44 years ago, Halloween 2 proved that Michael Myers was going to be slashing for decades to come. The Halloween movie franchise happened in spite of its creator’s wishes. John Carpenter felt the story was complete with his 1978 original and pushed against producer and studio pressure to make a sequel.
He eventually bowed to these demands, agreeing to write and produce Halloween 2, and handing the directorial keys to newcomer Rick Rosenthal. According to an interview with Shout! Factory, Carpenter found penning the script “painful” as there was no more story to tell, and he got through it by downing six packs of beer.
Halloween 2 still feels like a John Carpenter movie in terms of pacing and style, though it lacks the freshness of the original. Carpenter also directed several Halloween 2 scenes to add more scares, though he still felt the final product was an “abomination.”
Halloween 2 Was Released On October 30, 1981
Michael Myers in the dark hospital in Halloween 2.
Still, despite Carpenter’s feelings about it, Halloween 2 went on to gross a tidy $25 million (via The Numbers) following its release on October 30, 1981. Critics tore it apart, but audiences flocked to see Michael Myers’ new night of terror. Well, to be more specific, they flocked to see his continuing night of terror.
One element that makes Halloween 2 so unique is that it picks up mere seconds after the first film. Dr Loomis (Donald Pleasence) continues his hunt for Michael, as a wounded Laurie is taken to the hospital. Michael soon arrives at Haddonfield Memorial, and in a controversial twist, is revealed to be Laurie’s brother.
This sibling reveal would have a huge impact on the series for years to come. Carpenter has confessed this was a move born of creative desperation, as there was so little plot, he felt the need to inject a real shocker. Unfortunately, in giving Michael a motive for his actions, it demystifies him.
An early concept for Halloween 2 would have picked up with Laurie years after the original, where Michael returns to stalk her in a high rise building. Carpenter had explored a similar concept in his 1978 TV movie Someone’s Watching Me!
Halloween 2 is a flawed movie, but it’s also a really solid and fun slasher. It’s way bloodier than the first entry, but compared with the likes of Terrifier, it’s positively tame by modern standards. The near-deserted hospital setting is deeply eerie, Carpenter’s score gives it a potent power and it has several great setpieces.
Why Halloween 2 Is Much More Violent Than The Original
Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween 2 1981.
Despite featuring visceral kills, Halloween is relatively bloodless, and uses power of suggestion when it comes to Michael stabbing people. Halloween also established a horror blueprint for other filmmakers and producers. They knew that with a low budget, a creepy mask and some blood, they could have a major hit.
Friday the 13th is the most famous cousin of Halloween, and amped up the carnage by several notches. Nothing was left to the imagination in the original film, where axes met faces and poor Kevin Bacon got an arrow through the neck. Looking at Halloween 2’s gory competitors, Carpenter and the other producers knew they had to up the ante.
That’s why the sequel features Michael killing way more people, via creative methods like hammers, scalding baths and needles to the eye. Again, it feels somewhat PG-13 to modern eyes, but for the time, it was considered quite intense.
Halloween 2 Is The Best Sequel Featuring Michael Myers
Halloween II ending with Michael Myers on fire.
Outside of the third movie (which we’ll get to shortly), Michael Myers has returned for every Halloween sequel. There are some good ones (Halloween 4, Halloween 2018) and downright awful ones (The Curse of Michael Myers or Resurrection), but devotees always get a kick out of Michael doing his thing.
For all the reboots and reinventions, Halloween 2 is still the best sequel featuring Myers. Dick Warlock’s performance isn’t as iconic as Nick Castle’s, but Michael is still intensely menacing. The mask does a lot of the work, but he still feels very much in line with his portrayal in the first entry.
Setting it so soon after Halloween was a great call, and it’s so easy to finish watching the original and jump straight to the sequel. This entry is one of the last times that Michael felt truly scary, before overexposure robbed him of some power.
The biggest flaw of Halloween 2 is that it confines Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie to a bed for 70% of the runtime. Instead of the active survivor of the first film, Laurie is drugged out of her mind and barely speaking for a large chunk of the story; her wig sucks, too.
Halloween 3 Remains The Greatest Sequel To The Original
Tom Atkins screams into the telephone in the ending of Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Carpenter tried to close the door on Michael Myers with Halloween 2’s ending, where the slasher is blinded and blown up. The final image is a close-up of Michael’s burning face, so when Universal called Carpenter up about another sequel, he proposed something entirely different.
Carpenter wanted to turn Halloween into an anthology series, where each entry told a new, Myers-free story set on Halloween. The result was Season of the Witch and while it’s a weird movie in many ways, it’s a true gem of the era. It’s got a fantastic atmosphere, disturbing kills and a fun leading man in Tom Atkins.
Halloween 3 bombed back in 1982 as audiences walked into it expecting Michael Myers and not killer masks, but it’s developed a loving cult audience since then. Needless to say, the anthology approach was swiftly abandoned in favor of Michael Myers’ return, but it would have been nice to see how the franchise developed under Carpenter’s original plan.
Source: Shout! Factory, The Numbers
Release Date
October 30, 1981
Runtime
92 minutes
Director
Rick Rosenthal
Producers
Dino De Laurentiis, Irwin Yablans, Joseph Wolf
