbing the knife from his back and slashing Brackett’s throat. He then turns around and starts killing every townsperson around him, finishing off the spree with Tommy Doyle.
Is Michael Myers Supernatural or Human?
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Just when it looks like Michael might have been defeated, he springs back to life and decimates the residents of Haddonfield. Back at the hospital, Laurie gives her theory to Hawkins:
"I always thought Michael Myers was flesh and blood just like you and me, but a mortal man could not have survived what he's lived through. The more he kills, the more he transcends into something else, impossible to defeat. Fear. People are afraid. That is the true curse of Michael."
So does that mean this version of Michael Myers is now canonically supernatural? Not quite. The character has a history of supernatural strength in the Halloween franchise, cemented with the introduction of the Cult of Thorn in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, but Green's 2018 sequel wiped the entire canon clear, excepting Carpenter's 1978 original, and he's holding firm to the position that his version of Michael Myers is not a supernatural being.
"The suggestion that he is more than a man is a theory that Laurie has,” the filmmaker said in an interview with IGN. “My own personal concept for Michael, which will carry forward as long as I'm involved, is that he's capable of spectacular things but not impossible [things]. So I don't personally see him as supernatural, but I see the element of fear that he's generated and exacerbated is transcending the immediate character and moved on to an entire community."
Speaking with Den of Geek, Green was dug even deeper into the temes of his ending and why Myers is both a man, but ultimately still extremely powerful:
“I believe he is flesh and blood.. But I believe the interpretation of what Michael Myers has become is cosmic. I think Michael Myers, in our true Earth, has brought nightmares to millions of people. The boogeyman just as much as the shark in Jaws has kept millions of people away from the ocean. So you have that beautiful study of what is fear? Is fear the reality of looking someone in the eye when they’ve got a knife in your house? How does that compare to the paranoia and the uncertainty, and the expectation of what’s around the corner and what’s in the closet, what’s under the bed? How the boogeyman has supercharged the anxiety and emotions of his own community is sort of what this movie studies.”
Speaking with Collider, Green revealed that there is an extended version of the Halloween Kills ending, so it's possible we may yet get to see another cut that offers even more clarity.
Was Michael Myers Hunting Laurie?
No. Laurie and Karen mistakenly begin the film believing that Michael's path to Laurie's house was intentional, but Allyson and Hawkins know the truth: it wasn't Michael's fixation on Laurie that led him to the Strode household, it was Dr. Sartain's. And in Halloween Kills, we discover that Michael's actual intended destination was his childhood home, where he killed his sister - a familiar theme for the character considering the original film's tagline was "the night he came home."
Speaking with Den of Geek, Green confirmed that Myers is a character with "no motive," explaining:
“I believe he is a spectacular and resilient human being, with no motive, and with no emotion.”
Is Karen Dead?
Thinking she saw a child in a clown costume in the shadows of the upstairs window, Karen leaves Allyson in the hands of EMS workers while she explores the Myers house. Up in that room, that was once Judith’s room, Karen stares down at the lawn and doesn’t see Michael creep up on her until it is too late. He stabs her over and over, until she drops to the floor, presumably dead. That's not completely confirmed since the Halloween franchise has a long history of bringing characters back for the sequel - as a recent example, Hawkins presumably died in the 2018 film, only to wind up playing a key role in Halloween Kills.
However, in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Greer and Matichak certainly spoke about the scene like it was a wrap for Greer, and thus, Karen.
"Well, I was bummed to see the ending," Greer said. "I thought it was a good idea, though. I thought it was really beautifully written, and it felt like a dance, like an opera, kind of. But it was also a little bit of a bummer, mostly because I like to play with my friends.
Matichak added, "It’s a really beautiful ending in a lot of ways, and I agree with Judy. It’s, unfortunately, the right move, which sucks, but they really made it pretty poetic and pretty powerful."
How did Michael make it past all the people outside? That is never explained. Maybe he used a back entrance. Maybe he just slipped past everyone silently. Maybe he really was supernatural all along.
Who Died, Who Is Still Alive, and Who's Returning for Halloween Ends?
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Halloween Kills certainly lives up to its title, and Michael Myers claims a whole lot of victims during the film's runtime, including Sondra (Diva Tyler) and Roger (Lenny Clarke); Vanessa (Carmela McNeal) and Marcus (Michael Smallwood); a married couple dressed up like a doctor and nurse who also happen to be Julian's neighbors glimpsed in the first film; Big John (Scott MacArthur) and (Michael McDonald) Little John, the married couple who live in his childhood home; and Allyson's boyfriend Cameron (Dylan Arnold).
Michael also picks off most of the legacy characters returning from the first film, including Cameron's father Lonnie Elam (Robert Longstreet); Dr. Loomis' nurse, Marion (Nancy Stephen); and of course, Tommy Doyle (Hall) and Leigh Brackett (Cyphers), who die in the mass carnage of Myer's big final assault.
As we discussed, Karen may or may not be dead (with odds leaning towards yes), so who's left?
Well, both Laurie and Allyson, Karen's mother and daughter, are alive at the end of Halloween Kills, setting up an entirely new level to their battle against Michael - Myers may not have held any fascination with or specific vendetta against Laurie, but she will certainly have one against him now.
Lindsey (Kyle Richards) and Officer Hawkins (Patton) are also still alive back at the hospital, as is Julian (Jibrail Nantambu) - the young boy featured in the first film, who is briefly seen on the local news in Halloween Kills, along with many surviving Haddonfield residents who didn't take part in the final showdown against Myers.
The cast for Halloween Ends has not yet been confirmed, though Curtis has spoken openly about how much she loves the script, and it seems a pretty safe bet that both Laurie and Allyson will return. When we spoke with Green, the filmmaker revealed that the final installment in his trilogy will have a four-year time jump, catching up to the real world in 2022.
Halloween Kills is currently in theaters and streaming on Peacock. Look for the third in David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy, Halloween Ends in theaters October 2022.