Halloween II (1981)

Re-evaluated: Halloween II (1981)

Awesome poster art by Matthew Peak

  I don't believe horror sequels are worthy enough to earn coverage in an episode of Revaluated, as I only desire to cover standalone films. There are a plethora of movies waiting to get the retrospective treatment they deserve. However, I ultimately decided to cover sequels on Revaluated, albeit doing so for special occasions or by request from followers; sequels will be few in this series, only being featured should I find them worthy enough to get the revaluation treatment. With Halloween just around the corner, I thought of making a special episode of Revaluated to celebrate the holiday of All Hallow's Eve, and what would be a great way to honor the holiday than to cover the sequel to one of the all-time classics of horror cinema, Halloween II (1981).

Director John Carpenter (The Fog, Starman, Escape from New York, They Live)

  In 1978, John Carpenter gave us a classic horror film for the ages, in the form of the masterful exercise in suspense named Halloween. It centers around an escaped lunatic named Michael Myers, who 15 years earlier murdered his older sister, at just the age of 6. He goes on a killing spree and stalks a group of babysitters, one of these babysitters being Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). It also stars the great Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis, who tries to stop Michael from killing more people. The simple yet effective slasher film ushered in a whole new horror subgenre, introduced audiences to Jamie Lee Curtis and one of the most iconic film antagonists in horror cinema, Michael Myers. 

  Held in high regard not just by horror fans and audiences but by film critics as well, an unusual feat for a film of its kind, given that slasher films weren't considered cinematic perfection by film buffs and critics alike. Yet, the film won acclaim from critics for its simple yet effective premise, the iconic keyboard-oriented score composed by John Carpenter himself, its well-executed cinematography, spooky atmosphere, and making us fear the man with the white William Shatner mask. The film earned its status as a classic, having the distinction of being the only slasher film to be preserved in the National Film Registry, a significant triumph that only 27 horror films achieved. With such levels of high praise, Halloween is a quintessential watch for horror fans across the world and an iconic piece of horror cinema for decades to come. The same, however, cannot be said for its sequel. 

Speed Metal band F.K.U.'s concept album on slasher films of 1981

 The year was 1981, and the slasher subgenre had exploded in popularity, prompting many studios to hop on the bandwagon in hopes of cashing in on the success. We have to keep in mind that the original was made on a meager budget of $300,000 ($1.1 million in 2020) and grossed $70 million at the box office ($279.4 million in 2020). Film directors didn't need lavish budgets or big-name stars to sell these movies. All they needed was a setting, disposable characters, a masked killer, and a decent body count with gory special effects. These clichés would be perfected by Friday the 13th and its subsequent sequels, along with other slasher films released throughout the decade, with only a handful of films standing out by adding their spin to the genre. 

   Halloween II (1981) was released the same year as the genre took off in popularity, following up the original film by taking place in a hospital, with Laurie Strode placed under their care after her faceoff with Michael Myers. Michael survives his fall from a balcony after being shot six times by Loomis and goes to the same hospital to finish off his killing spree while Dr. Loomis tries to hunt him down and stop him from completing his killing spree. Even though the film had Curtis and Pleasence reprise their roles, John Carpenter and Debra Hill returning as producers and screenwriters, and having a much larger budget of $2.5 million ($7.1 million in 2020), the film received negative reviews from critics. Common complaints centered on the disappointment over the film's emphasis on graphic violence and disposable characters, rather than the masterful suspense and well-crafted thrills of the original; a lament-filled descent into self-parody that would persist in subsequent installments of the franchise. Nevertheless, the film became a box office success, grossing $25.5 million ($75.015 million in 2020) in total.

  The film holds a 32% on Rotten Tomatoes, a massive downgrade from the 96% the original film scored on the website, with the critical consensus stating: 

"Halloween II picks up where its predecessor left off - and quickly wanders into a dead-end that the franchise would spend decades struggling to find its way out of." 

  The film holds a 40 on Metacritic as well as a 6.5/10 on IMDb, a significant triumph for the film. It has the highest approval rating out of all the sequels released throughout the late 80s and early 00s. It's a low bar to set for a film of its kind but a crowning achievement for a mess of a franchise, more on this subject later. 

