Netflix Just Added the Final Installment in One of Horror’s Biggest Showdowns

Whether it’s Ellen Ripley facing the Xenomorph Queen in Aliens or the chaotic finale of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, the final battle in horror movies is always worth the wait. Coming after a long build of tension, the moment when the survivor confronts the killer and takes control of the narrative has led to some memorable fight scenes. For two characters, a decades-long rivalry came to an end with one of the biggest final showdowns in horror, and it’s now streaming on Netflix.

On April 13th, Halloween Ends started streaming on Netflix. The final film in the modern trilogy produced by Blumhouse and directed by David Gordon Green, the movie marked Jamie Lee Curtis’ final appearance as Laurie Strode and led to an epic final showdown between the iconic final girl and Michael Myers. The movie picks up four years after the events of Halloween Kills as a new outcast, Corey Cunningham, becomes a protégé to a weakened Michael Myers, inheriting his mantle of evil and unleashing a new wave of violence on Haddonfield that culminates in a final, brutal showdown between Laurie and Michael.

Halloween Ends’ Final Showdown Between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode Was 40 Years in the Making

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The rivalry between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode is one of the longest and most iconic in horror history, stretching all the way back to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic. After surviving the original massacre and facing each other multiple times across different timelines, that 40-year history all culminated with a violent kitchen battle in Halloween Ends, an intensely cathartic and bloody battle meant to mark the final Curtis’ final time in Laurie’s shoes.

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Whether that definitive conclusion to a 40-year rivalry actually lived up fans’ high expectations largely depends on who you ask. Halloween Ends is one of the most polarizing movies in the entirety of the Halloween franchise. The movie only scored a 40% critic score and 57% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which, while better than Halloween Kills in terms of Tomatometer score, puts it far behind 2018’s Halloween and makes it dead center in the franchise’s overall rankings. Many took issue with the fact that Michael was portrayed as weaker compared to previous films, with Ends focusing on a “transfer of evil” narrative that ultimately sidelined him for the majority of the movie to instead focus on a new character, but the movie did have a pretty clever way of ensuring “evil ends tonight,” but we won’t spoil that.

What’s New on Netflix?

Halloween Ends is the latest arrival to Netflix’s streaming library this April. The month has already seen the streamer stock dozens of movies, including American Gangster, The Wiz, Beast, IF, 2022’s Scream, and Netflix’s own new shark movie Thrash, which is currently dominating the streaming charts at No. 1 worldwide.

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