Warning: Full spoilers follow for Halloween Kills. If you’re wondering whether or not the film has a post-credits scene, we’ll tell you right here. Halloween Kills does not have any post-credits scenes.
Halloween Kills is finally here. The middle chapter in David Gordon Green's slasher trilogy adds a lot to the mythology around Michael Myers, even expanding the fight against him by having the entire town of Haddonfield, Illinois, join in a manhunt to kill The Shape once and for all.
As the movie, which is out in theaters and streaming on Peacock, builds to a huge cliffhanger that will be resolved in the upcoming Halloween Ends, there are multiple reveals and surprises that may leave you scratching your head after the credits roll. That includes a nod to the sixth film in the series, The Curse of Michael Myers, that has the potential to be a huge game-changer for the franchise going forward.
We spoke to Gordon Green about the ending of the film, what we can expect from Halloween Ends, and more!
Halloween Kills: Is Michael Myers Supernatural?
Most of the movie deals with Anthony Michael Hall’s Tommy Doyle gathering the people of Haddonfield as a mob to hunt Michael down and kill evil once and for all. But just as soon as they find him, we hear Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode back at the hospital talking about The Shape and why he’s still alive after he should have burned to death at the end of the previous film.
"I always thought Michael Myers was flesh and blood just like you and me,” Laurie says. “But a mortal man could not have survived what he's lived through. The more he kills, the more he transcends into something else, impossible to defeat. Fear. People are afraid. That is the true curse of Michael."
This heavily implies that the film no longer treats Michael as just a man in a spooky mask who kills babysitters, but is instead going beyond Dr. Loomis' theory on Michael being evil incarnate and into The Curse of Michael Myers' territory. The sixth film in the series reveals Michael was a victim of the Curse of Thorn, a druid curse that possesses a child, forcing them to kill their entire family on Halloween night. It also grants the child superhuman strength and immortality. As in that film, Laurie's explanation does offer a reason why Michael is able to survive getting shot in the head and stabbed multiple times.
But that said, Gordon Green seemingly shuts down this theory.
"The suggestion that he is more than a man is a theory that Laurie has,” the director tells IGN. “My own personal concept for Michael, which will carry forward as long as I'm involved, is that he's capable of spectacular things but not impossible [things]. So I don't personally see him as supernatural, but I see the element of fear that he's generated and exacerbated is transcending the immediate character and moved on to an entire community."
So even if Michael is not supernatural, the idea that he is will spread among the people of Haddonfield. Michael appears to die not once but twice in the film, and both times he's gotten right back up and started killing again, almost as if he's reinvigorated by the shock in people's faces. He cuts down the townsfolk that surround him, killing everyone including Tommy Doyle. Even if Michael is just incredibly resilient, but not immortal, the acts of sheer savagery from Halloween Kills are enough to turn him into the literal boogeyman in the eyes of the townspeople. This changes the dynamic going into the third film as there are probably very few who would dare stand up to him now.
Does Michael Even Care About Laurie Strode?
Ever since 1981’s Halloween II, Michael Myers' mission in almost every Halloween film has been intrinsically connected to Laurie Strode. But if there's one thing Halloween, ahem, kills in this movie, it's the idea that Laurie is at the center of The Shape's life. Much like The Last Jedi, the film democratizes the story to make it about the entire town rather than a personal vendetta against one person.
"It's not about you," Frank says to Laurie, explaining that Michael's actions in the previous film were not driven by a desire for revenge against her, but the result of manipulation by Dr. Sartain in the 2018 Halloween movie to chase her. As Frank says, "He's just a six-year-old boy with the strength of a man, and the mind of an animal." If this film makes one thing very clear, it’s that Michael's one and only motivation is to go home, with the window from his sister's room acting as a place of nearly mystical importance to the slasher.
“He’s not personally motivated to kill a person, but he does have a beacon to go home,” says Gordon Green. “If you even think of the tagline from the original film: ‘The night He came home.’ It's about a homecoming. There's that stunted growth of a six-year-old boy who was taken from his home and institutionalized. And there’s something that draws him back home. There's a significance to this place."
Indeed, if Michael killing everyone in his path is detached and unemotional, then him killing the couple that moved into the Myers house is as passionate a moment as we've ever seen from The Shape.
Does Michael Myers Die in Halloween Kills?
For a second there, as the town people are beating him, it sure seems like he’s about to expire. But then… well, it is Michael Myers of course. He’s still going by the end of Kills, apparently killing Laurie’s daughter Karen in the final moments of the film, before staring out of his sister’s window, with Laurie on the other side of town seemingly staring back at him out of her hospital window.
There is a very dark tone to Halloween Kills, with the villain killing almost every returning character by the end of the film. Just as the movie expands the struggle against The Shape by bringing in the entire town, the ending opens the door for Laurie to be at her loneliest and most vulnerable going into Halloween Ends.
We asked Gordon Green about which characters from the original films could return for the final chapter in his trilogy.
"Our middle chapter is about that community and that expansion of the legacy,” says the director. “Some return for Ends. But Ends has a little less novelty and a little bit more specificity in the emotion of a Laurie/Michael connection."
The 2018 Halloween focused on the idea that Laurie was isolated from the community following her survival of Michael's attack 40 years earlier, with even her own daughter Karen cut off from her in a sense. Then Halloween Kills rebutted that claim by showing that the entire town of Haddonfield was behind Laurie Strode and ready to join in the fight. Now that the mob was killed, it's hard to imagine anyone would want to face the boogeyman if and when he appears again.
As for Laurie herself and how Karen's apparent death will impact her, Gordon Green will only say that it’s going to involve a time jump.
"Well, we're going to take a four-year leap in time, and then we'll figure that out," he demures.
But we know this much: Laurie is still committed to taking Michael down. “It needs to die,” she says in the film. “And I’m the one who needs to kill it.”
Is There a Post Credits Scene in Halloween Kills?
This one is easy: No, there is not a post credits or mid credits scene in Halloween Kills. Sorry!
For more on Halloween, why not weigh in on whether or not Michael Myers is the greatest movie slasher of all time. Read our Halloween Kills review as well, and then be sure to check out how to watch the Halloween movies in order, a.k.a. Halloween Is a Multiverse and Michael Myers Is Just Living in It!