Director and Producer Moustapha Akkad (The Message)

  Talks of a sequel began after the 1978 film did big at the box office, which prompted executive producer Moustapha Akkad (1930-2005), who provided funding for the original film to make a sequel. He would continue to fund and produce every Halloween sequel up until his tragic death in 2005. Akkad became enthusiastic about making a sequel with producer Irwin Yablans, evidenced by the hefty budget of $2.5 million they provided for the movie. They had asked Carpenter to helm the sequel, but he refused, as he wanted his original film to remain standalone, a sentiment shared by producer Debra Hill. However, since the studio offered him a handsome payday to Carpenter, he couldn't turn it down, as he had not received his earnings from the success of his previous effort, and he needed a paycheck to fill in that void. So with that said, Carpenter got to work on the script, along with a bad case of writer's block and a six-pack of Budweiser every day to get through the process, a volatile combination of things that don't mix well if I ever saw one. Carpenter later went on to call the script and the subsequent film "an abomination and a horrible movie." 

Director Rick Rosenthal 

   Since Carpenter wasn't willing to direct the sequel, he originally wanted art director Tommy Lee Wallace, who worked with Carpenter in the previous film, to helm the sequel. Wallace wasn't eager to take the job, so Carpenter enlisted Rick Rosenthal to direct the sequel, a relatively unknown director who only worked in a short-lived television series titled Secrets of Midland Heights (1980-1981). Despite this being Rosenthal's first feature as a director, he handled the film's directorial duties rather admirably, given that he hadn't helmed a feature film before directing this one. Rather than shift to the hospital immediately or have any last-minute changes, the film takes place right after the first film ends, where Michael Myers escapes into the night with Dr. Loomis trying to catch him as we see the aftermath of Michael Myers' killing spree. Rosenthal faithfully recreates the atmosphere and the suspense of the original film while making the most out of the hospital setting, an interesting choice to set a slasher film, given how hospitals are usually bleak and sterile places which make for a perfect horror setting. Although it's rather convenient that a place like this is a little too deserted and has a notable shortage of hospital staff. 

  I have to commend Rosenthal for convincing the audience that this film takes place on the same night as the first film, even though this sequel came out three years after the original. There weren't any errors in continuity; flawlessly following the events that transpired on the same night and even exploring some interesting yet brief ideas spotted throughout the film. Two of these ideas included a young boy injured by tampered candy and a young man mistaken for Michael Myers and killed in a freak accident. 

  

  At the film's beginning, we see the boy accompany his mother to the hospital, injured by a razor blade hidden in a chocolate bar. We later see him exiting the hospital with the razor removed from his mouth. Rosenthal doesn't sugarcoat anything, as we see a close-up shot of the razor in the boy's tongue, stuck in a vertical angle and looking quite disturbing. It's a subtle way of reminding the audience how a crazed killer on the loose isn't the only threat people have to worry about on Halloween. It reminds me of our parents always obliging us to check our candy before eating it, which gave me nostalgia for the times I went out to trick or treat around my neighborhood. Much like the original brilliantly using Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" to frightening effect, the sequel uses "Mr. Sandman" by The Chordettes in its opening and closing credits, which is a pretty clever way to make an old 50s pop song creepy. 

  The second idea finds Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett going around the neighborhood trying to find Michael. They find someone who suspiciously wears the same blue jumpsuit and white Captain Kirk mask, albeit with some notable differences to make it obvious this is not Michael Myers. The copycat is Ben Tramer,  mentioned in the first film by one of Laurie's friends. He gets hit by a police car and rammed against a white van, exploding on impact, burning him to death. This death scene comes at us out of nowhere with over-the-top results, but it's also an example of how many disposable characters we would see further into the film. It also displays how one man's obsessive crusade to stop a madman might lead to unintended consequences and affect those around him. It's an interesting idea to see how this young man's tragic death might affect Dr. Loomis' psyche. 

