Of all the modern Slasher villains, have any of them had a more peculiar run than Michael Myers? To begin with, Halloween was a phenomenon when it first hit theaters. With little money, Director John Carpenter constructed a film where he had to rely on suspense and editing over flashy effects or gore. The results were stunning, as audiences ate up the experience and made Halloween the most successful independent film of all time at the period of its release. But Halloween would not necessarily stay on top for long.
Soon came a slew of imitators, such as Friday the 13th, Prom Night and many, many others. All were making money by aping the style of Carpenter but upping the gore and nudity in the films. Soon many were clamoring for a sequel to Halloween, except for Carpenter himself, who refused to direct any more Halloween films. Even with investors providing a budget that dwarfed that of the original’s at $2.5 Million. Not interested in doing the same movie over again, Carpenter recruited his editor on the first film, Tommy Lee Wallace to direct the sequel. To his dismay, Wallace turned the opportunity down and Carpenter instead chose newcomer Rick Rosenthal.
Carpenter and co-writer and producing partner Debra Hill were pressured to write the sequel, which they eventually gave into. They came up with a scenario where Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode was living in a high rise apartment building a few years after the events of Halloween. Considering how much of Psycho is contained within the first film, one can only imagine that Carpenter would have loved to do a tribute to Vertigo, but alas it was not to be. Carpenter and Hill eventually decided on doing a direct sequel to their film, picking up minutes after the conclusion of the first picture.
With many from the original cast returning from Halloween, this movie had “winner” written all over it, but would it be able to stand up to the first picture’s intensity? How would Halloween also stand up to a crowded field of Slasher series, the genre it had helped to bring forth? The film’s tagline promised “More of the night he came home”, but would that mean a more horrifying experience than the first, or just more of the same?
Halloween IIStarring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance. Directed by Rick Rosenthal.
To call Halloween II a mixed bag is really hitting it right on the nose. Really, the film has some decent things going for it, especially at the beginning; which again picks up right after the events of the previous film. Where Carpenter had to take half of the original’s running time to build up the suspense needed to carry the film and really make Michael Myers a threat to the film’s characters, this movie has the advantage of the movie’s tension already being at a fever pitch.
Director Rick Rosenthal does a nice job in the early going with atmosphere, as Michael barely escapes the watchful eye of Dr. Loomis in back alleys and sneaking into others houses. An old couple barely escapes with their life, but loses a knife in the process. A poor teenage girl though is not so lucky. When Michael finds out about the location of Laurie, the film is kind of downhill from that point on.
Myers (played this time by stunt man Dick Warlock) seems to be unaffected by the six shots planted into his chest, which goes unexplained in this installment. The physicality of the role is simply different; as Warlock doesn’t have the presence of original Myers performer Nick Castle, who was just starting his directing career. It is a little distracting because we shouldn’t be able to tell the difference in the performances of Myers since the actors face is obscured by the mask, and yet there does seem to be a change.
Part of the fault may lie with the director also, as instead of just being “The Shape”, a ghostly presence that created suspense instead of immediate Horror, Myers became the focus of many of the film’s scenes. Halloween II lacks much of the subtlety and carefully constructed tension from the first Halloween, and it shows in many of the scenes featuring Myers. Also, Rosenthal gives Michael an augmented strength which is even more exaggerated and seems to take away some of the realism that the first film displayed.
Michael was scary because he could be anyone in your neighborhood. Halloween II makes him out to be more like the Terminator. Then again, Carpenter has stated that he was actually feeling the pressure of the competition and in the post-production stage of filming actually went back and pumped up the movie’s gore. According to imdb.com, Carpenter felt that the finished film simply wasn’t scary enough, even comparing it to an episode of Quincy. This caused a bit of a rift with Rosenthal, who states that he had meticulously paced the film, and the extra footage had actually hindered the final product.
Carpenter would also have to take the hit for some of the film’s weak screenplay. First and foremost would be the absence of Laurie Strode throughout most of the picture, because she spends much of the film in a hospital bed. This would cause the higher focus on Myers himself, who spends most of the film killing off the staff of the hospital where Laurie is being helped. For some reason, almost the entire hospital is deserted as well, which seems to ring a little false, even for a small town facility.
A case of mistaken identity also seems a bit ludicrous, as a young boy in a Michael Myers costume is killed by the police. Only, I’m assuming this isn’t a Michael Myers costume because he wouldn’t have been able to gain notoriety and get a costume in his image in the hours right after he had killed the three teenagers from the first film. So instead, we are expected to believe that this kid that was killed is coincidentally supposed to be dressed in the garb of a gas station attendant with a white William Shatner mask, which may be the worst Halloween costume ever conceived for someone who is not a mass murderer.
The characters that are stuck at the hospital, a collection of nurses and E.M.T.’s, don’t really stack up to the fun loving teenagers of Carpente’s original either. They’re mostly just fodder for Myers, who doesn’t have the playfulness he exuded in the first movie. Maybe he was just as bored with these guys as the audience was.
Where the film does excel is the expanded role for Donald Pleasance. His Dr. Loomis is a loose canon on the streets of Haddonfield, a Captain Ahab spooking everyone out as much as possible while he tries to track down his white whale in a William Shatner mask. His obsessed drive to take down Michael is the most energetic performance in the film, trumped up near the film’s finale when he finally joins forces with Curtis’ Strode in the hospital.
SpoilersIn terms of the series, Halloween II is notable for its big twist, which is that Michael is after the young miss Strode because it turns out that Laurie is actually his sister. This revelation cut both ways, as it was a driving force of motivation for the remainder of the series, but then at the same time seemed to take a lot of the mystery out of the character. No longer was Michael simply the boogeyman, randomly picking a victim; now he was a man with a specific purpose and motive. Carpenter has attributed the decision to make Laurie the sister of Michael Myers to a lot of late nights with this screenplay and writing himself into a corner, with this being his only escape route. Again though, this motive seemed to carry on throughout most of Myers’ further adventures, as he tried to eliminate his entire bloodline. End Spoilers
All of this added up to a box office that was about half of the original’s take, and a critical response that didn’t even come close to the first entry. Still, Halloween II gained some notoriety, because of a man named Richard Delmer Boyer. On December 7, 1982, Boyer states that under the influence of PCP, marijuana, and alcohol, he began hallucinating after watching the film. He stated this caused him to murder Francis and Eileen Harbitz, an elderly couple in Fullerton, California by stabbing them repeatedly. Eventually known as the Halloween II Murders, this case of art imitating life did not end with this killer disappearing into the night, but being convicted of murder in the first degree and being sentenced to death.
Unfortunately, this trial probably gave the film more notoriety than it probably deserved. Halloween II simply can’t stand up to the scrutiny or comparison with its brilliant predecessor. On the other hand, on a base level the movie is still an entertaining way to kill (or at least maim) a couple of hours. There’s some gratuitous nudity and some truly horrible killings, especially one that seems to mimic a similar death in Dario Argento’s Deep Red where a woman is scalded to death. Its just that Halloween was such a work of passion, that wanted to entertain in a way that stirred your senses and didn’t insult you. Halloween II requires you to turn your brain off at the door while Michael drives a hammer through it.
horrordvds.com, beyondhollywood.com, impawards.com
