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Halloween II (1981)

User reviews

Halloween II

12 reviews
1/10

"Too Ridiculous to be scary, too laughable to be shocking"

If you were to make a list of the worst sequels ever made, Halloween II would be right smack there up at the top of the list somewhere. Halloween had great potential for a sequel, but the writers, director, the actors, and everyone else associated with this mess sure blew it here. I don't know what they were thinking when they made this monstrosity, or maybe they weren't thinking at all is more likely.

Whereas in the original Halloween, John Carpenter built suspense with things we couldn't see, and things that go bump in the night, here we get scenes thrown in just to see how shocked we will be.

*********Possible Plot Giveaways Ahead If You Really Care*********** We pick up this movie exactly where the first one left off.

Donald Pleasance returns in his role as Michael Myers own personal psychiatrist, but plays the role as if he could have used a couple of valium himself. Jamie Lee is back of course, and is carted quickly away to the most unlikely hospital you'd ever want to be cured in. Not only is there hardly anybody working at this hospital,there aren't any patients either, other than Laurie. Imagine, your own private hospital. We do see a kid going into the hospital with a big piece of glass stuck in his mouth,because he ate something out of his Trick or Treat bag before Momma checked it out. The scene is totally pointless, put in simply for some kind of shock value, and probably spooking a lot of parents into not letting their kids go Trick or Treat come Halloween Night.

I have been in hospitals late at night, even small hospitals such as the strange one in this movie and none of them were ever as quiet as this one. There is so little to do in this place, that even the Nurse has time to go down to the whirlpool room to have a quickie with the Ambulance Driver who just happens to be her sleazy boyfriend. Of course, we know as soon as they go in there they've had it and that the whole thing is a setup for Michael Myers to perform another of his horrifying deeds. All the while we've yet to see any other patients, or see their room lights going on so I guess if you're in this place, you fend for yourself.

By the time Lance Guest, slips on a pool of blood, knocking himself out, we're in hysterics....that's laughing hysterically from how ridiculous the whole thing is. Jamie Lee Curtis is given little to do here except lie in her bed looking distraught, then crawl and limp around the hospital looking scared. Fortunately, her career would recover, if not her leg.

This movie was scribbled by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, misdirected by Rick Rosenthal so that John Carpenter wouldn't have to take the blame entirely I suppose. If anything else, this film should have permanently sunk the franchise, but like the famous bunny, it just keeps going and going and going and going......Too bad for us.
  • clydestuff
  • Mar 24, 2003
  • Permalink
1/10

Every cliché in the book, and then some

In the 1980s, the home video market was just beginning to start, and numerous horror franchises saw a chance to increase their income by selling to two markets. As a result, horror films began to pirate one another left and right, while the franchises themselves seemed to be mostly bereft of ideas. There are some franchises, such as Friday The 13th, that recycle so much that one could be forgiven for forgetting which episode they are watching. Halloween II has more in common with Friday The 13th than it does the original Halloween.

In spite of the massive continuity error early on in the film, it picks up more or less exactly where the original left off. Michael Myers has survived his encounter with slugs from Doctor Loomis' pistol, and is wandering around the suburbs of Haddonfield, killing people almost entirely at random. This, in essence, is the problem with the entire film. Whereas the first film took the time to properly set up a cast of victims and make the audience care about them, Halloween II's entire cast can be summed up as "anonymous boring girl/guy".

Another problem is that the entire film has Michael walking along at a sluggish, almost retarded pace. I've seen people who have more Thorazine than blood in their veins move faster than Michael does here. As a result, the critical audience is tempted to yell "hey, anonymous boring girl, try jogging, he'll never catch up with you". It's one thing to have a slow-moving monster who eventually catches his victim through sheer persistence (or stupidity on the victim's part), but when rooms have multiple exits, or the monster casually strolls in one someone in the sauna, credulity just doesn't apply.

