Halloween II (1981) | 31 Days of Horror: Oct 31

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I said the Michael Myers mask! This is Mike Myers! It should be the Halloween mask. This is a Halloween mask.

Halloween II is unfortunately a disappointing entry as the second installment of this horror franchise. It follows a film that garnered much praise and inspired other horror films and creates one of the blandest imitations of all the imitators.

Before Viewing

This trailer begins with Loomis screaming that he shot Michael Meyers six times in the heart, but he’s still alive. Laurie is now in the hospital following the killer’s attack in the first film, so the killer comes to her–with many new killings and other odd events happening at the medical center. A nurse finds her tires slashed. Another nurse is attacked by a patient. All the while an injured Laurie hobbles through the shadowy hospital. This film takes place on Halloween II.

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

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After Viewing

Continuing from the ending of the previous film, Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) is shot by Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and falls off the balcony of the house. But when he goes to the front lawn, the killer is missing. Wandering the streets of Haddonfield, IL, Michael steals a knife and kills Alice (Anne Bruner), a teenage girl home alone. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to the hospital by two paramedics, Budd (Leo Rossi) and Jimmy (Lance Guest), an acquaintance of hers. At the hospital, Laurie–still in shock–asks not to be put to sleep, but Dr. Mixter (Ford Rainey) injects her with a sedative.

Meanwhile, Loomis drives around with Sheriff Leigh Brackett (Charles Cyphers) looking for Michael. They see an individual wearing a mask similar to Michael and Loomis give chase. The man steps into the street and is hit by a patrol car which crashes into a van and explodes–burning the body beyond recognition. The sheriff believes they got their man, but Loomis is less certain. Jimmy and Budd are called to pick up three more bodies across town, one of which is Annie Brackett, the sheriff’s daughter. He blames Loomis for releasing the monster upon their town. The dead body is not Michael, and he wanders past a boy with a radio, hearing that Laurie has been admitted to the hospital.

Head Nurse Alves (Gloria Gifford) checks in with Laurie who is chatting with Jimmy. He gives her the lowdown on what’s been happening. Nurse Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) arrives late to work unaware that Michael is walking the halls behind her. Investigating phone line problems, night guard Garrett (Cliff Emmich) is attacked and killed in the storeroom. The police arrive at the Myers house, which is under attack by scared citizens. Budd scares Karen in a hospital room and the two go to the whirlpool therapy room for some quick alone time. Inside, Budd is strangled by Micahel, and Karen is drowned in the scalding water of the tub.

Loomis and Deputy Gary Hunt (Hunter von Leer) investigate a break-in at the local elementary school, finding a knife stabbed into a children’s drawing and the word “Samhain” written on the chalkboard in blood. Marion (Nancy Stephens), Loomis’s assistant, arrives under orders from the Governor to take Loomis back to Smiths-Grove Hospital. Jimmy tells Laurie that he won’t let anything happen to her, but realizes she’s had an adverse reaction to the sedative and is paralyzed. Young nurse Janet runs to tell Dr. Mixter but finds him dead. She is killed too. Michael enters Laurie’s room and stabs her, but she has somehow escaped and he only stabs pillows.

Looking for Laurie, Jimmy finds Nurse Alves dead and then slips on a pool of blood, knocking himself out. Nurse Jill (Tawny Moyer) tries to go for help but her tires (and all the car tires) are slashed, so she goes back inside to be killed–in front of Laurie. Laurie manages to limp away from Michael, having an injured ankle from the events of the first film. She loses Michael in the boiler room, runs out front, and hides in the front of a car. Jimmy leaves the hospital and sits in the car, but has a concussion and passes out on the horn. Meanwhile, Marion tells Loomis some information about Michael that was sealed–Laurie is his adopted sister!

Loomis, Marion, and the Marshall (John Zenda) arrive at the hospital letting Laurie in. Loomis shoots Michael several more times, but when the Marshall investigates the dead body his throat is slashed. Marion runs for help, while Loomis and Laurie hide in the operating theater. Laurie shoots Michael in each eye with a gun given to her by Loomis. With the killer blindly staggering around, the survivors open all the gas tanks. Laurie takes off down the hall, and Loomis ignites his lighter blowing himself and Michael up. A flaming Michael shambles towards Laurie but collapses, dead. Laurie is taken away in another ambulance.

“We’re all afraid of the dark inside ourselves.” – Sam Loomis

It’s unfortunately that time again. It’s the end of another year worth of articles on 31 Days of Horror which this season ends with Halloween II. After the success of Halloween (1978), this film was put into pre-production by the producers. John Carpenter returned with Debra Hill to write the film but had no intention of directing it. That honor went to Rick Rosenthal, as his first directorial production. He would return to direct Halloween: Resurrection in 2002, and also is the director for The Birds II: Lands End–though he removed his name from that film. Halloween II was intended to be the end of the story about Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, with the third film in the series, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, telling an entirely different story. It was Carpenter’s original intention that each film in the Halloween franchise would focus on a different aspect of the holiday. Producers, and audiences, did not like that and Michael Myers would “return” on the fourth film, released in 1988.

