Retro Review: Halloween II (1981)

Last year I began an experimental venture in the month of October in reviewing several iconic Halloween-themed films in honor of the season. I had a lot of fun with that and the reviews got a lot of attention, so I thought it would be a great idea to bring this series back and call it a tradition. Last year I called these "Classic Movie Reviews," but I struggled with that label because "classic" typically denotes high quality and that's not necessarily what I was aiming for. I just wanted a differentiation between current movies that I normally review and older movies. "Retro Review" seemed like a better representation of that, especially since "Halloween II" isn't necessarily a classic. Plus there's alliteration there. So let's see if this sticks better. As a part of my reviews last year, I reviewed the trifecta of classic horror films, "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street." I initially thought that I'd do the sequels to all of these films this year, but I think I'll take a pass for now. However, "Halloween II" became an immediate priority when I figured out what the new 2018 "Halloween" is all about. They're wiping the slate clean and doing a direct follow-up to the original as if "Halloween II" didn't exist. So now we have to determine the better sequel.

When I reviewed the original Halloween last year, which I have linked right there if you missed it, I dove into a long discussion about what makes a proper horror villain as well as what makes a legitimately terrifying movie. Both of these elements are certainly subjective, especially in terms of what scares someone, but my basic conclusion when it comes to Michael Myers is that I don't necessarily find him to be that intriguing of a character. He's written to be the personification of pure evil in that he was born without a soul and simply decided to kill his sister when he was just six years old. After spending 15 years in a mental institution, he broke out and killed three seemingly random teenagers for reasons that the movie chooses not to explain. Before he can kill the final one he's hunting, our main character of Laurie Strode, he gets shot six times, falls off a second-story floor, then disappears, seemingly unharmed. So not only was he born without a soul and has zero motivation, but he's also immortal? Personally I don't find that quite as interesting. I've spent a lot more time than I probably should studying serial killers and the lack of realism there takes me out of it a bit. And I also disagree one what qualifies as pure evil.

I'm not going to completely rehash that subject. You can go check out that review for a more in depth look into that. But that's the basic summary. However, despite me not fully agreeing on Michael Myers being the greatest horror villain in terms of his character, the movie itself is possibly the most effective horror film I've seen in terms of how scary it is. There's not an over-reliance on jump scares or gory sequences, but rather the effective use of music, sound effects and camera work, as well as proper setup for the scenes, make the movie legitimately terrifying. Where the movie might be lacking in the writing, John Carpenter makes up for in the setup of the horror. Thus he turned Michael Myers into a thing of nightmares, even though I find it fairly easy to critique him. The final result is the perfect horror movie if your goal is simply to watch a movie that'll scare you. After all, not many necessarily require an in-depth character study in their horror films. They just want horror. That means this sequel that came out three years later had a lot to live up to. And, well, its legacy is not quite as squeaky clean as its predecessor. That means I can breathe easily knowing that I can criticize this without having to worry about people coming at me with their torches and pitchforks.

That said, I'm not going to tear into this movie as I actually think its a worthy successor and probably a step ahead of a lot of horror sequels in the 80's. I feel like the 80's was the golden era of the slasher films, but I also don't feel like the filmmakers and/or studios cared about having quality sequels. It was all about quantity as all of these franchises were given a crapton of sequels in quick succession and not many of them are known for being good films, unless you're one who can enjoy a brainless slasher film whose purpose is to kill as many people as fast as possible in the most gruesome ways. For me, though, that's not good horror. In fact, that's what gives horror a bad name as some studios only care about the dollar bills that'll be cashed into their banks, so they effortlessly throw up a whole bunch of worthless sequels to get that money. That's why I can appreciate "Halloween II" because it seems like there was a lot of people involved in the making of this film that actually tried to make a proper follow-up. I think they had an excellent idea for the premise of this film as this movie picks up right where the first movie left off. It even backs up and uses the ended of the first movie as the beginning of the movie, then continues on from there.

The result of this makes for a fun "Halloween" marathon on Halloween as the two movies essentially fit together as one movie. We don't even progress forward a single day. The majority of this movie is the second half of that same Halloween night, although at this point the town is in a frenzy because the word has gotten out that a man named Michael Myers escaped from a mental institution, killed three teenagers, and is now still on the loose. Dr. Loomis, Michael's psychiatrist when he was in the mental institution, continues his manhunt for Michael, this time being increasingly more furious since he shot Michael six times and it did nothing. Laurie Strode, who barely escaped Michael earlier in the night, has now been taken to the hospital, where there just so happens to not be a whole lot of staff working that night. Since Laurie escaped, Michael seems even more angrier as he sets to finish what he started by killing Laurie. And since Dr. Loomis hasn't thought to look for Michael where Laurie actually is, we have a movie that mostly takes place in this empty hospital with Michael wandering around hunting for Laurie, killing all the dumb staff members in the process. Since empty hospitals are creepy places, this leads to a lot of genuinely creepy sequences.

