Review of Halloween II (1981) by Joshua B — 15 Nov 2014

John Carpenter, who directed the first film, is co-writer and coproducer (with Debra Hill) this time, and composed the repetitive, nerve-jangling music with Alan Howarth. He has assigned the directing chores to Rick Rosenthal, who follows ably in Mr. Carpenter's footsteps. Mr. Rosenthal's methods are sometimes familiar but almost always reliable. When a yellow light summoning nurses goes off at the hospital, Mr. Rosenthal makes the accompanying sound so loud and startling you'll think there's a Canada goose honking in your ear - a cheap trick, but an effective one. On the debit side, Mr. Rosenthal is capable of showing not one but three closeups of a hypodermic needle entering flesh when one of his characters is due for some harmless injections.

Actually, ''Halloween II'' is good enough to deserve a sequel of its own. By the standards of most recent horror films, this - like its predecessor - is a class act. There's some variety to the crimes, as there is to the characters, and an audience is likely to do more screaming at suspenseful moments than at scary ones. The gore, while very explicit and gruesome, won't make you feel as if you're watching major surgery. The direction and camera work are quite competent, and the actors don't look like amateurs. That may not sound like much to ask of a horror film, but it's more than many of them offer. And ''Halloween II,'' in addition to all this, has a quick pace and something like a sense of style.