Warning: this story contains Halloween Ends spoilers. Halloween scream queens Danielle Harris and Scout Taylor-Compton reviewed Halloween Ends, critiquing the lack of Michael Myers in the final sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic. Ends is the third film in director David Gordon Green’s rebooted trilogy, following 2018’s Halloween and 2021’s Halloween Kills, and is the last time Jamie Lee Curtis reprises her iconic role of Laurie Strode. The actresses — who starred together in Rob Zombie’s rebooted 2007 Halloween and its 2009 sequel Halloween II — shared their thoughts in a candid conversation on the latest episode of their Talk Scary to Me podcast.
“It was a really cool story if it was about a new serial killer and what it was like for someone to become a serial killer … but then they just kind of threw Michael Myers in there, is what it seemed like to me,” Taylor-Compton, who portrayed Laurie Strode in the Zombie reboot, said of the Shape protégé Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell).
Both actresses praised Campbell’s performance as the babysitter-turned-copycat killer, who encounters a sewer-dwelling Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney) in the tunnels beneath Haddonfield.
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But Harris, who originally played Laurie Strode’s young daughter Jamie Lloyd in 1988’s Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and 1989’s Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, criticized the lack of kills and the amount of time it took for Michael to appear: “Where are the kills? Where’s Michael? What the hell is going on?”
Michael “was so weak,” Taylor-Compton said, adding that his first appearance at the 40-minute mark is “so long for a Halloween Michael Myers movie, and the end, for him not to show up and not be strong as f—.”
“I was mortified when he went into that tunnel and [Corey] almost beat his ass. I was mortified,” Taylor-Compton continued. “I almost couldn’t look, I was so traumatized about what was happening.”
Portraying the Shape as old and weak is “not the Michael Myers that we deserve,” the former Laurie Strode actress said. “That is not it. That’s not the last Michael Myers [movie]. I felt so bad for James [Jude Courtney]. Like, this is the end of your Michael Myers?”
Harris and Taylor-Compton again praised Campbell’s character Corey, with Harris noting, “I much preferred his kills to Michael Myers’ kills. He’s the only thing that kept me interested … but it shouldn’t have been a Halloween movie.”
On the ultimate showdown between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers — ending with Laurie fatally stabbing Michael, slitting his throat and wrist to bleed him out — the actresses agreed the fight was satisfying. Yet at the same time, Taylor-Compton added, “[Michael] was so weak that I felt so ashamed watching this — ‘I can’t watch this. This is mortifying, I can’t watch this.’”
“I know how hard it is to make movies. I also don’t want to offend anybody that made the movie. It’s just our opinion,” Taylor-Compton said. “Now I get when people have opinions about my movies and your movies — I get it.”
“Because you’re invested in Michael,” Harris added.
“I completely understand,” Taylor-Compton said. “That’s why I don’t take offense when people come up to my table [at conventions] and goes, ‘I didn’t like your movies, but can I have your autograph?’ [Laughs.] So I get it. Now we get it. Everybody’s entitled to their own opinion.”
Said Harris: “There were things that I think we were hoping for knowing this was the end, but we just didn’t leave feeling like we got what we wanted.”
Halloween Ends is now playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock.
