Halloween Ends ending was changed after test screenings

Major spoilers for Halloween Ends. Consider yourself warned. The final installment of David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy is now playing in theaters and streaming on Peacock, and it’s safe to say that the reaction from fans has been somewhat divisive. Most movies go through a lot of changes during production, and Halloween Ends was no different; In fact, David Gordon Green explained to Entertainment Weekly that they changed the ending of Halloween Ends after test screenings.

Halloween Ends came to a close with the final battle between Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (James Jude Courtney). With some help from her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), Laurie succeeded in killing Michael once and for all, but in order to be absolutely sure, Laurie disposed of the body in an industrial shredder while the entire town of Haddonfield looked on. David Gordon Green told EW that this wasn’t always the ending of Halloween Ends, explaining that the procession sequence of Laurie taking Michael’s body to the salvage yard and the town watching as he was finally destroyed wasn’t the original plan.

I screen movies a lot, from the very first assembly. 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.

Four years after the events of Halloween Kills, the new movie finds Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) living with her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) and finishing writing her memoir. Michael Myers hasn’t been seen since. Laurie, after allowing the specter of Michael to determine and drive her reality for decades, has decided to liberate herself from fear and rage and embrace life. But when a young man, Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell), is accused of killing a boy he was babysitting, it ignites a cascade of violence and terror that will force Laurie to confront the evil she can’t control once and for all. Halloween Ends also features Will Patton as Officer Frank Hawkins, Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace, and James Jude Courtney as The Shape.

You can check out a review of Halloween Ends from our own JimmyO right here, and be sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well! What did you think of the Halloween Ends ending? Did David Gordon Green make the right choice to include the residents of Haddonfield?