[HorrorScience] Halloween II (1981)

Reading time: 8 minutes

Qualification

halloween 2

Year

1981

Duration

92 minutes

Director

Rick Rosenthal

Distribution

Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Gloria Gifford, Pamela Susan Shoop, Nancy Stephens

Script

John Carpenter, Debra Hill

After the break that occurred for the New Year's celebration, I continue with this cycle dedicated to Captain James T. Kirk of the starship Enterprise in his role as a serial killer and stalker of young girls, especially Jamie Lee Curtis.

Yes, I already know his name is Michael Myers and that he wears a mask, how could I not know? But the joke was easy, since Myers' mask is a mask of actor William Shatner, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek, as I noted in the curiosities section of the halloween analysis.

We are already in 1981, three years after the premiere of the successful first part, and this time the director also changes (something that will be repeated throughout the entire saga) with the then rookie Rick Rosenthal taking command, in what would be his first experience as a film director. Ah, but don't fear, it doesn't change much because the scriptwriters remain the same as in the previous one, the creators of the monster: John Carpenter and Debra Hill. It is also known that Carpenter helped direct the new Rosenthal, although he does not appear as such in the credits.

Halloween II It is the direct sequel to halloween, picking up the story right where the first left off, on the night of October 31, 1978, while Laurie Strode is rushed to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital after being attacked by Michael Myers.

Dr. Loomis continues his search for his patient (Myers), whom He shot him 6 times, making him fall from a balcony., and yet by the time Loomis went down the stairs and outside the house to reach the place where Michael fell, he had disappeared.

[HorrorScience] Halloween II (1981) — Laurie Strode and Dr. Sam Loomis

This sequel repeats some of the aesthetic resources of the first part, such as the scenes that use a clever combination of lights and shadows in mostly dark settings, and the first-person cameras from the killer's view. The scene that I will comment on below has that type of camera, like in the first scene of the first film, where we saw from a first-person view how a boy, who we will later find out is Michael Myers, stabbed his sister to death. Now the situation is different: Michael enters a house, steals a knife from the kitchen, leaves and continues walking through the neighborhood and then enters another house, where a young woman is talking on the phone with a friend and tells her that she is alone at home because her parents are out, until at one point she hears noises, leaves the phone to go see what is happening, and ends up being murdered by Myers. And it is in that house where Michael rests for a moment to recover from his injuries, before going out again to look for Laurie and finish what he started in the previous film.

While this is happening, Loomis is with Brackett patrolling the neighborhood looking for Myers,and we see that the Dr. tries to convince the sheriff that his patient is still alive and out there and that he is not human, because he shot him 6 times and he still got up and left as if nothing had happened, and the sheriff does not believe that he shot him 6 times and thinks that he missed the shots, in addition to accusing him of having let go of his patient, who turned out to be dangerous. It is at one point in this discussion where Loomis tells Brackett to stop the car, and runs off in pursuit of an individual who appears to be Michael. When he tries to shoot him, he gets into a fight with the sheriff who prevents him from shooting, but a police car hits the suspect who was in the middle of the street, drags him with it and ends up crashing into a truck that was apparently full of explosives because as soon as he touches it, it explodes and the truck, the police car and the body that is suspected to be Myers catches fire, although we as spectators know that it is not and that the victim is a young man who was dressed up for Halloween. Later, Loomis and Brackett take it upon themselves to verify what we already know, and the dead young man, named Ben Tramer, ends up being another victim that no one takes care of.

Laurie Strode is already in the hospital, she was sedated and is resting. One of the nurses who took her in the ambulance knows her, and it seems that he not only likes her but also has feelings for her, so he has no better idea than to act like a friendly gallant, offering to bring her something to drink and giving her conversation, while the head nurse is in charge of scolding him all the time, because she needs her patient to rest and stay calm.

On the street we see all kinds of people walking, and one of those characters so fashionable in the 80s who walked with a huge radio on his shoulder passes by, but instead of listening to techno he was listening to the news on the radio, in which they reported that there was a survivor of the murderer named Laurie Strode, 17 years old, who had been taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. Right at that same moment this guy runs into Michael Myers, who was already back on the street looking for Laurie and arrived just in time to hear the news, so he immediately heads to the hospital.

Halloween II It very successfully continues the story of the first part, and it seems as if both were a single film divided into two parts. Here we will be revealed some more details about Myers, about why he pursues Laurie Strode, and about its origins related to Samhain and the occult, which gives us a vague explanation for his apparent invulnerability. It is a well-made film, with very dark but technically impeccable scenes, and an indispensable complement to the first.

Some curious details:

Rosenthal, the director of this second part, said that he had to work with all the limitations that it had for being a direct continuation of the first part, maintaining the aesthetics and even the same team of actors. He had to imitate the visual style of the previous film, and wanted to make more of a thriller than a slasher film. The increase in gore and nudity scenes compared to halloween It was due to a decision by Carpenter, who in the film's post-production said that the film did not scare him enough and decided to direct some extra scenes and change others to make it more to his liking. This did not please Rosenthal, who complained and accused him of ruining his film.
Carpenter and Hill, the creators of the story, wanted to set this sequel a few years after the events of the first, having Myers go in search of Laurie to her new home. Later, in meetings they had to talk about the script, this was changed to directly continue the previous film and have Myers go in search of Laurie directly to the hospital.
In this film the producers invested a considerably larger amount of money compared to the previous one ($2.5 million versus $325,000), and they even thought about making it in 3D, but then they decided that they could not do it first because 3D was very expensive, and second because many of the scenes in the film are very dark and cannot be filmed in 3D in those conditions, something they did not want to change because they believe that "in the darkness is where evil lurks."