Small Details You Missed In Halloween Ends

Contains spoilers for "Halloween Ends"

"Halloween Ends" brings the newest trilogy of Michael Myers (played by James Jude Courtney and Nick Castle) slashers to a close. It's the third film directed by David Gordon Green and written by Danny McBride for Blumhouse Productions after 2018's "Halloween" and its sequel, "Halloween Kills." Since this is officially the last time we will see scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode (via the Los Angeles Times), it brings the 44-year-old rivalry to a bloody end.

It has been years since the Shape haunted Haddonfield, Illinois. Laurie and her granddaughter, Allyson (Andi Matichak), live together and are establishing something close to normalcy. In the meantime, local outcast Corey Cunningham (Rohan Campbell) wears his past around like an albatross but is accepted by Laurie and Allyson. However, Corey is wounded and darkness begins to (literally and figuratively) seep into his wounds as he becomes more and more like the bogeyman the whole town fears.

Given that it might be the final "Halloween" movie about these characters, "Halloween Ends" is full of callbacks to the 1978 original. Other small details and returning minor characters might be hard to spot on a first watch, so here are all the small details you missed in "Halloween Ends."

In the movie's tragic and terrifying opening, the hopeful prospective college student Corey Cunningham babysits local Haddonfield child Jeremy Allen. Before any of the bad stuff happens (and it's bad), Corey and Jeremy are just hanging out and having a good time. Against the wishes of the Allens, Corey is being a little lax and letting Jeremy watch scary movies with him. On that Halloween Night, it's John Carpenter's "The Thing."

Not only is the scene of these two watching "The Thing" an obvious nod to Carpenter, director of "The Thing" and the original "Halloween" and co-composer of Gordon David Green's trilogy (along with his son Cody), but it has another layer to it as well. In the 1978 "Halloween," there is a scene of a babysitter and the kid she is looking after watching "The Thing." Of course, they aren't watching Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece, since he hadn't made it yet. No, the movie shown in the original was 1951's "The Thing from Another World," which Carpenter adapted and reimagined for the '80s. Pretty fitting, considering the new "Halloween" trilogy, too, is a reimagining of the Michael Myers story.

Corey Cunningham is an outcast after the night he accidentally kills Jeremy Allen. On the night of the accident, Corey even had a chance to (legally) drink a beer but opted for chocolate milk to accompany his dessert instead. Ultimately he never got a chance to drink the milk. Years later, he buys chocolate milk at the gas station. Afterward, a group of teens explicitly ask him to buy them beer, once again bringing Corey's drink of choice into question. But why exactly is chocolate milk important to "Halloween Ends"?

There are a couple of themes that could tie into why Corey drinks chocolate milk. For one, it makes him different from others, reinforcing his feeling of being an outcast. But his continually choosing chocolate milk, a drink for children, over beer, a drink for adults, is the important part here. This shows that on the inside, he is a child. Corey is a scared kid who never had a chance to grow up, and Michael Myers preys on this to unleash his evil.

Being "Halloween Ends," the story of Laurie and Michael (supposedly) comes to a conclusion here. As such, the movie pays appropriate homage to where the story began. One visual callback that works on multiple levels is just one of many references to John Carpenter's low-budget 1978 horror classic — a moment where Corey Cunningham imitates Michael Myers.

Corey becomes a sort of disciple of Michael, enacting murders in Haddonfield after a chance meeting with Michael in the sewers. But the earliest visual hint that Corey is going down this dark path is when he imitates the slasher villain, peeking out from behind a bush. Eagle-eyed fans of the original "Halloween" will be able to recognize this as a reference to an early shot in that film of Michael Myers in the exact same position — it's one of the first glimpses we get of the character, as Laurie is walking down the sidewalk on an otherwise completely normal fall day. The shot of Michael peeking out from behind a hedge has become an iconic image from the very first movie in the series.

Sondra Dickerson (Diva Tyler) is a minor character who winds up surviving all three modern "Halloween" movies. There was some speculation (via Reddit) over whether or not Sondra had died in the scene where Michael attacked her and her husband (Lenny Clarke) in "Halloween Kills." In that film, Sondra gets one of the most grotesque, painful encounters with Michael Myers, watching him attack and kill her husband and standing in terror as he puts a tube light in her neck. Now, in "Halloween Ends," we see she has survived, but has been rendered disabled by Michael's attack and is in a wheelchair.

In one scene, Sondra's friend Stacy (Destiny Mone) confronts Laurie in a parking lot and blames her for her friend's condition and the death of Sondra's husband. This scene is pretty quick, and many Haddonfield residents have reason for hating Laurie who aren't shown, so it makes sense that this could be anyone. Given that, it can be easy to forget that this is a character who is returning from the last two movies. Later, when the town is carrying Michael to his final resting place, we get a brief shot showing us that Sondra is still around and also survived the events of "Halloween Ends," making her one of the lucky few throughout the franchise to survive an encounter with Michael.

A great little trick in scary movies is when the slasher or monster is lurking in the background of a shot, almost imperceptible. Terrifying if done right, this trick can frighten and foreshadow for those who notice. It can also add rewatch value for those who didn't notice it the first time, especially in films like "Hereditary" or "The Strangers." When it is pulled off in "Halloween Ends," it also has a deeper meaning, since this is a trope the series uses constantly with Michael Myers.

