Halloween Ends is a Misunderstood Masterpiece
Sure. I understand how introducing a brand-new character and making him the focal point of the final entry in that timeline could be off-putting, but I think that reaction overlooks what the films have always been fundamentally about: The Shape of evil rather than the man Michael Myers. In that respect, Halloween Ends is arguably truer to the original intent than any other sequel.
In Halloween (1978), Michael witnesses his sister Judith engaged in sexual activity, which he perceives, through the mind of a six-year-old, as a loss of purity or corruption of innocence. That experience appears to create a profound psychological wound that makes him susceptible to the evil that ultimately consumes him. And while Michael's subsequent murders cannot simply be reduced to "punishing people for having sex", it's difficult to dismiss the striking pattern in the original. Every single death in the film is preceded by sexual activity or the intention to engage in it. The significance isn't that Michael believes sex is morally wrong but that his perception of the loss of innocence appears to be the trigger that opens the door for the evil to consume him. That's consistent with Carpenter's insistence that Michael has no real motive. He doesn't kill for a reason. He is evil manifested. The trauma explains the wound that made Michael susceptible, not the nature of the evil itself.
Halloween Ends takes that idea and examines it directly through Corey Cunningham. Corey is necessary to further the theme of the shape of evil rather than simply continue Michael’s story. Once again, it’s always been about the shape rather than Michael the man. This is why the film opens with the moment that creates Corey’s trauma. It’s essentially a mirror to Michael’s opening scene in Halloween 78. Corey occupies the same psychological space Michael did at the beginning of his transformation. He has experienced profound trauma, become alienated from the people around him, and is increasingly ostracized by Haddonfield. His wound leaves him vulnerable to the same darkness that consumed Michael. Corey therefore isn't simply "the new Michael" he is necessary to show Michael was never the source of the evil at all. The vessel is ultimately secondary. Michael was simply the most complete manifestation of The Shape that we had ever encountered.
Even Laurie, carrying decades of trauma inflicted by Michael, is momentarily presented as someone who could potentially be susceptible to that darkness. But she ultimately chooses a different path. And that is what makes Ends so thematically powerful. It isn't abandoning Michael's story. It is finally examining the concept that the original film called The Shape. The trilogy can be understood as an examination of the different paths available to people who suffer profound trauma. Michael chooses to surrender completely to the darkness. Corey struggles with it but ultimately succumbs. Laurie confronts it. Her journey isn't about escaping her trauma, pretending it never happened, or simply killing Michael and moving on. It's about acknowledging what happened to her, confronting the damage it caused, and ultimately refusing to allow it to determine who she is for the rest of her life.
In that sense, Ends is an examination of what allows a human being to become a vessel for evil in the first place? The film suggests like the original, albeit far more ambiguously, that unresolved trauma can become a pathway to darkness. Trauma doesn't make someone evil, and it certainly doesn't inevitably lead to violence, rather, it can create a wound at a crossroads, where one can either confront and heal from what happened or allow the darkness surrounding that wound to consume them. Michael, Corey, and Laurie represent three different outcomes. And that is why Halloween Ends, despite appearing to be the least conventional Michael Myers film, may actually be the sequel that most deeply understands what The Shape was meant to be. Not a man, but the manifestation of evil, with Michael Myers ultimately being only its most enduring vessel.