The Halloween Ends ending was changed after test screenings

Warning: The following contains major spoilers for Halloween Ends! Turn back now if you haven't seen the movie!

Halloween Ends is the last time Michael Myers and Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie Strode will face each other – and the ending certainly drives the point home. After a desperate fight through the Strode kitchen, Laurie and her granddaughter Allyson manage to injure the Shape so badly he bleeds to death right on their table.

After killing him, the Strode women, along with the police, strap his body to a car and parade him through Haddonfield. The townsfolk come out to watch and a procession is formed, ending at the salvage yard. There, Laurie puts Michael's body into an industrial shredder, and Allyson hits the button, destroying the boogeyman for good.

But, director David Gordon Green has revealed that Haddonfield witnessing Laurie make mincemeat of Michael was added after screenings of early versions of the movie. "We were trying to do a little bit more of a modest, intimate ending. [Halloween] Kills was big and expansive and super noisy and aggressive, almost like an action movie at points, and I wanted this to return to the simple dramatic roots," he told Entertainment Weekly.

"But then there were times when I thought it just didn't play big enough and I wanted some scope to it," Green continued. "We wanted something more grand, and [that became] the procession sequence. So the actual ending of the movie we came up with this summer, like two months ago, after we screened it a few times."

Green also explained that multiple endings were considered for the final chapter. "We went through a lot of endings," he commented. "Some were really bleak, and some were less bleak. The version we ended up with, I think, is optimistic, hopeful. After Kills came out with a bleak ending, I didn't want to do that again. I wanted to have some note of satisfaction."

Halloween Ends is in theaters and streaming on Peacock now. For much more on the movie, check out our deep dive on the Halloween Ends ending explained.

I'm the Deputy Entertainment Editor here at GamesRadar+, covering all things film and TV for the site's Total Film and SFX sections. I previously worked on the Disney magazines team at Immediate Media, and also wrote on the CBeebies, MEGA!, and Star Wars Galaxy titles after graduating with a BA in English.