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.