Halloween II (1981)
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Halloween II Movie Review
Halloween II is a 1981 slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence. It is an okay sequel which isn’t as bad as the critics say it is.
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“I shot him six times!
I shot him in the heart,
but… he’s not human!“
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The film picks up immediately where the first movie left off – Laurie Strode arrives to the hospital after being attacked by Michael Myers, but he survived being shot by Dr. Loomis and goes on a killing spree in the hospital while searching for Laurie to kill her off. I actually really liked that the movie is such an immediate sequel as the transition is pretty smooth plotwise and it really worked.
Let’s talk about the scares now. For a horror sequel, I have to say that it’s rather solid in a sense that it definitely has its creepy sequences. I liked the ending quite a bit as Dr. Loomis’ death is memorable, but the highlight is easily the scene where Myers kills a naked woman. That was very well executed and quite scary.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie isn’t great. It has one major problem and that is the lack of subtlety. Whereas the original had a great build up, it was rather suspenseful and quite subtle in execution, this is exactly the opposite. It has no build up, Michael Myers himself is overused and the sensational approach with a lot of blood and violence is tiresome and annoying.
Jamie Lee Curtis is underutilized this time around which bothered me. Other characters are all rather annoying, but at least Donald Pleasence is memorable once again and he got some great scenes. As for Michael Myers, he’s overly powered up here and overused, but at least he remains creepy throughout. I just wished that the mask was as good as it was in the previous movie.
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Halloween II is weakly directed, very weakly shot and it lacks that great cinematography of the original. In terms of the dialogue and overall technical aspects, it’s definitely a very subpar flick. But overall, I have to say that I found it okay and at times even pretty solid, but definitely miles weaker than the original movie.
Halloween II is a better than expected sequel which has an annoying emphasis on blood and violence, it’s technically inferior and Michael Myers is overused, but the plot smoothly transitioned from the first movie and it has a couple of genuinely creepy, well executed scares. It needed more build up and subtlety though.