I think the biggest problem I have with this movie is that it takes a while to get going. And it's not even a very long movie to begin with as the movie is just under 90 minutes when the credits start rolling. I want to say that 45-50 minutes of that is fairly uneventful. A lot of sequences with Dr. Loomis and the police officers talking about Michael and trying to figure out where he went or if he's even still alive as a poor kid gets blown up early in the movie who had a mask similar to Michael. There's a lot of panic around the city and setting up characters that we really don't care for and have no connection to our main characters outside being the hospital workers at Laurie's hospital. I know the first movie also had plenty of build up before we got into the meat of the movie, but that at least had a solid intro with Michael as a kid, the horror of Michael's escape, Michael creeping around the town during the day as he stalks our main trio of teenage girls, and the build-up of said girls who all have this connection as friends. The intro to this movie is the ending of the last movie followed by Michael killing a random nobody. And then there's a whole lot of talking and exposition. At no point during the first half of the movie do I feel any sort of tension or purpose.

Then our next big problem is that when we do get going, there's a lot of Michael hunting down characters that I don't care about. In "Star Trek" lore, we call these red coats. Side characters whose names we might not even know whose only purpose is to get killed off while our main characters escape danger. So if all you care about is seeing graphic deaths of characters we know nothing about, then most of this movie is for you because that's the majority of what happens. And I'm not necessarily bothered too much by the brutality of said deaths, but it's worth noting that the first movie is not a very graphic movie. The horror comes in the suspense that's setup with the music, breathing sound effects and excellent camera work. This movie tries to scare you by having over-the-top graphic deaths of characters we just barely met. None of that scares. I would prefer a horror movie to focus on setting up likable characters and then make me nervous when said characters are in danger. There's also several false jump scares, which I find annoying, and so many cliche horror moments, like the couple getting killed right when the start making love. Perhaps those might not have been cliches back then, but they certainly don't hold up well in 2018.

After all that wait and build up, followed by a mostly boring second act of killing off all the red coats, the finale of this movie is the saving grace and that's when Michael actually starts going after Laurie, who is helpless in the hospital bed for most of the movie until she barely escapes right before Michael walks into her room. Granted, Laurie isn't given a whole lot to do, but she's set up so well in the first movie, meaning we actually care for her survival. And since all the nurses around her are dead in this extremely poorly run hospital, I was genuinely on the edge of my seat when she was trying to escape, but wasn't at full strength and had no help around her until Dr. Loomis finally comes to his senses and runs to her rescue. And on that note, I am reminded of a bit of a redaction that I need to make on my review of the first movie. I said that I don't know why Michael has such a vendetta out against Laurie. And, well, spoiler alert if you haven't seen this 37-year-old movie and still want to, but this movie reveals that Laurie is Michael's sister. So apparently Michael's big motivation is that he hates his family. He killed one sister when he was six and now he's trying to kill his other sister when he's 21. There's still no reason why, but at least that's something.

In just over two weeks, when the new "Halloween" gets released to the general public on October 19, this movie is set to be erased from existence along with every other "Halloween" movie in the franchise that came after it. I see it as a situation similar to "The Flash" when Barry does something stupid and then runs back in time to reset the timeline. In fact, not only is every movie from "Halloween II" and on being erased, but apparently so are parts of the first movie because we are going to be told that Michael was captured after being shot in the first movie and then spent the next 40 years in prison before escaping again and going after 60-year-old Laurie. Will that work? I don't know. Stay tuned for October 19, or shortly thereafter when I get my review out, to find out. But it will be interesting to see if I end up liking the chase Laurie around in the hospital later that night sort of follow-up that this movie presents or the Michael got caught and thrown in prison for 40 before escaping again sort of follow-up in the new movie. I don't have a huge attachment to "Halloween II" like I do to some other horror films, so it's not a huge bar for the movie to jump over, but this is a decently entertaining follow-up with a solid premise, so I'll give "Halloween II" a 7/10.