 2-disc Collector's Edition Scream Factory release, artwork by Nathan T. Milliner

  Halloween II features the typical clichés that would persist in most slasher films throughout the 80s. These include the aforementioned disposable characters, who are only in the movie to be a statistic or add more bodies to the kill count. By today's standards, Halloween II isn't the goriest film of the series, nor the bloodiest slasher to come out of the 1980s. Many other slashers that came after would feature higher levels of violence than this one. This example includes the subsequent sequels and the nasty Rob Zombie films that rebooted the series in the late 00s. This high level of violence, as described by critics, wasn't the intention of Rick Rosenthal. It was a product of John Carpenter himself, who reshot Rosenthal's film to add more violence due to his dissatisfaction with Rosenthal's original version, to which he described to be "as scary as an episode of Quincy," ouch. 

  Interestingly, the Scream Factory Blu-ray release includes the theatrical version and a television broadcast version called "The Producer's Cut" or "Rosenthal's Cut". This version aired on AMC throughout the 80s and removed most of the violence from the film. It features additional scenes to pad out the runtime and add some character development. I never saw this version, but I honestly didn't mind the added violence in the theatrical cut. Maybe it's because there were other slasher films far more violent released the same year. Case in point, The Prowler, The Burning, and Bloody Moon featured more graphic violence than this movie. Hell, even Maniac, which saw release the year before and caused considerable controversy over its unrestrained violence, was more violent than Halloween II. There were some memorable death scenes in the movie, mainly the demise of Nurse Karen via scalding/drowning to death and Ben Tramer's over-the-top fiery death via a freak car accident. 

Escape from New York and Jaws stunt coordinator Dick Warlock photographed with his son, Billy Warlock, who cameos in the film as a cowboy with a boombox on his shoulder. He had a career as an actor, starring in General Hospital, Days of our Lives, and Baywatch. 

  One big difference I found in Halloween II was Michael Myers' different appearance, which is made clear that it's not the same stuntman portraying him. Much like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films and the Friday the 13th series to some extent, each Halloween sequel had a different stuntman portraying The Shape, except the Rob Zombie films and maybe David Gordon Green's reboot trilogy. Nick Castle was too busy working as a screenwriter on Escape from New York and sharpening his director's muscles for The Last Starfighter (1984). He would be replaced by veteran stunt coordinator Dick Warlock, who had previously worked with John Carpenter and Steven Spielberg, and Kurt Russell's stunt double for 25 years. Although Warlock's height (5'9") nearly matches that of Nick Castle (5'10"), his physical appearance is noticeably stockier, to the point where he had to wear pads to appear taller. 

   Another noticeable difference in Dick Warlock's Michael is the mask itself, which looks dirtier in shade and appears wider, in addition to having reddish hair. It's the same mask used in the previous film, except it has suffered some wear and yellowing because it was kept under Debra Hill's bed for years, and Hill herself was a heavy smoker. The hair on the mask appears messy, and the widening of the face is due to the mask fitting differently on Dick Warlock's head. After production wrapped up, Warlock kept the mask along with the scalpel, boots, jumpsuit, and knife used in the film, a decision that the studio would come to regret when Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988) began production. 

  The film sees the return of Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode and Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis, a role he would continue to reprise in subsequent sequels until his death at age 75 in 1995, shortly after he completed Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers. Although it's nice to see them reprise their roles, Jamie Lee Curtis does little in the film. She spends most of the film lying down on a hospital bed and wearing a rather unconvincing wig, as she had trimmed her long hair significantly and changed it to a brunette color. It still looks more convincing than Kate Mara's wig in Fant4stic. Donald Pleasence gets to do more as Dr. Loomis, providing us with expository dialogue, along with an entertaining performance to boot, enough to balance out the film's severe underuse of Jamie Lee Curtis. Jimmy is a paramedic who assists in bringing Laurie to the hospital and has a romantic interest in her, yet it goes nowhere in the film. However, the television version expands his character with additional dialogue and scenes. He returns in the ending, where he holds hands with Laurie as she delivers an awkwardly delivered and ad-libbed "We made it." 

  I commend the film for at least trying to do something different in the sequel, mainly giving us a different setting and a plot twist that reveals that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' sister. It's a great idea, but it's a pointless twist that takes away the mystery and frightening factor of Michael Myers, rather than just finish his killing spree by ending the survivor who escaped. It also doesn't help that this plot twist would get retconned in the 2018 reboot, which also erased the convoluted timelines created by the sequel, the 1998 reboot, and the Rob Zombie movies, to which we will take a look at following this discussion. 

