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May 11, 2023

Every Kill In Halloween Ends, Ranked By Brutality

It's rare to see the final movie in a mainstream series take as many huge and

It's rare to see the final movie in a mainstream series take as many huge and potentially divisive swings as "Halloween Ends" does, but however you feel about the movie, there's something admirable about trying to do something more. As /Film's Bill Bria explains, "Halloween Ends" makes the sequel trilogy's mission statement crystal clear. Director David Gordon Green's films aren't (wholly) concerned with nostalgia or fanservice, but rather the cyclical of trauma, violence, and evil, and how each of those things perpetuates itself. Thankfully, while the way these themes are explored may not sit well with every fan, the film still includes some classic, slasher-style goodness.

Whether you loved "Halloween Ends" or are still fuming about its unconventional choices, all horror fans can agree on one thing: This movie has some gnarly kills. The original 1978 "Halloween" focused on suspense over onscreen violence, and is considered by many a masterpiece. While 2018's legacy sequel offered a mix of measured violence with brutal kills, "Halloween Kills" lived up to its name with a never-ending onslaught of some of the most graphic deaths in the franchise. "Halloween Ends" lands somewhere in the middle, combining the more subtle kills of Carpenter's film with David Gordon Green's penchant for visible mayhem. So, let's slice away at the bloodiest and most brutal moments in "Halloween Ends."

"Halloween Ends" puts plenty of mayhem up front and center, but these four kills are pretty tame. So, we'll give them honorable mentions, since they do add to the total body count. The first happens after Corey is let go by Michael Myers, who's been hanging out in the sewer, occasionally dragging bodies in there to "recharge" his evil energy. A homeless man confronts Corey with a knife, they struggle, and Corey stabs him. We only see the results, though, as a panicked Corey runs off.

The next three kills all happen off-camera. One of Corey's four bullies, Stacy, catches a wrench to the face, but it's mostly implied by a shot of the bloody aftermath. Diana Prince ("The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs") makes a cameo, and her demise unfolds out of focus while Willy jams out to his latest groove. Corey's mom gets a death that's a fun homage to '70s horror, as we see the reflection of the white mask in her glass cabinet. She turns in slow motion and screams as the knife rises and the camera cuts away. If every kill in "Ends" were this suggestive, gorehounds would be bummed. Luckily, David Gordon Green still has buckets of blood to dump on the screen.

While Corey lures the four bullies to the junkyard to off them one by one, his dad, Ronald, is minding his own business, working the night shift and watching Van Damme's "Hard Target." When Terry runs in screaming about a killer, Ronald immediately snaps into action, giving Terry a rifle and telling him to stay inside while he confronts whoever is lurking about. Just as Corey appears, Ronald sees Margot pinned under the car. He's understandably shocked, and when Terry tries to shoot Corey, Ronald gets in the way, catching a bullet in the forehead.

Poor Ronald! He's a lovable dope who just wants things to go back to normal. He's supportive and loving to his son after a traumatic accident, even though the rest of the town views Corey as a monster. He may try to push down his emotions, but when he's called to action, Ronald is no coward. He risks his own life and tries to save his son from Terry, only to be shot by the same rifle he gave to the bully. It's a quick and dirty death for a character who was just trying to help.

When Terry gets the idea to chain Corey's motorcycle to his car at the junkyard, Billy is more than happy to help. The bully's primary enabler, he races off to the driver's seat, ready to punch the gas. That's the last time we see Billy — with a pulse, anyway. Terry walks over to find Billy slumped over the steering wheel. When he pulls his friend's head back, we get a graphic glimpse of his drumstick jammed deep into his eyeball. It's a quick reveal, but anything dealing with eyeballs is enough to make most viewers squirm.

Billy is guilty of being a jerk, and of giving anyone the idea that mullets should come back. While his hairstyle is ridiculous, however, the bullying is a much larger offense. Even though Terry is the group's alpha, Billy is responsible for escalating events. Thus, Corey's revenge is far more brutal than Billy deserves, but we certainly don't feel sorry for him. It's also fitting he meets the pointy end of his drumstick, the thing he annoyingly flaunts in every scene. We get it. You're cool and you play the drums. Good for you. However, since the actual impaling happens offscreen, it ranks lower here than other kills. Still, it's a solid notch in Corey's murder belt.

Nurse Deb accompanies Dr. Mathison to his home to celebrate her promotion. She comments, "This house is so ... rich." She then goes off to get ready for an evening of debauchery, until she hears something and goes to investigate. Upon seeing Dr. Mathis being brutally stabbed by Corey in a scarecrow mask, she retreats inside and narrowly escapes his wrath. Before Deb can call for help, however, Michael Myers appears, throws her across the room, then jams his signature kitchen knife through her chest and pins her to the wall, where she dangles lifelessly.

