Editorials
‘Halloween Ends’ Is Just the Beginning: Reflecting On One Year of Corey Cunningham
October 14, 2023 is many things to many people. It’s Mother’s Day in Belarus, for instance. It’s Usher’s 45th birthday. But perhaps most importantly to the readers of Horror Press, it’s the first anniversary of the release of Halloween Ends, one of the most divisive sequels in a long-running slasher franchise that is more or less composed entirely of divisive sequels.
Now that we’ve had a year to rest on our laurels and think about it, it’s time to really drill deep and reevaluate one of the most controversial elements of the movie: Corey Cunningham.
Warning: This article contains spoilers for 2022’s Halloween Ends.
So What’s Corey Cunningham’s Deal?
Halloween Ends is (allegedly) the final movie to feature scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis in the role of Laurie Strode, the longtime Final Girl for the iconic serial killer Michael Myers. It is also the end of director David Gordon Green’s trilogy of Halloween legacy sequels, the first two of which took place on Halloween night 2018 before time jumping several years into the future. In the meantime, we are introduced via prologue to Mr. Cunningham (Rohan Cambell), a college student who accidentally kills a child he is babysitting.
In the intervening years, rumors have swirled around Corey as the townspeople of Haddonfield, Illinois have turned against both him and Laurie (blaming her for provoking Myers into his spate of 2018 killings). Although Myers has not been seen since then, Corey is relentlessly berated and bullied to the point that, when he accidentally discovers the killer’s hiding place, he takes Michael on as something of a mentor, like a nonverbal, bloodthirsty Big Brother. Thus Corey and Michael go on a killing spree while Corey romances Laurie’s granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak), who is also somewhat sick of the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Haddonfield.
Why Fans Dislike Corey Cunningham
Corey is dead, largely by his own hand, as of the middle of the third act (to frame Laurie for his own murder, however briefly), which clears the stage for the promised showdown between her and Michael. However, the bulk of the body count in the first two acts comes from Corey rather than Michael, which is precisely why his character has been widely reviled by fans of the franchise. In addition to being a newcomer in the 13th entry of a long-running series, Corey took a lot of the spotlight that could have gone to Michael, also giving the murders a very different flavor from the previous movies. Go figure, a brooding bad boy with luscious curly locks doesn’t exactly exude the same vibe as the hulking masked killing machine that fans have come to know and love.
Should We Cut Corey Cunningham Some Slack?
It is undeniable that Halloween fans do not like it when Michael Myers is sidelined unexpectedly. This was the case with 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch, the aborted attempt to abruptly swerve the franchise into an anthology format. However, while the Myers-less movie was widely despised at the time, a major critical reevaluation has taken place in recent decades and led many fans to swing back in the other direction, celebrating its unique spirit and abundance of goopy special effects. If anything, these days you’re more likely to run into someone overvaluing it as a knee-jerk response to its many years in the Halloween doghouse.
Reexamining Corey Cunningham’s Thematic Purpose
Now that the heat of the moment of the Halloween Ends release has cooled, it’s time to look at Corey with those same unbiased eyes. Because a lot about him works, especially when put into the context of the trilogy as a whole.
By the end of the mob justice finale that graces 2021’s Halloween Kills, it has become quite clear that David Gordon Green and his co-writers are intent on using this new trilogy to point a mirror at Haddonfield and the way it creates the monsters that stalk its streets. Whether this is a good idea is up for debate, but it is nevertheless a big, splashy, vaingloriously unsubtle announcement of the trilogy’s thematic intentions.
Corey Cunningham is the human embodiment of that theme, also bringing Halloween 2018’s theme of generational trauma full circle in the form of a character who handles his own mistreatment much much worse than the women of the Strode family. Because of the multiplicity of themes he serves, he is simultaneously a foil to Laurie, Allyson, and Michael Myers himself (just saying – it’s probably not a coincidence his name rhymes with “Laurie”). While that’s a lot to put on a character we just met, Rohan Campbell shoulders the burden admirably well, couching his pent-up rage inside an adorkable wounded bird charm that effectively delivers years of character arc in just a few scenes and at least almost credibly sells Corey and Allyson’s romance.
The Flaws in Corey Cunningham’s Story Arc
I said “almost,” because the Halloween Ends screenplay consistently lets Corey down as much as it builds him up. While the title already reveals that this isn’t a torch-passing movie that will set Corey up to carry out further murders in future sequels, his ultimate fate proves how little function he has in his own story. When the movie kills him off, it instantly forgets about him, wrenching itself back into place during the Michael Myers showdown it always passed itself off as being. This cuts off the possibility for any sort of effective storytelling about Corey (Corey-telling?) at the knees.
This isn’t even the first time the movie has feinted toward telling a more interesting Corey story. His blossoming relationship with Allyson has the potential to go full Bonnie and Clyde and thus present a truly meaty emotional challenge for Laurie to face. But this simply cannot happen because that storyline would render Michael Myers completely useless, which a Halloween movie in the 2020s just can’t do. So Corey’s storyline, while attempting to move forward, keeps butting up against the brick wall that is Michael, entirely failing to fit into this Myers-lite narrative whether we put on our “Halloween III was good, actually” hats when watching the movie or not.
It’s Time to Forgive Corey Cunningham
What all of this adds up to, for this author anyway, is a character that is worth existing, but who is locked in a desperate search for a movie that can support him. Halloween Ends is not that movie, no matter how much film theory you can toss its way like life preservers off the deck of a sinking ship. But none of this is strictly Corey’s fault. He’s not an active impediment to the movie, just an element with much more potential than there was room for. Was it a mistake to put him in Halloween Ends? Probably. But there are a lot of elements of the trilogy that never quite found their place (just look at what Halloween Ends does with Kyle Richards), and Corey is merely one of them, not necessarily a film-breaking flaw in and of himself.
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
