‘Halloween Ends’ Alternate Endings Would Have Killed Off This Major Character

“Halloween Ends” is here. And whether you think it’s ultimately satisfying, it does provide a conclusive finale for the trilogy that started in 2018 with David Gordon Green’s “Halloween” and continued with the blood-soaked sequel, 2021’s “Halloween Kills.” Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, a part she first played in John Carpenter’s groundbreaking 1978 original, has her final confrontation with Michael Myers, the unstoppable serial killer who has haunted her for all of these years.

Did good vanquish evil? Or was evil ultimately triumphant? And what if the ending you saw in theaters or on Peacock wasn’t the ending that was originally intended?

TheWrap talked to co-writer/director David Gordon Green about the possible alternate endings of “Halloween Ends.”

MAJOR spoiler warning for “Halloween Ends.” If you haven’t seen it yet, grab your butcher knife and head back now!

During our chat about “Halloween Ends,” I brought up the premiere of “Halloween Kills,” which happened at Beyond Fest the year before. During the introduction to the movie, he mentioned that he had just re-written the ending of the new film. Green couldn’t remember what he was specifically referring to but said that “there are two radical reinventions of the ending.”

How “Ends” Actually Ends

At the very end of “Halloween Ends,” Laurie Strode comes under fire from both Michael Myers and Corey, the emotionally disturbed boyfriend of her granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). Corey attacks Laurie in her new home but kills himself before she gets a chance to (Allyson comes home at exactly that moment, suspecting that her mother killed her boyfriend). Michael then strikes and Laurie subdues him, subduing him before ultimately finishing him off. She and Allyson then tie his body to the roof of their car, driving to the local junk yard (where much of the action and some of the best kills take place). The townspeople see his body and follow the car through the night, craving vengeance as much as they want healing. At the junk yard, Laurie and Allyson throw him into the metal grinder. His body is turned into jelly. Evil has finally died (tonight).

The Version Where Laurie Dies

The first alternate ending is the big one. Instead of killing Michael Myers and lifting the curse from Haddonfield, Illinois, there was another plan for Laurie Strode. “There was a version where Laurie didn’t make it,” Green said plainly. Green will elaborate on that for a minute but can you think about what a bummer that would have been? She’s been stalked (literally, psychologically and spiritually) for more than four decades, epitomized the Final Girl and then ended up as another dead body during a Halloween night warpath? Tragic!

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The Version Where Corey Lives

Then there’s an ending that imagined a different fate for Corey, Allyson’s morally compromised boyfriend. He winds up being a killer just like Michael, until a confrontation with Laurie ends very badly. “And there’s a version where Corey did make it,” Green said. And while watching “Halloween Ends,” you could see how that could work out – he establishes them as a kind of doomed romantic duo. Perhaps he and Allyson could have hit the road, “Natural Born Killers”-style. Thankfully, he doesn’t get away so easy.

How They Got There

If you’re wondering how Green and his collaborators (including fellow co-writers Paul Brad Logan, Chris Bernier and Danny McBride) arrived at these vastly different outcomes, it seemed to come as a natural part of Green’s creative process.

“As we started our path, we did a pass of just Laurie, me and the writers were sitting down, and then when we got to the moment where Laurie puts a gun in her mouth, we had a big decision to make,” Green explained. “And so then we decided to get playful and see what we could do to surprise each other, and that’s where it becomes Choose Your Own Adventure. What happens if you open this door, and does it unravel this in a good way? What happens if you open that door, does it unravel it in a bad way? And in trying to retain the anticipation and the intimacy of that final confrontation brawl that Laurie and Michael are going to have when they face off finally became the beacon of catharsis for us, and what we were really working towards was to make that as satisfying as possible.”

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As for Corey’s possible still-very-much-alive future, there was an alternate version that could have returned the character to a more “normal” state, after his murderous spree on Halloween night. “There’s that version where he could have, yeah, that would’ve been his arc. He dabbled in it, he stuck his toe in the water and he stepped back,” Green said.

There’s also the option of Corey taking on the legacy of Michael Myers more directly, something that Green also took into consideration. “If you’re going to continue the franchise in some form beyond me, then you take him and he dons the mask and it’s Shape 2.0 or whatever the variation might be,” Green said. “But I kind of felt like the more specific my vision for this film got, the more possessive of Corey I got. Once I met Rohan, I fell in love with what we could do with that character, and then I wanted to make sure we didn’t leave it so open-ended.”

There you have it! That’s how we wound up with the “Halloween Ends” that lies before us and where it could have ended up.

“Halloween Ends” is in theaters and on Peacock now.

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