***SPOILER ALERT: This post contains mild spoilers for Halloween Ends.***

Hollywood is littered with film franchises that start strong, deliver a passable sequel, and limp to the finish line with a subpar third outing. But few trilogies have ended as confoundingly and as pointlessly as Halloween Ends. 2018’s Halloween reboot was a welcome revival of a beloved slasher franchise, bringing Jamie Lee Curtis’s iconic final girl Laurie Strode into the modern era. A direct sequel to the 1978 John Carpenter classic, Halloween (2018) portrayed Laurie as a traumatized survivalist, living in a booby-trapped cabin in the woods and estranged from her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak). While the younger Strodes want Laurie to let the specter of Michael Myers go, they’re quickly confronted with the past as Michael escapes a prison transport bus and returns to Haddonfield to wreak havoc on the town. Three generations of Strode women then band together to fight back against the unstoppable serial killer. It’s a thrilling entry that delves into generational trauma and reflects the Me Too movement, while still maintaining the dark humor and creative kills the franchise is known for.