With 10 days left until Halloween, I thought we could celebrate this spooky season with 10 Halloween movies but not just any movies. This will be a countdown of Halloween “2’s”— horror sequels with the number 2 in the title, and what better place to start than the original Halloween II.
The second film in the series is lauded by some as the high point of the franchise while others say it falls well below the standard set by the original. Michael seems more supernatural as the subdued kills of the first movie give way to blood lettings of epic proportions. The darkened streets of Haddonfield are replaced with the dimly lit halls of the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital.
The movie has a lot going for it. John Carpenter and Debra Hill return to write the script; The cinematography follows Carpenter’s vision with perspective shots, the slow sauntering of the Shape, and shadow framed scenes. Carpenter also composed the soundtrack with Alan Howarth, and Michael’s mask is the original used in the ‘78 film, though it was folded and yellowed from smoke exposure under Debra’s bed (this seems minuet, but from this point forward the mask will look off in every other movie).
The movie wasn’t a labor of love like the first film. Carpenter wanted the Halloween franchise to be more reminiscent of anthology horror classics like the Twilight Zone, and when he was goaded into doing the second Halloween featuring the shape, he boozed himself up until the script manifested on the blank pages before him, and with the market now over saturated with slasher films with 47 being released between Halloween 1 and 2, the burden was heavier now. The original film was made on a shoestring budget of $320,000 with no expectations. The second had over $2 million to play with, and expectations couldn’t have been higher.
Carpenter reshot scenes of the film to add in bloodier deaths due to what he considered to be a rather boring film after initial shooting. To delineate the film, a motive is given to Michael with the reveal that Laurie Strode is his sister, though this would be undone with the 2018 film. This revelation was rolled into the original Halloween with the television edit adding scenes of Michael’s room with the word “sister” etched into the door.
The introduction of the movie changes the events from the previous installment with Michael being shot seven times and falling into the front yard instead of the backyard. The radical, iconic title score is revamped with some heavy synth (it was the 80’s after all), and within the first 15 minutes a bloody stab through the heart kicks the killing spree back into gear though the next kill 6 minutes later would be an American Psycho-esque car explosion as a cop car plows into a van and through a Michael look-alike (which just so happened to be Laurie’s crush).
Michael’s gnarly killing spree includes claw hammering a security guard, strangling a guy, boiling a nurses face off, stabbing a syringe in the eyeball of a doctor, injecting air into the temple of a nurse, draining the blood of a nurse, stabbing and picking up a nurse with a scalpel, and slitting the throat of a police officer before he is set aflame during an explosion by Dr. Loomis who perishes with Michael in the inferno though both are alive and well by the time Halloween 4 rolls around…
Though the film had its critiques like the dormant Laurie with a terrible wig, the borderline psychotic Dr. Loomis, Dick Warlock not being as compelling as Nick Castle as the shape in the original, and it not featuring Carpenter in the director’s chair (although he did direct a few scenes), there is something magical about this film. I do believe that the original can’t be topped, but there wasn’t a better feeling on a Friday night in October than putting in the Halloween II VHS right after watching the first film and witnessing the almost seamless transition into November 1st as Michael’s rampage continues. Some lightning in a bottle was captured on the set of the second movie— it just didn’t shine quite as bright. I’d give this movie 7 jack-o-lanterns out of 10, and if you haven’t seen Halloween II, “it’s time Michael.”