This marks the first time that the anonymous long-lost relative plot device was used in the Halloween series. In the original, we had no idea why Michael was tracking down Laurie. The plot synopsis on the video box simply tells us that he wants to relive his crime. Halloween II simply tells us without any establishing shots that Laurie is Michael's other sister, who was adopted shortly before or after the original murder shown in the first film's prologue. Footage of Loomis examining official files, or even a walk-on cameo appearing for the sole reason of explaining this plot element, would have been nice.

Another idiotic moment comes when we discover the name Samhain written in blood upon a wall. For hours after that point, we get minutes of dialogue about old pagan gods and the unconscious mind that is so stilted one cannot help but laugh at it. One has to wonder if Donald Pleasance was under contractual obligation to appear in this sequel, because it is hard to imagine a respectable actor appearing in a film like this out of a desire to work with the new cast and crew, or to revist the story.

I gave Halloween II a one out of ten. I think I am being extremely fair given that the film is boring, overlong, and contains some of the worst padding yet to appear in a horror sequel.
  • mentalcritic
  • Oct 23, 2004
  • Permalink
1/10

Awful!

It was a complete waste of time. I get that Michael is a slow-walking man but does it mean also ALL the actors are supposed to walk and act that slow??? I've skipped all the empty scenes and finished the movie in like 50 minutes. Everyone was hideous; none of the victims ran away from The Shade or screamed for help. Some of them tried to use the phone but none of them managed to call someone. It was very boring and cringe to watch the meaningless behaviors and terrible actings other than the Doctor. I think he was the best of them all. I literally don't understand the logic behind the gawks and slowness.
  • GulceGencer
  • Feb 2, 2022
  • Permalink
1/10

Hilarious

Halloween was a brilliant film and made a lot of money for Carpenter. However, Halloween 11 proves the money and success of the original went to his head. Time and time again people make this mistake. For example the music. What did he do with his original synth that he composed the original music on? Did he sell it? Because it's not in this movie and that was the core ingredient in the original. Without that we wouldn't have the classic that is Halloween. At the start of Halloween 11 the movie takes up from were it left off with the original but theirs a different synth. It wasn't there on the original. Why do this? Because it's another movie? My point being, if it's not broken don't change it.
  • mdolan21
  • Aug 12, 2007
  • Permalink
1/10

boo.

Halloween II sets the stage for a consistent continuation of the original but the stage is so ridiculous: can you believe a dark hospital? OK, how about an empty one? OK, how about a hospital with no doctors in it? A warehouse might have been a better stage for Halloween II; our suspension of disbelief is already constrained by Michael Meyers, and the film becomes pure silliness when he's transplanted to a world we have never seen before. Unlikely characters in unlikely places get killed in unlikely ways. Weeee! Is there room in the hospital hot tub for me too? No amount of marijuana could prevent this movie from boring (or annoying) a fan of horror films.
  • transient-2
  • Jun 21, 2005
  • Permalink
1/10

Oh, let the nightmare end...

An absolutely rotten concoction, reeking with poor humor, dumbbell suspense, buckets of blood and over-the-hill 'teenager' Jamie Lee Curtis screaming...screaming...screaming for her agent? Apparently done as a favor to the producers, Curtis is cast yet again as babysitter Laurie Strode, this time taking on boogeyman Michael Myers in a mostly-deserted hospital on the same night as 1978's "Halloween". I'm not a big fan of John Carpenter's original film--with its sloppy editing, weak acting and monotonous music--but at least it had a solid sense of time and place, moments of style and a creepy-funny ending. "Halloween II" throws all that out, trashing the first film while meagerly attempting to duplicate Carpenter's style (and his illogical sensibilities). Director Rick Rosenthal has too little to work with; who are all these victims? At least the first batch of victims were characters we got to know. This is a scrapheap of a movie, inane and inept. * from ****
  • moonspinner55
  • Apr 12, 2002
  • Permalink
1/10

Utterly pointless

  • harryplinkett14
  • Aug 15, 2017
  • Permalink
1/10

Insults the original

Alright, buckle up, because I'm about to unleash a torrent of justified frustration about Halloween II (1981). This isn't just a bad sequel; it's an insult to the brilliance of the original! Where do I even begin?!

