By now everyone knows who Micheal Myers is and how he brutally slaughters innocent human beings, but in the latest release it all comes to an end. Now streaming in theaters and on Peacock only, Halloween Ends. The film gives audiences all their favorite characters along with a mysterious and ultimately weak storyline. Halloween Ends is a fine movie on its own, with beautiful visuals and great acting, but as a sendoff to an iconic series, the film misses the mark.

Four years after Micheal Myers’s disappearance, Laurie Strode decides to embrace her life and stop living in fear now living with her granddaughter Allyson Nelson, trying to finish her memoir of Micheal Myers. But the story isn’t really about her: it focuses on Allyson and her love interest Corey, a young man who was accused of murdering a little boy he babysat and is now a town pariah. While Corey starts out sweet, his harassment at the hands of the town drives him to darker and more violent places.

The film does what many legacy films at the end of the series do: retire the old characters and replace them with younger new characters. The film isn’t subtle about this either, as one of Allyson’s coworkers looks at her and says “What is Laurie Strode dated Michael Myers?” Unfortunately, this means that Laurie and Michael are just supporting characters in what fans were promised would be their final epic battle.

And the fans are mad. It’s only rated at 1.9 on IMDb and has 41% Rotten Tomatoes score. Audiences are rather disappointed that Micheal Myers didn’t have the screen time people were expecting. The film also is full of plot holes that only exist to serve the underdeveloped Allyson-Corey story. Perhaps the most mind-boggling example is when the film reveals that Michael Myers has been living in a sewer pipe for four years, and when Corey stumbles into his lair, Michael doesn’t even try to kill him–he just stares into Corey’s eyes and Corey becomes evil. Corey later starts beating up Michael Myers and… I mean, come on, this is Michael Myers. At the end of Halloween Kills, he slaughtered an entire mob of people and escaped easily. It seems that in telling the story of Allyson and Corey, the writers forgot about everything that came before.

The film isn’t all bad, however. Its makeup, set pieces, and graphics are the stronger features of the film. The camera work was really well displayed and clear.  The acting in the film was really well done, especially by Jamie Lee Curtis, who portrayed Laurie as a strong yet regretful woman–sadly, there wasn’t enough of Laurie in the movie. The relationship between Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) and Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) was also well acted given the material, but the poorly written love story causes most of their scenes to lack the magic of the other recent Halloween films. 

Perhaps the biggest sin this film commits is that it isn’t scary. While some of the graphics are fairly disturbing, they never make the audience jump or be afraid. One thing that stood out in particular was all the horrifying fatal scenes–plenty of scenes have blood and gore but don’t build up to the death with interesting struggle. Victims die quickly and easily with no attempt to make the audience relate to their fear. Even the final battle between Laurie and Michael is over quickly, and while their first meeting in 1978 saw them use an entire house as a set piece, this conflict takes place entirely in a kitchen.

Audiences that love Halloween will need to check this out because it does have some interesting callbacks and fun moments (including a very memorable opening sequence). However, if you hope the film may bring you back to the edge of your seat, you’ll be rather disappointed. While this movie is not terrible and may get you into the Halloween mood, there are ultimately lots of better films out there.