Halloween II
Halloween II continues where the first Halloween ends off at. While we get a higher body count, we do end up with some of the kills off screen and fewer nude scenes. Not saying nudity and seeing the kills are the number one priority in horror, but for an 80’s horror it’s expected.
Photo Credit: Dino De Laurentiis Company
Released: Oct 30, 1981
Runtime: 92 mins
Director: Rick Rosenthal
Writer: John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers
PLOT
While an injured Laurie is sent to Haddonfield Hospital, Dr. Loomis is searching for the missing Michael Meyers. Little do they know, Michael Meyers is on his way to the hospital as well.
MY THOUGHTS
While we get over 3 times the kills as the original movie, we do end up with 10 kills. 9 of the kills are caused by Michael Meyers, and one is a car accident. We also get the ambiguous slipping in a pool of blood, knocking ourselves out scene (I’m looking at you Jimmy). I think Karen’s death was different from a Michael Meyers kill. She has her head plunged into the 200 degree hot tub. Technically she drowns but she gets her face burned pretty badly. Poor Ben Trammer. He gets rammed into a van by a car and dies in the explosion. The only one not killed by Michael.
Just like the first movie, Halloween II has Donald Pleasance returning as Dr. Loomis and Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode. They both are great actors and both do a great job. The rest are just okay. Nothing too outstanding. But it’s hard when you have Jamie Lee Curtis, one of the OG final girls in it. For me, she kind of outshines everyone else.
We start off right before the ending of the first movie. A recap of the last few minutes (in case you had forgotten). Laurie is taken to the hospital and Dr. Loomis continues his search for Michael Meyers. Meanwhile Michael kills a young woman investigating a scream.
Eventually Michael makes his way to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, slicing and dicing (and even drowning) his way through the staff just to get to Laurie. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis finds out that Laurie is actually Michael’s little sister and that is why he is after her. Now, you would think Michael’s primary doctor would know about this but no, it’s kept quiet. And now 10 more people are killed.
It ends with Dr. Loomis, Laurie, and Michael having a final showdown in the empty hospital. Dr. Loomis sacrifices himself to make sure Michael blows up, saving Laurie. We last see Laurie in the back of an ambulance and Michael Meyers burning up.
============================================================
I wanted to take a quick break to let you know I found these great deals on Amazon for Halloween merchandise. I’ve applied to Amazon’s affiliate program and if I can get three purchases I will be accepted into the program. This will be of tremendous help with starting my small business.
============================================================
Overall I think this is a decent sequel in one of the best franchises (yes I said it. I stand by that statement). Even without graphic kills, the tension and the setting make up for it. A definite should watch if you haven’t seen it yet. Plus, Jamie Lee Curtis…duh! LOL
And now for your Forever Final Girl Exclusive…Did you know?:
The mask Michael wears is the exact same mask (a repainted and modified Captain Kirk mask) worn in the original Halloween (1978) film. It looks different in the sequel because the paint had faded due to a few reasons, first because Nick Castle, the original Michael, kept it in his back pocket during shoots. Also, Debra Hill kept the mask under her bed for several years until the filming of Halloween II, causing it to collect dust and yellow because Hill was a heavy smoker. Also, the mask appears wider because Dick Warlock is shorter and stockier than Nick Castle, so the mask fit his head differently. As the producers thought it would be the final sequel in the series, they let Warlock keep the mask, scalpel, boots, jumpsuit, and knife used in filming. When they decided to revive Michael in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), the producers realized they had made a mistake and never again gave props out to the cast and crew, therefore subsequent sequels used different masks that looked rather different.
According to Leo Rossi on a DVD commentary for the film, the water in the hot tub was freezing cold.
When Michael tries to attack Laurie as she's climbing through the window, the scalpel that he's holding was actually just an eraser on a stick.
An interview with John Carpenter revealed that the whole idea of Michael and Laurie being brother and sister was a consequence of the airing of the original Halloween (1978) on television. After NBC had obtained the television broadcast rights, they contacted him with a request for more footage, since the film was too short for the intended time slot. Carpenter, who was making little progress on his Halloween II script, then conceived of the whole hidden family connection, inspired by the "Luke I am your father" revelation from Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980). This twist allowed him to film additional scenes for Halloween (1978) which retroactively dropped hints to this family connection (such as a scene inside Michael Myers' cell where the word 'sister' is carved onto the door), and at the same time served as a plot device to get his new script going. Carpenter later said "the brother thing [was] awful, just awful". He later collaborated on Halloween (2018), a late successor that effectively replaced Halloween II as the direct sequel to Halloween (1978), in which the brother-sister angle was explicitly dropped.
Jamie Lee Curtis has less than 25 minutes of screen time in this movie.
Dana Carvey made his movie debut in this movie playing an assistant. He can be seen receiving instructions from a blonde reporter in front of the Wallace house. Carvey can be seen again at the end of the movie (at around 1h 27 mins) when the film crew follows Laurie to the waiting ambulance.
Pamela Susan Shoop (Karen) got an ear infection during filming of her death scene as the water in the hot tub was apparently "none too clean".
In addition to his role as The Shape (Michael Myers), Dick Warlock also appears as the policeman who accidentally hits Ben Tramer with his patrol car and crashes it into a van. Warlock not only drove the car himself during the crash scene, but also did all his own stunts as Michael Myers.
Dick Warlock is the shortest Michael Myers in the entire series. In fact, he wore lifts in order to appear taller.
The voice of Alice's friend (heard over a telephone) is the voice of Nancy Loomis, who played Annie in Halloween (1978), and appears in "Halloween II" as the corpse of Annie.
The film is set immediately after the first Halloween (1978). Since Jamie Lee Curtis had begun to wear a much shorter hairstyle in the 1980s, she had to wear a wig that matched her original hairstyle for the film.
Have you seen the other Halloween movies? Check out my other reviews here: Halloween Franchise.
Let’s get into the rankings:
Kills/Blood/Gore: 3.5/5
Sex/Nudity: 1.5/5
Scare factor: 4/5
Enjoyment factor: 5/5
My Rank: 3.5/5
IMDB: 6.5/10
Rotten Tomatoes: critics: 3/10 audience: 6.3/10
Letterboxd: 3.2/5