Director, David Gordon Green admits that he had to change the ending to Halloween Ends. The very divisive third entry of the Haddonfield Trilogy has created quite a bit of internet discord due to the direction the narrative takes and the characters that the narrative focuses on. Love it or hate it, it appears that the finale of the film was originally very different.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD.
During the film’s finale we see Laurie Strode and Michael Myers duke it out one last time. The bloody battle ends with Michael butcher knifed and stuck to a table. Laurie then proceeds to finish Michael off by bleeding him out slowly. There isn’t any malice in the moment. Instead, it turns to the dramatic side. We see Michaels’s black blood pooling on the kitchen floor and reflecting a view of Laurie holding Michael’s hand as he breathes his final breath. I thought it was really well shot and executed. Laurie realizes that she is watching a piece of herself die. Michael was such a part of her existence that in a way he had become her reverse side of the coin.
Following this scene, we are privy to Haddonfield’s townsfolk taking Michael’s body to the junkyard to be very brutally disposed of. There is a very real finality to Michael in the moment. Evil may return to Haddonfield but it will not be wearing Michael’s skinsuit.
Green tells Entertainment Weekly that after test screenings of Halloween Ends, he decided to change the ending from the one they originally shot.
“I screen movies a lot, from the very first assembly.” Green told ET. “I want to watch the audience as much as I’m watching the movie. I’m ping-ponging back and forth, trying to see when they’re engaged and when they’re not. We were trying to do a little bit more of a modest, intimate ending. Kills was big and expansive and super noisy and aggressive, almost like an action movie at points, and I wanted this to return to the simple dramatic roots. But then there were times when I thought it just didn’t play big enough and I wanted some scope to it. We wanted something more grand, and [that became] the procession sequence. So the actual ending of the movie we came up with this summer, like two months ago, after we screened it a few times.“
So, it appears that we would have had a much different experience with the original ending. I’m hopeful that the film’s blu-ray will include the alternate ending. Apparently, there are a lot of bits of blood and carnage that ended up on the cutting room floor. Green has said that the blu-ray will include a lot of those moments.
What did you think of the ending of Halloween Ends?