  I honestly thought that Halloween II wasn't that bad of a sequel, as many critics did back when it was first released, as it would get worse in subsequent years. I admire Halloween II for killing off both Dr. Loomis and Michael Myers himself at the end of the film. Carpenter and Debra Hill intended this movie to be the end of Michael Myers. They planned to leave the two films as the complete story and take the franchise to strange new places, starting with the release of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. Hill and Carpenter intended for the third film to be the first installment in a proposed series of anthology films set on the night of Halloween, with each film featuring its characters, setting, and storyline. Tommy Lee Wallace took on directorial duties, and it seemed that the studio was confident in the project since Akkad and Yablans even followed through with Hill and Carpenter's idea. 

  Sadly, the anthology series got promptly abandoned after Season of the Witch did poorly at the box office, scraping a meager $14.4 million ($38.8 million in 2020) against a budget of $2.5 million ($6.7 million in 2020). It may not sound so bad considering it made a profit, but those numbers were a far cry from the financial returns of the first two films. It was the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise until Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers made a paltry $11.6 million ($25.416 million in 2020) and received worse reviews than its predecessors. Eventually, Hill and Carpenter said "fuck it," selling the rights to Moustapha Akkad, who subsequently produced Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, with Donald Pleasence returning to the series as Dr. Loomis. He now sports a burn scar on his face and hunts down Michael, who had been in a coma for several years and is searching for his 7-year-old niece, Jaime Lloyd Strode. 

  The film performed decently at the box office but received negative reviews from critics, much like the previous two installments, but it proved to satisfy the fans enough for another sequel one year later. The difference between the first three sequels and the subsequent ones that followed, save for Halloween H20, is that they have received a critical reappraisal among fans and critics alike. Many consider Season of the Witch to be an excellent standalone film, and fans regarding the second and fourth films as the best Halloween sequels. What followed was a series of fifth and sixth parts that added some cult of Thorn bullshit that made the shoehorned mythology Jason Goes Hell: The Final Friday look like The Wicker Man by comparison. After the massive failure of Halloween 6, the series would be rebooted in 1998 under Dimension Films, with Jamie Lee Curtis returning as Laurie Strode, with Friday the 13th sequel and Lake Placid director Steve Miner at the helm. 

  The film did well financially and critically to warrant the horrendously atrocious sequel Halloween: Resurrection (2002), which featured a webcam reality show and rapper Busta Rhymes beating Michael Myers with karate and spitting out awful one-liners ("Trick or treat, Muthafuckah!"). The catastrophic failure of this movie would put the series on ice for at least five years until Rob Zombie took the reigns and remade the original, with Malek Akkad assuming his late father's role as producer. After the critical and financial failure of the sequel, the franchise would lay dormant for almost a decade until David Gordon Green and Danny McBride rebooted the series entirely with Halloween Returns in 2018. This reboot made the brilliant move of ignoring every sequel that came before the original and acts as a direct sequel to the 1978 film. Jamie Lee Curtis reprised her role, and John Carpenter returned to the series as an executive producer and composer. It made a killing at the box office ($255.5 million in total) and did well with critics and fans alike, with many praising the film for being a proper sequel to the original and being a return to form for the Halloween series. Two sequels were announced, titled Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends, intended to be released in 2021 and 2022. 

Excellent poster art by Sadist Art Designs

  In retrospect, Halloween II isn't the worst sequel in the series by any stretch of the imagination. It faithfully recreates the atmosphere and suspense of the 1978 classic with some well-crafted thrills and Rick Rosenthal's suave direction keeping the film flowing well, along with some memorable death scenes and a committed performance from Donald Pleasence. It may not be as good as the original or sophisticated as the 2018 reboot. But nevertheless, it manages to be an entertaining sequel, even if it's burdened by a weakly developed script with disposable characters. 

No copyright infringement is intended with the use of these images. All images belong to their respective authors, as well as the fan poster artwork is credited to their respective artists. Information obtained from IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo, usinflationcalculator.com, and Halloween II (1981).