First, the setting. A HOSPITAL?! Seriously?! The original Halloween was terrifying because it was relatable. Michael Myers stalking you in your own neighborhood, that's nightmare fuel. A hospital? It's sterile, it's predictable, it's the opposite of what made the first film so chilling. It's like setting a shark movie in a swimming pool - you've removed the very element that made it scary!

And Laurie Strode? Our badass final girl from Halloween is reduced to a drugged-up, helpless patient for 90% of the movie! She's incapacitated, she's disoriented, she's basically a prop. Jamie Lee Curtis's talent is completely wasted! She goes from fighting for her life to just lying there, moaning. What a travesty!

Then there's the gore. Ugh. Halloween was brilliant because it relied on suspense, on what you didn't see. Halloween II throws all that out the window and goes full-on slasher mode, with gratuitous gore and cheap jump scares. It's like they completely missed the point of what made the original so effective. It's not scary; it's just gross.

Dr. Loomis? Don't even get me started. He's cranked up to eleven, a caricature of himself. He's just shouting and ranting about Michael Myers every five minutes. It's not menacing; it's just annoying. He goes from a concerned psychiatrist to a raving lunatic. It's like they decided to replace his character development with a megaphone.

And the sister plot twist?! Oh, the infamous sister plot twist! It's so contrived, so unnecessary, so utterly ridiculous! It adds absolutely nothing to the story except a big, fat, "What were they thinking?!" moment. It cheapens Laurie's character, it cheapens Michael's character, it cheapens the entire franchise!

Michael himself? He's lost all his mystique. He's just a brute force, a lumbering, unkillable machine. The subtle, almost supernatural presence from the original is gone. He's less of a boogeyman and more of a...well, a generic slasher villain.

The whole thing just feels...derivative. It abandons everything that made Halloween special and just follows the tired slasher movie formula. It's a cash grab, plain and simple. It's a lazy, uninspired sequel that tarnishes the legacy of a horror masterpiece. In short, Halloween II (1981) sucks. End rant.
  • nigelthomas-84267
  • Jan 31, 2025
  • Permalink
1/10

The Halloween II remake is totally disappointed. Watch the original, you won't be disappointed.

It's 2015 and AMC is showing the remake of Halloween II(2009). I didn't even know they did a remake of #2( and that's what it is, #2) All I can say is the remake sucks. There is nobody in the remake that is a audience draw to begin with although I see some recognized 'filler' characters. Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance add tangible character to this version. I can see certain movies that are geared to a newer generation but there are many movies that anyone can relate to no matter when they were born. Why ruin a good thing when it ain't broke. All the advances in computer animation are wonderful...for original ideas. As with all remakes, nothing is as good as the original. Big 2 thumbs down for the remake and totally all thumbs up for the original one. The Michael Myers Halloween theme has a big impact on this series as well as the camera techniques and special effects which are non-existent in these dumb money grabbing remakes.
  • dfwmiles
  • Oct 25, 2015
  • Permalink
1/10

A warning against censoring

I saw the censored version of this, it was hell boring and nothing made sense. Nothing happened and characters showed up with wounds and no previous scene to show what happened to them, they just popped out of nowhere with injuries and that was it. Let this be a major lesson to would be censors, it ruins everything.

Side note, not all versions are censored, I saw the German release but it still stands that this should be held up as an example against censoring. If you've not seen the version I'm speaking of then find and watch it and you'll soon be falling asleep with the lack of...well...anything.
  • missraziel
  • Oct 7, 2022
  • Permalink
1/10

This year, Halloween falls on Friday the 13th...

  • m-47826
  • Oct 31, 2021
  • Permalink
1/10

An hour of my life I'll never get back...

Absolutely horrible....watched the first and second back to back and what a mistake. Hahahah! Was fun to make jokes, about all ot was worth..............................
  • khessen-34949
  • Oct 30, 2021
  • Permalink

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