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Review of Halloween Ends (John Carpenter/Various)

FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:

Buy it... if you were disappointed by the underwhelming tone of the music for Halloween Kills, John Carpenter and his team stepping up to provide a more engaging and satisfying conclusion to this franchise's music.

Avoid it... if you expect anything to radically change in the style or thematic foundations of this music, even with additional tonality applied to address the dramatic elements of this film's plot.

FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:

Halloween Ends: (John Carpenter/Various) After countless redundant films since 1978, the Halloween franchise teased audiences with the notion that 2022's Halloween Ends may actually be the cinematic conclusion of the seemingly endless storyline. Meant as the final entry in the trilogy of 2018's Halloween and 2021's Halloween Kills, this poorly-received culmination again assumes connections to only its two predecessors and the original 1978 film, the franchise continuing to abandon all other sequels and reboots from its past. There is some satisfaction in witnessing the revelation of the original 1978 characters' fates, but the plot of Halloween Ends is badly warped by commentary about teen bullying. The focus of the story shifts to a young man, Corey, who dates Laurie Strode's granddaughter and is bullied sufficiently to become something of an apprentice killer to the "shape," Michael Myers. It's a dangerous message about murdering classmates and their families, but Myers himself eventually retakes the spotlight. Regardless, it's Jamie Lee Curtis in a slasher movie, and that's all that matters, especially by the time police confirm their ineptitude and support of vigilante killing as Myers is taken by a procession of angry Haddonfield residents to an industrial shredder for supposedly permanent disposal. Still, some satisfaction has resulted for enthusiasts of the concept since director, writer, and composer John Carpenter returned to the franchise with this 2018 trilogy, and in no part of the production is his work more impactful than the music. For these three scores, Carpenter was joined by his son, Cody Carpenter, and rock-musician godson, Daniel Davies. Director David Gordon Green had encouraged the trio to take a more modernized approach to their classic 1978 Halloween music for the emphasized action mode of Halloween Kills, with limited artistic success. That score was largely boring and disengaged as the composers struggled to find a new direction for their tone. For Halloween Ends, though, that equation skews over to the dramatic, the story not only exploring a touch of romance but providing some psychological backstory to Corey that helps explain Myers' motivations without ever needing to explicitly state them. This direction seems to have inspired better ideas from Carpenter and his team, as the end result is a rewarding, albeit somewhat conservative coda to the franchise's music.

In its attempts to address a deeper story, the score for Halloween Ends is a bit more tonally inclined, though a re-worked 1980's song, "Burn it Down," by the electronic music group Boy Harsher was applied as something of a love theme for the younger couple. Despite reports to the contrary, the material in this song is not used obviously in the score and is instead applied as a song placement. It's a good match stylistically with Carpenter's sound, however, so casual listeners won't notice much disparity. More so than the previous entries in this trilogy, Carpenter and his team attempted to develop new thematic material to account for fresh main characters and situations, supplementing the three surviving 1978 themes with new, complimentary alternatives. Whereas Halloween Kills proved to be extremely dull in its failure to extend the motifs in new directions, Halloween Ends doesn't make the same mistake. That said, the debuting themes range from decently smart to incomprehensible, so their use as narrative definitions is somewhat haphazard. The instrumentation remains the same as well, the mixture of vintage analog equipment and modern synthetics mingling with a few live performers, mainly piano and electric guitar, to supply an extremely familiar atmosphere to all of the work. The quality of the recording, executed entirely at Carpenter and Davies' home studios, is a little crisper in the impressive, Blaster Beam-like bass contributions. The general tone is a little better developed here, too, the dramatic element allowing the keyboarding to present motific and rhythmic devices with more interesting and engaging reach at times. The outright obnoxious looped elements heard in Halloween Kills are largely abandoned, the techniques in supplying propulsion to this sequel more accessible in even the terrifying sequences. Enthusiasts of thematic continuity will be pleased by Carpenter's liberal spotting of the main theme and its popular, underlying 5/4 rhythm. Heard in suite form in all of "Halloween Ends (Main Title)" and "Halloween Ends" (the latter concluding on an unfinished phrase), the idea extends in its rhythm to a subtle reminder in "The Cave" on piano and a variant on synthetics that offers suspense in "Cool Kid." The full rhythm and theme emerge menacingly in "Kill the Cop" and are relegated to counterpoint to Corey's theme in "Corey and Michael" and "The Junk Yard," but they make a splash at the end of the film, taking a brutal stance early in "The Fight" over an extended period (a very well done performance) and the rhythm and theme exploding at the outset of "Before Her Eyes."