In one sequence, Corey has lured a cop who used to date Allyson to Michael Myers' hiding place in a sewer underneath Haddonfield. When "Halloween Ends" first pulls this trick, you see Michael in the background, foreshadowing the man's fate. However, in a similar shot almost immediately after the first, we now see Corey lurking in the background of the shot in the same way. It is another hint of where his arc is going and the similarities he is developing with Michael.

In the opening of "Halloween Ends," we see Jeremy Allen's father playing the piano. In the sequence where characters return to this house — now abandoned — the piano is covered in cobwebs and out of tune from lack of use. And yet, every time a new character enters the house, they feel compelled to play it. First is Corey when he breaks in alone, and later on in the film, Allyson also plays a few notes on the piano.

In both of these cases, they play similar tunes by hitting some of the highest notes on the instrument. While there isn't much to work with here, the notes played can't help but evoke John Carpenter's film score for the original "Halloween" film. Specifically, the three notes played sound a whole lot like the three-note pattern repeated in the theme for the Myers house.

Every slasher movie needs a character who exists just for the purpose of being senselessly murdered. That appears to be the purpose of Nurse Deb (Michele Dawson), Allyson's annoying coworker in "Halloween Ends." When it is shown that she is sleeping with their boss, Dr. Mathis (Michael O'Leary), and that's why Deb received a promotion over Allyson, Michael Myers and his protégé show up for some good old-fashioned slashing.

While Mathis is taken care of by Corey outside, Deb is trapped inside the house with Michael. When she is killed Michael pins her to the wall it is a direct call back to a kill from the 1978 original. In "Halloween," Michael kills Bob (John Michael Graham) by stabbing him and pinning him to a cabinet with a kitchen knife. Deb meets a similar fate, albeit stabbed in a different place. "Halloween Ends" even puts the cherry on top by having Michael childishly cock his head to the side in wonder or curiosity the same way he does in the original. Just a man admiring his work — nothing to see here.

More callbacks! In the original "Halloween," during their first encounter, Michael slashes Laurie on the arm, which causes her to stumble and fall over the banister on the top floor of the Wallace house. Bleeding and dizzy from the fall, Laurie manages to barely escape. But "Halloween Ends" reverses the roles and changes the outcome.

In the finale of David Gordon Green's trilogy, it is Corey who falls over the stairway banister. He is dressed, at this point, in full Michael Myers attire after stealing the mask. At the end of the movie, Laurie fakes her own suicide to lure Corey to her. Then, she reveals her trap and shoots Corey, sending him over the banister of her house. This shot of him falling echoes Laurie's fall in the original, but this time the roles are reversed. Even if Corey is not actually Michael, the visual imagery of him dressed like Michael serves as a role reversal for these characters, showing how much Laurie has grown since the 1978 "Halloween." Now, Laurie is on top. Literally.

One of Laurie's biggest moments of victory in John Carpenter's "Halloween" is when she stabs a knitting needle into Michael Myers' neck after he breaks into the Doyle home. After she stabs him, he goes down for a brief moment, incapacitated. Viewers at the time surely thought maybe he was dead, but "Halloween" fans these days know he was just resting up for round two.

In another reversal of Laurie and Michael's roles as predator and prey, it is not Michael who gets stabbed when "Halloween Ends" eventually references the knitting needle scene. During their final scuffle in Laurie's home, Michael grabs a knitting needle and stabs Laurie. Maybe this is payback from over 40 years ago. We think it's more that he really wanted to kill her since, you know, that is his thing. Regardless of why it happens, this moment is a fun twist on a callback that would otherwise be a bit too obvious.

If you watched David Gordon Green's 2018 "Halloween" — and you probably did if you are reading spoilers about "Halloween Ends" — you may remember Julian (Jibrail Nantambu). He is also known as the hardest kid in the world to babysit. A hilarious addition to "Halloween," Julian wound up surviving an attack by Michael Myers. His babysitter, Vicky (Virginia Gardner), and her boyfriend (Miles Robbins) were not as lucky. Babysitters never are.

Julian was confirmed to have survived Myers' killing spree in "Halloween," but he doesn't show up in "Halloween Ends" until one of the final scenes. Here, they confirm that Sondra lived and show other minor characters from the trilogy like Lindsey Wallace (Kyle Richards) who also survived to get their final vengeance on Michael. In this montage of the people of Haddonfield accompanying Laurie in a procession, we get a glimpse of Julian. Just knowing he survived all the horrible nights that happened in Haddonfield is enough to warm our hearts.

Pumpkins and pumpkin pie are pretty universal symbols for fall and especially October. The same can be said of the "Halloween" movies because, well, they are always set on Halloween. Pumpkins are often a symbol of the series as well, appearing in the opening credits sequences of all the David Gordon Green movies as an homage to the opening credits of John Carpenter's original film. This pumpkin imagery comes full circle at the end.

Early on in the movie, Laurie burns a pie. She tells Allyson she is trying to bake her a pumpkin pie because it is her favorite dessert during this time of year. Allyson insists she will just go buy one instead, and lo and behold, she does. After all the stress of Michael's final killing spree, the serial killer is supposedly dead and disposed of, and we see a period of peace in Haddonfield. Allyson recovers from the trauma and prepares to begin her life anew; in the background of the shot sits a delicious-looking slice of pumpkin pie.