HALLOWEEN II: Boo

Check out the first review in this holiday tradition: Halloween

Director: Rick Rosenthal
Writers: John Carpenter, Debra Hill
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Pamela Susan Shoop, Hunter von Leer, Dick Warlock
Runtime: 92 mins.
1981

By every conceivable measurement of artistic merit, Halloween II is inferior to Halloween. It feels like exactly what it is, a new director trying to fit into his predecessor's shoes. It doesn't help that the newbie is the undistinguished Rick Rosenthal, and the predecessor is the legendary John Carpenter. There is no panache in this sequel, no verve, just mimicry. This is apparent the moment the film starts, which retreads the ending of the first film using a lot of the same footage. Somehow it's much worse this time around. This sinking feeling is confirmed by an early replication of the much-lauded first-person tracking shot that so successfully grounded us in the implacable perspective of Michael Myers. Like a small child putting on their dad's oversized business coat and trundling out the door with an empty briefcase, this retread lacks any of the original's sense of purpose.

All griping about Rosenthal is more than deserved, but the real issue is the screenplay. Shockingly, this does come from Carpenter and writing partner Debra Hill. Maybe his directing was what made the first film special, or maybe Carpenter and Hill half-assed a project they didn't much care for, but their work on this film is almost a slap in the face to the legendary Halloween, a movie so influential that it pioneered the slasher genre of horror.

The first of many baffling choices is to bring back the only truly compelling character from the original, but sideline her for almost the entire runtime. Yes, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is back, and this time she's... unconscious in a hospital bed. You see, the events of the first film did a number on her, and despite her frantic objections, the doctors have put her under. Cue Michael Myers slashing a bloody path through the city until he locates his true target once more.

Carpenter and Hill bring back some familiar characters and invent some new ones, all of whom form a vague constellation around Laurie. The problem is that none of them are even remotely interesting. Perhaps the biggest mistake of all is the film's misguided idea to focus even more on Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance), the walking exposition machine from the first film. As if drained from running around the city for a whole movie previous to this one, Loomis comes off as scatterbrained and confused more than anything. There is no longer any urgency behind his line readings, so they are reduced to the text: chunks of inelegant filler.

Being boring is a bad enough offense, but Loomis is the delivery system for one of the all-time worst retcons in horror history. Michael Myers became iconic because he is a hollow incarnation of pure evil. Surely his creator would understand this enough to avoid explaining his actions? Yet here we are, with Loomis finding a scrawled Samhain at a crime scene that leads him to believe Michael Myers is operating under some sort of ancient druidic devil-worshipping protocol. What was once abstract and menacing instantly becomes kind of silly. As if unsatisfied with the damage already done, the writers drop another painful, painful reveal on us with a clumsy monologue delivered awkwardly in a car: Michael Myers is so fixated on Laurie because, as hospital records reveal, she was his other sister, separated from the family at birth. And Michael is a sister-killer. Because we saw him kill his sister at the beginning of the first movie. He just likes killing sisters. Get it?

Having defused the elemental, unexplainable cat and mouse tension from the first film entirely, and lacking the strong perspective of Laurie, we have no central thread to pull us through this movie. Michael Myers sometimes kills people, and that's supposed to be good enough for us. Well, fair enough, it is a slasher. So how about those killings, then?

They're neither particularly tense or startling, but the violence is one of the only aspects of the film where enjoyment can be squeezed. This is less in the blocking or pacing and more in the sporadically gorgeous work of cinematographer Dean Cundey. Cundey is a pro, and no matter how ridiculous a killing is (like the weird hospital hot tub situation), Cundey adds a visual panache that keeps it from being too embarrassing. Even if Michael's stalking doesn't make any goddamn sense, there are still great shots like his silhouette standing stock still behind a pane of fogged up glass.

Each of these precious nuggets of horror is defeated by the ridiculous crap that brackets them. Not every scene has to be firing on all cylinders in a movie like this, but I'm talking about moments that rend the tone limb from limb and leave it bleeding out on the ground. At one point a trick or treater gets hit by a car and immediately explodes. There's a scene where an orderly finds a dead body and slips on the pool of blood like a slapstick routine. The climax of the film is totally ruined by a blinded Michael Myers slashing back and forth and back and forth across a room in a game of high stakes Marco Polo.

Despite being worse in every way, and despite actively making the original shabbier by association, Halloween II is still a fun enough watch. It's got the elements you want from a slasher, and the craftsmanship isn't totally broken. It's just hobbled by a hundred small failures, and a few enormous mistakes.

1.5 / 5  BLOBS