'Halloween' 2018 Ending Explained, Spoilers: Is Michael Myers Dead?

If there’s one thing we should know about Michael Myers after 40 years and 11 Halloween movies it’s that this boogeyman never really dies. You can shoot him in the head, electrify him, or burn him to a crisp. None of it matters. There’s always another sequel, another chance to slash and stab his way through the suburbs come October 31, and another teenage girl to terrorize.

But is it possible that the new Halloween 2018 movie, which picks up where the original John Carpenter-directed film left off, actually kills Michael Myers once and for all? Here’s what you need to know about Halloween’s ending, and what it means for the horror movie franchise.

Warning: Halloween (2018) spoilers below.

What happens at the end of Halloween (2018)?

The new Halloween hinges on a simple premise: Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) never got over the events of the original film. Instead, she spent her entire life preparing for the return of Michael Myers. She turned her entire home into a weapon and even forced her daughter to train until social services showed up and took her away.

Everyone thinks Laurie is crazy, but when Michael Myers escapes during a prison transfer gone wrong (because of course it went wrong), it’s up to Laurie to save her estranged family and take out the boogeyman once and for all. Thankfully, Laurie’s entire house is basically a giant trap for the supernatural serial killer. There’s even a panic room in the basement stocked full of guns and accessible via an opening hidden under a kitchen island.

The rest of the home is also designed with Michael Myers in mind. Each doorway has built-in metal barriers that drop down at the press of a button, and there’s a thrilling scene near the end of the film where Laurie hunts a wounded Michael through the house, sectioning off rooms as she clears them until she finally confronts her tormentor in a spooky room full of mannequins she used for target practice.

Eventually, Michael Myers makes his way down to the basement, tearing that kitchen island off its hinges so he can get at Laurie’s daughter and teenage granddaughter. All three generations of Strode girls jump into action, shooting and stabbing at Michael so he falls down the basement stairs as they escape up to the kitchen.

It’s at this point that we get our final twist. With the press of a button, metal bars slide across the now-open basement entry, trapping Michael inside. Laurie then activates gas pipes throughout the house before throwing a match down into the basement, quickly enveloping Michael in flames before the entire house burns down.

We never see Michael Myers actually burn to a crisp and die. He simply disappears into the flames as Laurie and her family escape from the burning building. The films final shot shows all three women sitting in the back of pickup truck that happened to drive by, leaning against each other in exhaustion as the granddaughter still clutches a bloody kitchen knife in her hand.

Can Michael Myers even die?

We don’t really know, though if history is any indication the answer is no. Then again, franchise creator John Carpenter originally intended to kill off the character with Halloween II, which also ends with Michael being lit on fire. The third movie in the franchise pivoted to an anthology, ditching Michael entirely for witchcraft and evil robots (yes, seriously), before Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers brought back the original villain under a new director and writer.

Basically, even though John Carpenter wanted to kill Michael Myers, that didn’t stop the studio from pumping out almost a dozen more movies over the past 40 years. But this new movie, which wipes the Halloween canon clean except for the original Carpenter film, might be able to finally right that wrong.

If there was ever a chance to kill Michael Myers once and for all, it’s right now in almost the exact same way he was supposed to die back in 1981’s Halloween II. Then again, if this new Halloween is a hit we might end up with 40 more years of Michael. After all, the only thing scarier than an unstoppable serial killer is Hollywood greed.

Correction 1/11/19: An earlier version of this article misstated the type of vehicle the main characters escaped in at the end of the film.