Nurse Deb is not an easy character to like. That's intentional. She constantly talks about herself and ignores Allyson's hard work at the hospital. She's even rewarded with a promotion for sketchy reasons. So, when it's time for Michael Myers to take a slice of Deb, she gets what's coming to her (and then some). The kill is pretty brutal, too. The sheer ferocity with which Michael dispatches her is both shocking and efficient. Myers' sudden appearance behind her, like a ghost, echoes a similar moment in the original film, while pinning her to the wall feels like an homage to Nurse Mary's death in "Halloween 6." It's not necessarily a graphic kill, but its speed and coldness qualify it for our list.

Corey shows up at Laurie's house wearing Michael's mask and attempts to finish off everyone's favorite final girl, only to be met with two bullets that send him crashing one story below, mirroring what he accidentally did to Jeremy in the opening. When Allyson's car pulls up outside, he decides to stab himself in the neck so that she will think Laurie did it. That would appear to be the end of Corey — but wait! He bursts to life when Michael Myers arrives, and they struggle over the knife. Michael gets the upper hand and snaps Corey's neck. Now, he's dead for good ... we think?

It was well-established in 2018's "Halloween" that Laurie is a crack shot, so it's safe to say that, when she aimed, she intended to wound, not kill. That's why, when Corey decides to stab himself, it's a shock, but it also makes sense in his warped perspective. If he can't have Allyson, Corey will ruin her relationship with Laurie. He wants Laurie to be looked at like a monster, just like has for the past three years. The knife to the neck is gnarly, but the struggle with Michael is the icing on this cake. In the end, Corey is a victim of the very thing that infected both him and the town: the evil of Michael Myers.

Dr. Mathis had high hopes for his night with Nurse Deb, setting the mood by opening up the fancy champagne. That all goes south when Corey shows up wearing his scarecrow mask. At first, we only hear the scuffle. Then, Deb discovers Mathis lying on the ground with a bag over his face, and Corey jamming the corkscrew end of a bottle opener into his neck repeatedly as blood spatters his mask. Corey sees Deb and tosses the doc's lifeless body to the side.

Dr. Mathis immediately makes a bad impression on the audience when he examines Corey's wounds at the hospital, where a tray gets knocked over. He lashes out at Allyson and belittles her. Later, he completely ignores her in the office while talking about fantasy football. Then, the final nail in his terrible-personality coffin comes when he gives Deb the promotion over Allyson. In real life, we'd hope to see Mathis get fired by HR. In a "Halloween" movie, he gets what audiences paid to see, and it's a rough way to go. The sounds of the corkscrew going into his neck are shudder-inducing, and the few shots of the bloody mess that results are intense and gruesome. This kill makes it immediately clear that, from here on, Corey is beyond redemption.

Officer Mulaney and Allyson dated, but Allyson broke it off, and he's been aggressively hung up on her ever since. After a tense confrontation with Allyson's new love interest and soon-to-be serial killer, Corey, he follows Corey to the sewer. There, Mulaney is jumped by Michael Myers, who bashes his head against the wall until Mulaney manages to kick him away. Corey takes a few cracks at Mulaney, and then holds him down as Michael slashes Mulaney's throat. Michael then proceeds to stab him several more times in the chest, growing visibly stronger with each bloody hack.

Officer Mulaney is a toxic ex-boyfriend, constantly trying to reinsert himself into Allyson's life when she is clearly not interested. So, viewers are justified in not feeling too sorry for him. That said, his death is one of the film's more intense moments. Not only does he take several blows to the head from rocks, fists, and a heavy-duty flashlight, but the number of stabbings he receives after his neck is slit is the definition of overkill. The rebirth of Michael Myers adds to the effectively creepy nature of this particular slaying, too. We see Michael shake and shiver as his evil life force is rejuvenated, transforming him from a frail shadow to the full glory of the Shape.

We've already mentioned Terry, but it cannot be overstated how big of a jerk this character is. In his first scene, he asks Corey to buy him beer. When Corey refuses, Terry taunts him for being a kid killer. Later, he confronts Corey on a bridge and tosses him over the edge, leaving him for dead. When Terry pursues Corey to the junkyard, though, he gets his comeuppance and much more. Corey fires up his blow torch and shoves it directly in Terry's mouth. Terry's out of focus as he screams and burns, but we see enough of Margot's reaction to know that it's a horrific sight.

The idea of this kill is more brutal than what we actually see. That's the only reason it isn't higher up on the list. How you react to Terry's death depends on whether you're a horror fan who likes to let your imagination fill in the blanks, or if you prefer to see the carnage smeared across the screen. Either way, it's an incredibly gruesome moment. It feels like Corey is taking a cue from Michael, who made one of the cops in the 2018 film into a grotesque jack-o-lantern. This time, however, we get to see how the pumpkin was carved — or, in this case, lit.

