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A teenage girl is hospitalised following an encounter with a serial killer only to be threatened when the killer shows up at the hospital.
Anyone sufficiently well-versed in horror tropes has a fundamental understanding of that of the so-called final girl who, as the title obviously implies, is the only character effectively guaranteed to survive all the way to the end of a particular horror film. What I've started to find interesting is how films handle the prospect of having the final girl of one film return in a subsequent installment. While this usually manifests in them being unceremoniously bumped off (usually before the end of the first act) in order to make way for a new batch of villain fodder, Halloween II instead sets about building its entire story around the continued survival of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she is once again threatened by the inscrutably evil Michael Myers. Of course, the steps it takes to engineer this particular situation prove a problem all their own not just in terms of how the plot contrives a reason for Michael to continue stalking Laurie instead of moving on to new targets but also in terms of how it effectively plays like a whole new sequel anyway due to how little it ultimately focuses on Laurie. The film picks up immediately after the end of the first film and sees Laurie taken to hospital to recover from her ordeal, but of course Michael finds out where she's gone and heads to a hospital whose skeleton crew of nurses and paramedics present prime vessels for his particular brand of unpredictable and vaguely mischievious mayhem. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) once again continues his pursuit of Michael even as he has to deal with obstructive authority figures and the calamity of a town in panic.
Even before the 2018 Halloween decided to disregard every other sequel in the franchise, Halloween II felt inessential to me. It's split between being a straightforward slasher and being an epilogue to a film that never needed one, which is very much emphasised by how Laurie is effectively sidelined for the first two-thirds of the film while Michael attacks various hospital staffers (with the same being true of Loomis once again having to handle exposition duties for the bulk of his screentime). In an attempt to one-up the scariness of the first film, Michael's means of attacking his victims get more than a little graphic; however, the trade-off is the lack of atmosphere generated by a hospital setting where the bare walls and empty corridors make it seem especially flat and lifeless rather than grim and foreboding. Though he doesn't actually direct this installment, John Carpenter still makes his presence felt through an appropriately sinister score that adds some extra edge to the ice-cold original (to say nothing of how he and Debra Hill return to write the screenplay or even how cinematographer Dean Cundey returns to do what he can to temper the blandness on offer). Halloween II isn't necessarily the worst of the franchise's sequels but I've seen it three times now and I struggle to think to it as being particularly worthwhile. While I'm not about to rule out a fourth viewing just yet, my generally apathetic attitude towards its more-of-the-same content doesn't make the prospect particularly enticing (to say nothing of marathoning the entire series again). As with just about every one of these movies, I wouldn't recommend it unless you really dug the original, but even by those standards I would still consider it one of the better sequels.
#36 - Halloween II
Rick Rosenthal, 1981
Rick Rosenthal, 1981
A teenage girl is hospitalised following an encounter with a serial killer only to be threatened when the killer shows up at the hospital.
Anyone sufficiently well-versed in horror tropes has a fundamental understanding of that of the so-called final girl who, as the title obviously implies, is the only character effectively guaranteed to survive all the way to the end of a particular horror film. What I've started to find interesting is how films handle the prospect of having the final girl of one film return in a subsequent installment. While this usually manifests in them being unceremoniously bumped off (usually before the end of the first act) in order to make way for a new batch of villain fodder, Halloween II instead sets about building its entire story around the continued survival of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) as she is once again threatened by the inscrutably evil Michael Myers. Of course, the steps it takes to engineer this particular situation prove a problem all their own not just in terms of how the plot contrives a reason for Michael to continue stalking Laurie instead of moving on to new targets but also in terms of how it effectively plays like a whole new sequel anyway due to how little it ultimately focuses on Laurie. The film picks up immediately after the end of the first film and sees Laurie taken to hospital to recover from her ordeal, but of course Michael finds out where she's gone and heads to a hospital whose skeleton crew of nurses and paramedics present prime vessels for his particular brand of unpredictable and vaguely mischievious mayhem. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) once again continues his pursuit of Michael even as he has to deal with obstructive authority figures and the calamity of a town in panic.
Even before the 2018 Halloween decided to disregard every other sequel in the franchise, Halloween II felt inessential to me. It's split between being a straightforward slasher and being an epilogue to a film that never needed one, which is very much emphasised by how Laurie is effectively sidelined for the first two-thirds of the film while Michael attacks various hospital staffers (with the same being true of Loomis once again having to handle exposition duties for the bulk of his screentime). In an attempt to one-up the scariness of the first film, Michael's means of attacking his victims get more than a little graphic; however, the trade-off is the lack of atmosphere generated by a hospital setting where the bare walls and empty corridors make it seem especially flat and lifeless rather than grim and foreboding. Though he doesn't actually direct this installment, John Carpenter still makes his presence felt through an appropriately sinister score that adds some extra edge to the ice-cold original (to say nothing of how he and Debra Hill return to write the screenplay or even how cinematographer Dean Cundey returns to do what he can to temper the blandness on offer). Halloween II isn't necessarily the worst of the franchise's sequels but I've seen it three times now and I struggle to think to it as being particularly worthwhile. While I'm not about to rule out a fourth viewing just yet, my generally apathetic attitude towards its more-of-the-same content doesn't make the prospect particularly enticing (to say nothing of marathoning the entire series again). As with just about every one of these movies, I wouldn't recommend it unless you really dug the original, but even by those standards I would still consider it one of the better sequels.