Movie 62: Halloween II (1981)

Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Pamela Susan Shoop, Dick Warlock.

Director: Rick Rosenthal.

One of the stronger sequels in horror history, primarily because it acted as a very direct continuation of the original story, Halloween II is pretty well regarded and respected.  It's not the original, certainly-director Rosenthal is no Carpenter-but I remember it being pretty decent even when it was in many ways much simpler and direct.

I had said during my write-up of the original that one of my absolute favorite last lines is "as a matter of fact, it was" and this sequel opens with one of my favorite openers:

"Is this a joke?  I've been trick or treated to death tonight."
"...You don't know what death is."  Few things beat Pleasence as Loomis.  Very few things.

"I shot him six times!" He says it many times, each time with the exact same inflection and cadence.  Terrific.  Every time Loomis has a line I want to break out in applause.  

The most admirable thing about Halloween II is that Rosenthal clearly studied the hell out the original, clearly had a real sense of affection for said original, and wanted to do the best he could to match it in style and tone, obviously while following what was almost certainly a studio mandate to make it more action-packed and gory(there's more blood in the first ten minutes then there was in the entirety of the original).  All that being taken into consideration, Rosenthal kinda nails it.  

Fun fact: the razor blades in candy thing is pretty much entirely a myth.  Makes for a squicky little moment here, though: poor kid is just gushing blood out of his mouth.  Second fun fact: I actually seriously wrote "gushing mouth out of his blood."  I should probably get more sleep instead of trying to watch horror movies all the time.

There should be more hospital horror films.  It's such an inspired setting filled with anxiety, fear and death.  Well, actually, I should probably say there should be more "good" hospital horror films...there are a lot of them, I think, but every one that comes to mind is terrible.

"No man can take six slugs."  The Sheriff must have never heard of a man named 50 Cent?  Heh.  ...that joke would have worked better if you could hear me.  

Kid who suffers death by speeding police car-and crashing into a van that explodes for some reason-is a bit too coincidental for my taste.  It doesn't really accomplish much in the narrative, either: it's not like the kid is ever mentioned again...just feels like they wanted an explosion.  But, meh, the important thing is the Sheriff reacts to Annie's death and we move on.  

Actually, the scene of the Sheriff and handing off the duties of lead officer to his deputy is a pretty strong scene.  It's kind of a bit low on emotional pay-off, which is easily forgivable considering this is a horror film and that the death in question occurred in a previous film that likely not considered to be fresh in the memory of the viewer, but has a lot of exposition.  Loomis reminds the viewer who he is and what he's up to, the sheriff bounces right out of the movie, and we're back on track again.  It, and the following scene helping to establish our hospital staff and new slew of victims, do offer one major benefit to the overall narrative: the scope and effect that Mikey's reign of terror has on the larger community.

It's actually the most interesting element of this movie: the community and it's reaction.  Honestly, Myers and his storming of the hospital isn't all that moving-it's pretty basic slasher movie, stuff, really-but following Loomis and the Deputy is fascinating.  They witness a lynch mob outside of the Myers house-a direct result of a Reporter overhearing Loomis' story and putting it on TV and the radio-and then have a frank conversation about what's going on.  I was a little too harsh on the "kid getting killed by cop car", considering that the Deputy has an extraordinary response to the idea that he was not Micheal Myers but was innocent Ben Traymer, on his way home from a party after having too much to drink.  If nothing else, his death is yet another consequence of the horror happening in Haddonfield. So there is that, and it's interesting 

While I've never worked in a hospital, I have worked overnights for many years...I don't think I've ever found the time to have sex in a hot tub....or generally mill about this much.  Of course, I've also never been that irresponsible about my job, either.  Apparently there just aren't any patients anywhere?

There is at least one strong murder sequence here: One of the nurses goes to get the Doctor in the rec room.  She sees him sitting, staring at a fish tank that is casting wavering lights around the room.  She turns him around, finds out he's very dead and backs away into the shadows, only lit by the fish tank.  Slowly, Myers comes into frame, barely lit, and grabs her.  It's actually a pretty good scene.

The second act of this movie does slow down considerably.  I don't think anybody needed the sibling twist-even if it DOES enable the rest of the series-or overly stylized dream sequences.  The film also decides to introduce new characters into the story basically just to up the body count or give the rapidly diminishing cast someone else to share dialogue with.  Not that there isn't some cleverness: Jimmy finds the charge nurse dead with an I.V. pumping her blood freely onto the floor, turns to leave, and then slips and smacks his head on the floor knocking himself unconcious.  I like both the IV to nothing and the slapstick(even if the slapstick feels a little out of place).

If nothing else, Laurie Strode deserves credit for taking a beating and keep on going.  Especially in this film, where she comes into the whole thing even more fragile than was in the previous film.  But climbing out a window and crashing into a bunch of broken bottles?  Ouch.

Dr.Loomis is not screwing around.  "What is it you Officers usually do?  You fire a warning shot RIGHT?!" Blam, shoots out the window.  That's after a pretty bitter, angry old man monologue.  He's just so good, you guys.  He's not super observant, though.  Walks right by the very girl he came to save.

I totally forgot about Michael Myers just walking through the locked plate glass door.  That's rad.  They really ran with his single-minded determination and nigh-invulnerability in this sequel.  Ooh, nice call back!  The Nurse earlier jokes about how she would use a pair of bandage scissors to skewer the orderly...Michael uses it to stab Loomis.  

Laurie has some pretty improbable aiming skills: she shoots him both eyes?  Who is she, Hawkeye?  But it blinds Michael and leads to the finale, which is explosive...heh.  Yeah, I know, that joke wasn't very good either.  But seriously, though, Loomis' self-sacrifice is excellent.  Obviously he lives (in one universe, anyway...then there's the other universe...)but it's still a great moment and a solid scene.

One of these days I should do some sort of blog post matching up body counts of all the great horror monsters.  Myers is almost certainly right up there.

Final Thoughts: Like I said before, director Rosenthal clearly had a real affection for Carpenters original film and, as such, made a pretty faithful follow-up.  Obviously there's more emphasis on traditional slasher film elements that, really, fail more often than not.  Pleasance is the real winner here, giving an intense and committed performance.  Curtis literally sits out most of the proceedings, and no other actors are given much to do, so basically we have Loomis and Myers to watch, which is clearly something the producers of the franchise realized were more or less their bread and butter.  While the rivalry has it's ups and downs over time, it mostly works in this installment.  Not the strongest film in the world, but a fairly strong sequel.

Final Rating: Three and a Half Stats.