HALLOWEEN II (1981) Review (Originally posted on Planet Fury)

     The Moustapha Akkad presentation of HALLOWEEN II picks up directly where the original ends. Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) shoots boogeyman Michael Myers (Nick Castle) six times, sending him over a balcony and onto the front lawn of the Doyle house. Of course, everybody knows that you ‘can’t kill the boogeyman’ and Myers’ body is nowhere to be found. Intrepid “final girl” Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), is taken by ambulance to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital to tend to her wounds while Loomis and Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) wander the streets of Haddonfield attempting to find The Shape. 

     Throughout his original rampage, Michael’s motives were seemingly tied to the anniversary of murdering his sister Judith (fifteen years prior). After returning to the scene of the crime, he fixated on a teenager (Laurie) who reminded him of his sister, compelling him to repeat the crime again. His efficient trail of death was either tied to survival or his compulsion to relive the past. A Phelp’s Garage mechanic, two dogs and three horny teens were either slashed or strangled - and sometimes both. By HALLOWEEN II, our boogeyman (now played by stunt man Dick Warlock) appears less focused and much more angry. Maybe it was the knitting needle in the neck, the hanger in the eye, the butcher knife in the chest, the six close-range bullets to his body and two-story fall to the ground that soured his patient, methodical approach? Whatever the cause, poor Alice (Anne Bruner), a random teen alone in her home, is the first unfortunate victim of the angrier, less subtle Myers. Alice’s only sin? Leaving the front door unlocked. Myers may have returned, but he couldn’t have wandered further from Orange Grove Ave.

 

   The rest of HALLOWEEN II focuses on Loomis’ attempts at finding Myers - and Myers’ attempts at killing Laurie. While Loomis gathers clues indicating a nonsensical (and unnecessary) motive for his former patient, the incompetent staff at Haddonfield Memorial are systematically killed by Myers in several mean and equally nonsensical ways. The creepy cat and mouse games of a child-like psycho have been replaced by FRIDAY THE 13^th-style murder set pieces. What is most frustrating with this follow-up, again scripted by Carpenter and Debra Hill, is that there is no true protagonist. Curtis’ Laurie is drugged and bedridden for most of the running time. The intrepid babysitter from the original is relegated to the sidelines while Loomis is left to search dental records and wax philosophic on evil and the origins of Samhain. The audience is left to wander the dark halls with group of dim, vague archetypes simply waiting for a syringe to the eye.  Hard to believe that Carpenter and Hill would choose to pursue such a limited and redundant narrative. It’s a slick yet depressing coda to a classic film that surely deserved better. 

     Director Rick Rosenthal (HALLOWEEN: RESURRECTION) does a serviceable job with the slight material he was given. He gets some solid performances from Pleasence, Cyphers and Lance Guest (JAWS: THE REVENGE) as concerned paramedic Jimmy. Nancy Stephens makes a welcome return as the cynical, chain-smoking Marion and Gloria Gifford is a strong presence as head nurse Mrs. Alves (the lone authority figure at Haddonfield Memorial). Curtis, who did the sequel out of loyalty to Carpenter and Hill, is suitably worried and anxious in her extended victim role. Though a poorly-chosen wig offers distracting evidence that this is definitely not the same brave teen who fought so valiantly to stop the boogeyman. Thankfully she was able to reconcile the somnambulant turn of her character TWICE several years later in the compelling HALLOWEEN: H20 and the even better Blumhouse re-imagining HALLOWEEN 2018 (which ditches all the sequels and the sibling connection altogether). 

     Rosenthal’s film looks and feels very much like the original, thanks to returning cinematographer Dean Cundey (SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS). The first moments after the opening credits, with Myers’ POV through the back alleys of Haddonfield, contain a mischievous energy missing from the rest of the film. These brief shots cleverly mirror the beginning of the original and promise a movie that is far more inventive than what proceeds. As a HALLOWEEN sequel, it’s mostly trick, but as a mindless slasher film it’s a digestible treat (if you prefer hard candy). It’s helped greatly by the kinetic score, an electronic revamp of Carpenter’s iconic original soundtrack. The extended, entirely expected stalking sequence between Myers and Laurie is shot and edited with a modicum of energy. However, the leisure pace of the Warlock Myers is often unintentionally funny. Laurie “narrowly escaping” the surgical knife by a slow moving elevator is far removed from the nail-biting confrontations orchestrated in the original. 

     What is most obvious (and unfortunate) with HALLOWEEN II, is that Myers is most certainly NOT the boogeyman. The silent, sneaky phantom in the shadows from HALLOWEEN is nowhere to be found once Strode has been secured in the stretcher. Perhaps by bookending the film with The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman,” Carpenter and Hill were intimating that our heroine began hallucinating as soon as she stated that, ‘It was the boogeyman.’ Razors in the mouth, exploding cars, boiled faces and slippery pools of blood are surely the stuff of nightmares. 

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