Out of all the bullies that Corey kills, Margot gets it the worst. Corey chases her in a tow truck, and she almost escapes over the chain link fence. Almost. In the end, the truck rams through the fence and pins her to the ground. She's left whimpering underneath, forced to watch as Ronald is shot, Stacy is bludgeoned, and Terry is torched. Margot begs for mercy, but her screams are cut short when Corey stomps on her face. There's a quick shot of her skull caving in, and then Corey drives off, running her over again post-mortem.

Margot is the only member of the group who seems to have a sliver of conscience. She tries to get Terry to back off at the gas station, and wants to call for help when Corey "accidentally" falls off the bridge. So, it seems a little unfair that she meets the most horrific end. That's part of the reason her death is so brutal: She was an accomplice, not an instigator. Her killing is one of the scariest moments of the movie, as she witnesses untold horrors from her fenced-in prison while waiting for her grisly end. The head stomp is appropriately shocking, with just enough gooey aftermath that it lingers in the mind long after Corey drives away.

"Halloween Ends" begins with Corey Cunningham arriving at the Allens' residence to babysit their son, Jeremy. Corey lets Jeremy stay up late watching scary movies (John Carpenter's "The Thing," in a fun Easter egg). Before going upstairs, Jeremy teases that Michael Myers only kills babysitters on Halloween. Moments later, Corey hears Jeremy call for help. Corey enters the attic, and then he's locked in. He angrily kicks the door multiple times until it finally swings open, knocking Jeremy over the balcony. He crashes to the floor and dies right in front of his horrified parents.

This scene is suspenseful, cleverly subverting expectations and ending with a moment that's sure to make audiences gasp. In the opening to a "Halloween" movie, we expect Michael Myers to show up, so as Corey searches the house for Jeremy, the tension is real. When we realize that it's a prank, we briefly drop our guard, only to witness a genuinely shocking moment. Jeremy's death isn't gratuitous, but seeing him drop out of focus and his body grotesquely flop on impact as his mother screams is awful. Because this is an accident and not an intentional murder, it's much more gut-wrenching. Our hearts sink for the parents and for Corey, whose dark path begins here.

DJ Willy the Kid is an ever-present voice on radios all over Haddonfield. His rhetoric comes with a heavy dose of sensationalism, not unlike many real-life on-air personalities, and stokes fears that Michael Myers will return to kill again. When Willy finds Allyson and Corey outside his radio station, he belittles their traumas. Well, Corey comes back to shut him up for good. Corey charges into the studio and slams Willy's head against the turntable until his jaw rips open. He then cuts off Willy's tongue. The scene ends with the sound of skipping music as Willy's tongue flops under the needle.

Willy the Kid's death is easily one of the most gruesome kills in "Halloween Ends," and nearly secured the number-one spot. After a mix of offscreen deaths and some relatively gory kills, this one turns the violence up to 11. It feels like a metaphorical moment of rage being unleashed on a "celebrity personality" who has profited off turning a town's trauma into entertainment. It's brutal, of course, but in some ways it's also cathartic.

Actor Andi Matichak, who plays Allyson, told KTLA that "the practical effects are pretty incredible that Chris Nelson does and seeing that is always incredibly traumatizing." We agree. Gory details like Willy's teeth falling out and the tongue bouncing around the turntable go so far that they'd be darkly comedic if they weren't so grotesque.

When Michael and Laurie finally throw down in the last act of "Halloween Ends," it's worth the wait. Both sides get in some brutal hits, but Laurie eventually pins Michael to the countertop with a knife in each hand and slits his throat. And yet, Michael isn't dead. He rips his hand down the middle to free it and begins to strangle Laurie, but Allyson shows up and breaks his arm. Laurie slits Michael's wrist, and he lies there bleeding out. Then, to show the town (and the audience) that Michael Myers is really dead, they attach him to the roof of a car, and hundreds of people watch as Laurie rolls his body into the junkyard's metal grinder, where it's mashed to bits. We're pretty sure that even Michael can't come back from that.

It's a fitting end to a bold and divisive final chapter and our pick for the most brutal kill in "Halloween Ends," largely because Michael Myers wracks up several gory wounds before being made into ground beef. Laurie and Michael's last battle has some fun homages to the 1978 film, with Laurie hiding in the closet, attacking with the sewing needle, and distracting Michael by pulling off his mask. She also gets a fantastic line: "I thought maybe you were the boogeyman. No ... You're just a man who's about to stop breathing."

Further, Allyson's return is a sign that new generations can help confront deep-seated family traumas, while having the entire town witness the end of the evil that has haunted them for 40 years is both gruesome and poetic. It's a death that brings the themes of this trilogy full circle, and offers an excellent sense of closure.