John Carpenter begrudgingly returns to co-write and co-produce a sequel to his legendary Halloween. By 1981, the slasher genre had changed…Halloween II changed with it.
Classic reviews will contain spoilers.
Halloween II
Directed by Rick Rosenthal
Written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
Starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence
Halloween II Review
Halloween II is kind of an interesting piece of business. Picking up immediately where the classic original left off…it trades the suburbs for a hospital setting. Despite oddly sidelining its main character and committing the cardinal sin of sequels (keep reading for that discussion) Halloween II manages to be a watchable, sometimes enjoyable, follow up. It’s a far cry from John Carpenter’s Halloween but few movies aren’t.
Check out our Halloween movie review before jumping into Halloween II
Any sequel to Halloween was always going to run into a problem. The ending of the original is pitch perfect and a return to the story immediately undoes what makes that ending so effective. When you finish watching Halloween you are left to face the terrifying question “Where is Michael Myers”. For Halloween II to exist they have no choice but to answer it. And that answer is…still stalking Laurie Strode, who has been taken to a local hospital following her traumatic night.
Unlike the sparse original movie, Halloween II shows us a town reacting to the events of that night. News media, full police force, paramedics, trick or treaters…a once empty Haddonfield is suddenly the most happening place in the world. The story beats are necessary, but the approach makes you long for the days of our characters walking around a ghost town.
Another big change from the original is the ramping up of blood and gore. The original was largely bloodless…but in the 3 years since its release knock offs like Friday the 13th had changed the audience’s expectations for a slasher movie. With the aesthetic changing from implied blood in an isolated atmospheric to gushing blood in a bustling town…it hardly feels like the same franchise let alone the same night. But these wouldn’t be the worst of the changes from the original.
Michael makes his way to the hospital and begins to dispatch characters we never become as attached to as in the original…all while Laurie is drugged and given little to nothing to do. It’s a strange choice given the success of the Laurie/Michael dynamic in the original…but it’s almost worth it when Laurie awakens and discovers her night of hell is far from over. There is a fantastic chase scene through the hallways and bowels of the building. Unfortunately, it’s far too brief.
Dr. Loomis is also back…ranting to people who now have no choice to believe him and continuing his pursuit of his former patient. It’s during the Loomis B story that Halloween II does the one thing no sequel should do. We learn that Michael’s pursuit of Laurie was anything but random. Laurie is, in fact, Michael’s younger sister. Having killed his older sister when he was six, Michael was now obsessed with killing his younger sister too.
It’s a terrible choice. Halloween II breaks the most important rule sequels should follow. Don’t do anything that negatively changes the viewer’s understanding of the superior original. Part of what made Halloween so special is that there is no reason to Michael’s actions. He’s an unstoppable force who stalks Laurie simply because he saw her and chose to. He could have seen anyone and had the same reaction. When you are watching the movie it’s easy to put yourself in Laurie’s shoes because a stranger who decides to follow and attack you is something that can happen. Having an unknown older brother who killed a sister you also didn’t know about? Seems less likely.
They already had to change the understanding of the ending of Halloween just by bringing the character back…but there’s no way around doing that. The brother/sister reveal serves no good purpose and would become a distraction for many sequels to come. Halloween (2018) finally retcons this reveal by eliminating all movies but the original from the canon.
Halloween II isn’t the only sequel to make this mistake…nor is it always a mistake to add to the mythos of a classic movie. For example…Scream 3 and Scream (2022) actually share the same idea that changes our understanding of the original film. One is perfectly fine and the other is a complete miss. In each case we learn that someone in the original text has a secret child that we didn’t know about at the time. Scream 3 tries to use this reveal to change the entire understanding of events that lead to the film’s plot by crediting a person you didn’t even know existed until now as the hidden mastermind. Scream (2022) uses their reveal as the jumping on point for a new main character without actually changing anything about the original film. It doesn’t ask you to take anything you know and loved about the original and then tell you that you were wrong.
The Star Wars franchise is all over the map with these. The reveal in Empire? Great. Deepens your understanding of the original and adds to the lore. The reveal in Jedi? Fine. It doesn’t hurt anything but also doesn’t feel particularly needed. The reveal in Rise of Skywalker? Ugh. It wipes away the redemptive ending of a far superior movie. And then there’s the prequels…that destroy almost everything they touch. When it comes to follow up movies…its best to work with the movie that was successful enough to spawn more not to attempt to redefine it.
But what’s done is done (until 2018 that is). Michael and Laurie are inevitably left to face off. Loomis arrives once again to try and save the day. We get a more definitive ending in Halloween II than the open ended original…but like all slasher movies a definitive ending becomes meaningless as soon as a producer thinks these characters can make them money again.
Despite those complaints there are some positives here. The added budget allows director Rick Rosenthal to put a great looking movie on the screen. There are some inspired kills and getting to spend any more time with these versions of Laurie and Loomis is a treat (even if neither is given material as good as the original). It’s a well-made movie that’s let down by a bad script. Which is funny since John Carpenter and Debra Hill returned to write it. Carpenter has gone on record as saying the script is a result of alcohol and not knowing what to do with a sequel to Halloween.
Scare Value
Where Halloween is a movie that demands your attention, Halloween II is a movie that you don’t mind having thrown on the TV on a rainy fall night. Compared to some of the sequels still to come…that’s not too shabby. Compared to the original…it can’t.
3/5
Buy Halloween II on Blu-Ray from Amazon.com
If you enjoyed this review of Halloween II, check out Phantasm
