Review of Halloween II (1981) by Chads — 28 Aug 2009

Great moments in stabbing; it's a short history. Joe Pesci, of course, in Martin Scorsese's "Goodfellas", stabbing a "made man" in the car trunk with his mother's cutlery.

A film about gangsters, the mafia, needs to show how such men conduct their business. It's not gratuitous; it's what they do, kill. Among films of recent vintage, the alleged Zodiac Killer in David Fincher's "Zodiac" deserves special mention.

He stabs a young couple, shockingly, in daylight, on a seemingly perfect day. It's not gratuitous, it's historical, and Hitchcockian, to boot. The stabbing in "Halloween 2", while not altogether graphic, becomes so, as the implied violence of Michael Myers(Tyler Mane) upon the nurse feels graphic, because the filmmaker's intent feels inhumane.

By my count, Michael stabs the nurse thirteen times. That's a lot of fluid he leaves behind on her mutilated body. He humiliates her; it's "bukkake" with blood. For this filmmaker, death by strangulation is what passes for subtlety, and perhaps, more disturbingly, humanity.

Lucky for Laurie's friend, Michael kills her before she gets naked; before she gets stabbed while doing, "it". Unlucky for the moviegoer, her partner had to pee first. The stripper, on the other hand, had no such luck, no time to put on a blouse.

While fully disclothed(topless, but not full-frontal), in arguably, the film's ugliest scene(the one with the dog is a close second), Michael bashes her face, repeatedly(by my count, six times), into a mirror.

(sigh) Some people find this entertaining. (sigh) Not only is "Halloween 2" violent, the film also lacks narrative credibility. In a crucial plot point, Laurie's epiphany, which is set up as the film's emotional high point, seems downright laughable, due to the circumstances.

Laurie(Scout Taylor-Compton) lives in a relatively small-town; she should know what the film contends she doesn't.