Halloween II (1981)

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1. 

   ChrisReynolds

   Nowhere near as good as the first but it still was a pretty effective slasher. Scares were well handled, lots of suitably gruesome kills (this sequel ramps up the bodycount). Plot starts to become silly, and Michael Myers is inexplicably invulnerable. Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good, but Pleasance seems as though he's just phoning it in after a much superior performance in the first film. Most of the other characters are underdeveloped slasher fodder. 11 years 9 months ago
2. 

   BeasleyOnFilm

   It's not as good as the first Halloween film, but it's certainly a decent enough horror sequel. A little too much Myers though, which makes him less scary rather than more scary. 12 years 5 months ago
3. 

   tigh66

   Halloween II was always going to be judged against the success of the first film; as is often pointed out in many of the special features on the Blu Ray, this movie is inherently derivative of the first whereas the first one was an original. With all that said, this film succeeds where many of the latter slashers would fail.
   
   The setting is a huge asset here, as the hospital at night is wonderfully eerie and spooky. Similarly, the other half of the movie gives us Haddonfield up in arms over Michael Myers’ invasion of their idyllic suburb; notice how many shots have citizens mulling around the streets trying to catch a glimpse of the carnage.
   
   Donald Pleasence gives perhaps an even better performance here than the first film; once he realizes that Michael Myers is an unstoppable force of evil, you begin to see him lose his sanity and become more fevered in his actions and dialogue. Jaime Lee Curtis unfortunately has very little to do here, mostly lying in a catatonic state for the first half, than shuffling around the halls of the hospital in the second. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag similar to the first film.
   
   Rosenthal’s direction is solid, helped along by Dean Cundey’s continuity as cinematographer from the first film. And credit to Alan Howarth, who takes Carpenter’s famous score and dials it to eleven with a gothic vibe that works well with the idea that Myers is publicly on the prowl.
   
   Best scene: the final showdown in the surgery room. Suspenseful and brings our three main characters of the two movies together. 4 years 10 months ago

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