The film opens with the final moments of the 1978 film as Michael falls off the balcony into the yard below. Perhaps a portent of bad things to come, these scenes do not actually match the final shots from Halloween. The reshot moments change the shooting by Loomis (shooting Michale seven times instead of six) and Michael falling off the front balcony, instead of the rear. That probably was missed by many viewers originally since the original film was only available on videotape and not as easily available as it would be today. From there it’s a manhunt for the killer, and only Loomis knows who he is. While having the police search for Michael as he roams around the neighborhood killing people would have been interesting, the plot becomes so contrived that a lot of the fun is missing.

The slasher genre had exploded in horror films between 1978 and the release of Halloween II. In fact, horror films, in general, had peaked in popularity, but were beginning to get flack from parent groups and others looking to stifle the wanton gore and violence. There had been two Friday the 13th films released, the original in 1980, and Friday the 13th Part 2 a few months before this film. Other slasher films included Prom Night (also starring Jamie Lee Curtis), My Bloody Valentine, The Funhouse, Graduation Day, Happy Birthday to Me, and Final Exam. Some had something extra going for them, but all were very derivative of the popular and groundbreaking films. Where Halloween created a mood of suspense along with some interesting killings, Halloween II feels more like the filmmakers felt obligated to up the body count, the gore, and the nudity just to be able to play in the same space as everything else released. The first film had five solid killings in it. This film doubled that, but several of them were off-screen which feels like such a letdown, even with the two-dimensional characters.

Halloween II is also less scary than its predecessor, even with the increased kill count. Two moments felt on par with the original, one that involves a murder and another that doesn’t. Immediately after leaving Laurie and Loomis, Michael wanders into the Elrod kitchen, taking a knife from Mrs. Elrod. He chooses not to stay and kill the elderly couple, but instead stab the teenage girl next door. The entirety of this mostly first-person scene was in the realm of the events in the original and was a great start to the film. But from there the film goes downhill. Rosenthal does stage one more great jump scare when Janet gets killed in Dr. Mixter’s office. She stands in the dim office having just turned the chair around with the dead doctor in it. In the shadowy background, Michael steps forward slowly appearing over her shoulder in a great moment that really provides a fright. But that is about as good as it gets.

What does Halloween II do to destroy all the goodwill from the first film? Most of its sins involve plot contrivances. It begins in a suitably intelligent way with Laurie being taken to a hospital and Loomis and the police looking for the killer. The first laughable moment is when Loomis jumps out of the police car intending to shoot a random person trick or treating because he thinks it could be Michael. The character steps into the street where a police car is driving at least twice the speed limit and pins this character into a can which explodes. Ludicrous! The police believe everything is kosher (it’s got to be him), but not Loomis. He knows everything about Michael! Except for the fact that Laurie is his sister because that was sealed for some reason. Totally contrived! Michael only knows where Laurie is being held when he overhears a passerby’s radio proclaiming the name of the hospital on a newscast. The hospital is the darkest and emptiest hospital known to man. Several of the killings occur off-screen, with characters that audiences neither know nor care about–in fact, we don’t care about most of the characters. Laurie has some sort of paralytic reaction to her medicine but is able to get out of her room (and dress up the bed to look like she’s still there) within the two minutes it takes Michael to enter. Much more time is focused on Loomis and his extended investigations for the killer, in all the places audiences already know Michael won’t be, which feels like a waste of time. Jamie Lee Curtis ends up being in only a small fraction of the film and has very little agency–which is actually on par with her character in the first film. She needs to be saved. Questions that still exist at the end: What happened to Jimmy? Is he dead, or only concussed? What was the purpose of Michael writing “Samhain” on the blackboard? Who will look after Dr. Mixter’s fish?

All in all, Halloween II is an unsatisfying sequel, especially in light of the similar films that glutted the market during the early 80s. Many people dislike Halloween III for not continuing the Michael Myers storyline, but I find it more of a refreshing break. If the filmmakers were going to make sequels like this, let’s go even further off-script with crazy mind-control masks and evil rocks. Thanks for reading again this year! If you missed any articles you can always find them using the tag 31 Days of Horror. You can also stay abreast of Sci-Fi Saturdays every week with iconic, fun, and genre-defining science-fiction films from 1950 to the present. So, until next year, pleasant…screams!

Assorted Musings

• The current continuity of the Halloween franchise ignores this film, going directly from the 1978 film to the 2018 Halloween and its sequels, Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends.
• A popular movie to show on television on Halloween appears to be Night of the Living Dead. It appears in numerous films, including Tales of Halloween and this film. It may be due to the fact that no royalties need to be paid to show scenes from it.
• Future comedian Dana Carvey has a brief cameo as an assistant to one of the news crews.  He can best be seen in the final moments when Laurie is being loaded into an ambulance. He is in a blue baseball hat on the far left of the screen.