Halloween Ends Actor Addresses the Film’s Pivotal Character Change

The final chapter of David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy came to a close with last week’s release of Halloween Ends, and while the film wrapped up various storylines, it also introduced all-new mysteries. With the film being the last entry for some of the members of the cast, it also saw the debut of Corey Cunningham, as played by Rohan Campbell, who undergoes a pretty severe change to his character that has left some audiences scratching their heads. With the film out now in theaters and on Peacock, Campbell shed some light on Corey’s motives in the film.

WARNING: Spoilers below for Halloween Ends

The film opens with Corey accidentally killing a boy he is babysitting on Halloween night, leading to him becoming an outcast in his community as all of Haddonfield thinks he intended to murder the boy. After years of bullying and harassment, Corey crosses paths with Michael Myers, only for the masked murderer to let him go. The sequence in the film has raised a lot of questions, specifically about how that moment resulted in Corey then embracing his more violent tendencies, with Campbell detailing how he thinks the encounter impacted his character. 

“Corey can’t handle the idea that Shape let him live,” Campbell shared with Variety. “That’s the thing that throws a spanner in his brain and short-circuits something.”

There’s no debate about how this sequence in the film is a turning point for the narrative, though there have been some discussions among fans about exactly what it was about the encounter that inspired Corey to kill. In the finished film, the sequence shows the two characters catch each others’ gaze and then a flashback showcased both the inadvertent death and the torment Corey suffered in the fallout. While we still don’t entirely know why Michael let Corey go, other than potentially because he is now a man in his late 60s who has suffered countless injuries, we at least now know why it made Corey snap.

Given that some fans even argued that there was a supernatural shift in power between the characters, considering that Michael has survived injuries a normal human likely couldn’t have endured, Campbell’s comments at least confirm this wasn’t the case.

Halloween Ends is in theaters and on Peacock now.

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