Day - 27 Halloween II (1981)

 Day - 27 Halloween II (1981)

PLOT - Laurie Strode is rushed to the hospital, while Sheriff Brackett and Dr. Loomis hunt the streets for Michael Myers, who has found Laurie at the Haddonfield Hospital. 

LOWDOWN - One huge thing that I love is sequels. Sometimes they can be awesome, maybe even better than the original. Then there are ones that are just as good and sit on a happy medium of the first movie. There are sequels that are a fair follow up in the series, then there are some that are so God awful you take to wonder why they even made it. I think it's safe to say with part IIs and IIIs, most of the time, and I stress the word most...you can win when it comes to horror movies. Now I could only imagine what it would have been like for a major studio to say, fuck it, let's make a sequel to Halloween, which just a few years earlier broke box office records and was a HUGE reason horror was hot at that exact moment as the 1980's began. Busy with Escape To New York, Carpenter and Hill decided to bow out on this installment, but decided to write the next chapter in the story they created. Rumor has it Carpenter even sat in on the director's chair a few times and more than enough fans that I've asked say that Halloween II truly is a Carpenter movie even tho Rick Rosenthal directed this time around. With Jamie Lee Curtis, fresh off Carpnter's The Fog returning, and well as classic actor Donald Pleasence, you honestly can't help but get nerd chills whenever the iconic score begins and you see both leads headlining in the credits. I LOVE movies that take right after the first movie. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. With Halloween II it works 100%. In fact I sometimes view Halloween I and Halloween II as one big giant movie that smoothly link in within each other. 

Opening just moments after Loomis has blown Michael out the bay window upstairs and discovers when he looks down that he's missing, he quickly runs downstairs to see a very comical body imprint on the lawn and blood...but no Micheal. With a next door neighbor coming out asking what's wrong, Loomis begins to scream saying to call the police, that he shot him six times! That he's still alive! In which the neighbor replies "Is this some kind of joke, I've been trick or treated to death tonight." Where Loomis gives my favorite line of the series "You don't know what death is!" and runs off into the night. SUCH AN EPIC way to open a movie and of course nobody and forget over the classic score that pumpkin slowly opening with the skull inside it.

What I like best about this movie is that it's very practical, it picks right up as if 3/4 years haven't passed at all. I love the police swarming the homes as reporters try to figure out what exactly happened. Quickly Michael is off (dispite the fact he was shot six times...or seven if you count the opening in this one.) and grabs himself a knife and begins going about his way killing anyone he pleases. I LOVE the death of the young girl alone on the phone with her friend, how she can hear the sirens down the street. It's so random and brutal.

I also love Loomis, teaming up with the police even after the sheriff discovers that Annie is dead (love that the actress came back just to play a dead body, that's what I call giving it your 100% for the fans!) Following Loomis with the police is the best part, how they know Michael is still out there and that more kids are bound to end up getting murdered that night. Who can forget the Ben Traimer part and how awful that death was! Love how they seriously link everything up together from the original, even with character names that were just briefly mentioned. Poor Jamie Lee is taken to the hospital where the real fun begins. Love the shot of Michael walking thru the plazza and runs into the kid with the boombox and hears that Laurie has been taken to the hospital. The music which had a touch of the 80's in it is amazing.

The setting of the hospital is very creepy, I've honestly never seen a hospital so empty before. Good thing those paitents didn't ring their bell that much!

In this movie the deaths are taken to a new level, blood draning, needles in eyes and temples, being boiled to death, you name it...this movie has it. With an AMAZING ending bringing back some old characters, I love when Loomis tells Laurie to get out. The classic shot of her riding away and Michael bunring as Mr. Sandman was a perfect way to end the movie.

Now in my eyes they should have made part III of course then do Halloween H20. I enjoyed Halloween 4, but you seriously can't beat the first three. I would have in Halloween H20 Laurie under a new name has restarted her life (no daughter Jamie or anything) and have it that Loomis really was killed in the explosion along with the real Michael. The twist of this one would be a crazed psycho posing was Myers, mask and all and it's revealed half way thru that it really wasn't him and it's more about Laurie battling her own inner demons. I know a lot of people wouldn't agree with me on this one but I think that would have been a better way to end that chapter. 

So if your looking for an awesome sequel to a horror classic, Halloween II is your movie!