Review of Halloween II (1981) by Collin P — 01 Nov 2014

Halloween II is an enjoyable, but uneven film that continues the story of John Carpenter's Halloween. One of the best things about this movie is that it begins right where the first ended, with Michael Myers' body mysteriously gone and Dr.

Loomis still on the run to catch the insane serial killer. We also get to hear the chilling, memorable line "You don't know what death is." right before the title, where the Jack 'O' Lantern from the original slowly transforms into an eerie skull.

This whole opening makes it feel like we're going to get another masterpiece, but sadly that's not entirely the case. There's several problems that plague this picture, one of the biggest being the beginning of the series' turn to typical slasher fare.

The workers at the hospital Laurie is sent to are mostly the generic character types that are just waiting to die, and that makes them rather boring and hard to be invested in, in fact some we're just waiting for Michael to kill them, so we can get back to our main characters.

On that note, Dr. Loomis shines here, completely stressed and intense in his quest, he goes through everything to finally stop the night of terror. One of the best parts of the movie involves "another" Michael Myers, and how it all plays out shows there's still some of that John Carpenter creativity living in the script.

Sadly Laurie doesn't do much in the movie, but even then she gets a few good scenes. Heck, Michael, despite slowly turning into a typical killer, gets some spots of brilliance. I especially like the scene in the beginning where he goes into an old couple's house to get a knife.

The build up would make you think he's going to kill the two of them, but expectations are turned over and he simply leaves as soon as he came, giving a great example of his seemingly random, but intelligent actions.

On the plot, it overall does a good job following the first, and despite an odd plot twist and some rather dumb moments, holds everything together and works well. In the end, while it might not be as good as the original, Halloween II is still worthy of the name and worth a couple of watches, especially for the final scene, which is too good to spoil.