The other two returning themes in Halloween Ends are the thumping stalking motif and Laurie Strode's theme. The former growls in the latter half of "Where is Jeremy?" and opens "The Fight" on metallics under the main theme but is otherwise diminished. Carpenter opts to retire Laurie's original theme after a token statement at the outset of "Laurie's Theme Ends," where it is starkly and abruptly stricken. Rather, he offers her a new piano theme in the latter half of the cue that is more compelling and tonally warm. Consisting of four-note phrases when intact, this idea has some humorously coincidental overlap with Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York," and it occupies all of "Cherry Blossoms" on vaguely hazy synths, battered in tone. The electronic ambience of this keyboarding sounds off emotionally in the closing cue, presenting little resolve or solace. The primary new theme of the score exists for Corey, and it aligns closely with the main rhythmic motif of the franchise as appropriate. Its menacing coolness late in "Evil Eyes" returns in the middle of "Transformation" on piano with a tone of insistent insanity. It directly follows the main theme at the height of "Kill the Cop" and opens "Corey and Michael" with angry force, but it disappears in favor of the main theme thereafter. When it exists, though, the Corey theme's interplay with the main theme is quite strong. Mushier is the pair of requiems for the Corey and Jeremy characters, the former using same techniques as Corey's theme but with different progressions and descending rhythmic figures dominating. This material debuts on piano over striking bass synth late in "Requiem For Jeremy," continues development without the piano and in more contemplative measures throughout "Corey's Requiem," and becomes aggressive with electric guitar in "The Junk Yard." Its influence on the critical climatic cues isn't clear enough to truly suffice, turning quasi-romantic on rambling piano later in "Before Her Eyes" and shifting to an ascendant anthem in "The Procession" with its thumping metal bass intact. Even with these sloppy attributions in the latter half of the score, the attitude of the whole is improved from the preceding score, and the main theme's references are nicely handled. The closing "Halloween Ends" doesn't take the opportunity to present other themes in suite format, and these scores continue to struggle to really force ideas into conflict with each other. But the mingling of the main theme and Corey's material in the first half is a solid step in that direction and will provide more interesting intellectual depth to an otherwise comfortable and established sound. Released on album by Carpenter's own label, Sacred Bones, physical vinyl and CD options followed the digital offering by a few months. Expect a decent farewell for an iconic theme.  ***

TRACK LISTINGS:

Total Time: 42:30

• 1. Where is Jeremy? (2:58) • 2. Halloween Ends (Main Title) (1:44) • 3. Laurie's Theme Ends (3:37) • 4. The Cave (0:21) • 5. Cool Kid (1:02) • 6. Drags to the Cave (0:39) • 7. Evil Eyes (2:02) • 8. Transformation (1:51) • 9. Because of You (1:28) • 10. Requiem for Jeremy (1:00) • 11. Kill the Cop (2:10)

• 12. Corey and Michael (1:43) • 13. Corey's Requiem (2:01) • 14. The Junk Yard (4:11) • 15. Where Are You? (1:17) • 16. Bye Bye Corey (0:53) • 17. The Fight (3:47) • 18. Before Her Eyes (1:41) • 19. The Procession (3:03) • 20. Cherry Blossoms (1:59) • 21. Halloween Ends (3:02)

NOTES & QUOTES:

The insert includes no extra information about the score or film.

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The reviews and other textual content contained on the filmtracks.com site may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Christian Clemmensen at Filmtracks Publications. All artwork and sound clips from Halloween Ends are Copyright © 2022, Sacred Bones Records and cannot be redistributed without the label's expressed written consent. Page created 11/3/22 (and not updated significantly since).