Originally published: October 31, 2007 @ 5:52pm MST (Arizona)

Original movie poster for Halloween 2 (1981)

You don’t know what death is.

- Dr. Samuel Loomis from Halloween 2 (1981)

One of my big errors from last year’s Octoberfest was not getting a chance to review the third of my trifecta of movies, Halloween (Halloween (Divimax 25th Anniversary Edition)). My plans this year included covering the original, but again time ran out on me. One of these days, I’ll be able to bring it to you. However, that won’t stop me from bringing you the second movie, Halloween II! So here’s the rundown and my usual set of thoughts.

We open on a short summary of scenes near the end of the first movie, including the famous "Boogeyman" exchange, and then the movie starts seamlessly with Dr. Loomis investigating where Michael fell but vanished. He finds blood on the ground and yells at a neighbor investigating the disturbance to call the police. Meanwhile, we see some shots from Michael’s perspective (demonstrated by our being able to hear the sound of his breathing inside the mask) as he narrowly avoids detection from Loomis who’s talking to a police officer, telling him, "I shot him six times, I shot him in the heart!" After stepping into a person’s yard, Michael sees an older woman through a window while she’s making a sandwich. She steps into the back room where her husband is asleep in front of the television, watching the report of the killings from the previous film and Michael steps inside to take the knife she was using to cut the meat for the sandwich. Shortly after he steps outside, the wife backs into the kitchen again and reaches for where the knife was, finding only a small dribble of blood where it was and on the sandwich. She looks at her bloody fingers and screams.

Outside, a girl comes leaves her house to check on the scream she heard, yelling the woman’s name but not getting any response. Michael sees her and follows her inside where he observes her talking on the phone. The girl turns and sees the door open and puts the phone down, slowly approaching the door, unaware of the deadly visitor that she has inadvertently led into her house…

 

Scene from Halloween II the movie
 

This movie was an excellent follow-up to the original 1978 film. Several actors and actresses from the original returned to reprise their parts. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, Michael’s intended target. With her film resume buffered by roles in The Fog (1980, Special Edition), Terror Train and the original Prom Night, as well as reprising her Halloween role again in Halloween H20 – Twenty Years Later (Dimension Collector’s Series) and Halloween – Resurrection, her reputation as a "Scream Queen" seems quite well-founded. Portraying Samuel Loomis again is the late, great Donald Pleasance. He went on to reprise the role in three more Halloween movies, but sadly passed away when filming the sixth, Halloween – The Curse of Michael Myers. Curiously, he also played a character named Loomis in another John Carpenter film, this time Father Loomis in the film Prince Of Darkness. He also took a role on the villain side of the coin in one of my favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, Puma Man. Dick Warlock plays The Shape (the name in the credits for Michael Myers), as well as the pivotal role of Patrolman #3. He also plays an assassin in Halloween III – Season Of The Witch. Oh top of that, he’s a very accomplished stuntman, with stuntwork in movies like The Green Berets, Blazing Saddles (30th Anniversary Special Edition), Butch and Sundance: The Early Years, John Carpenter’s The Thing (Collector’s Edition), Chucky 1 & 2 (The Killer DVD Collection), Rising Sun, Happy Horror alumni, The Relic and finally, Spider-Man (available on Spider-Man – The Motion Picture DVD Trilogy (Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 / Spider-Man 3) or better yet, Spider-Man – The High Definition Trilogy (Spider-Man / Spider-Man 2 / Spider-Man 3) [Blu-ray]). Lance Guest plays Jimmy Lloyd, the ambulance driver who tries to help Laurie in the hospital when Michael makes his appearance there. He’s also been in such films as The Last Starfighter (on VHS, DVD or even HD DVD( and Jaws – The Revenge.

From what I’ve read online, this was supposed to be the last Michael Myers story in the Halloween series: after this, they were supposed to be stand-alone horror titles all themed around Halloween night (which explains the third movie, Season of the Witch, which had nothing to do with the previous ones). Since Halloween III did so poorly, however, the studios decided to go back to Michael with Halloween 4 – The Return of Michael Myers (Divimax Edition), which we’ll get to another time. As for my rating of the movie, I give it a nice, solid 5 out of 5. It’s definitely worth a watch, even if you haven’t seen the first film (though I recommend seeing that one, as well, or at least I will recommend it when I get the first one covered). So, as always, take care of yourselves… until next time, this is Red Hawk signing off!