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Halloween II (Horror, 1981) IMDB Wikipedia Rotten Tomatoes Metacritic Directed by: Rick Rosenthal, John Carpenter Produced by: Debra Hill, John Carpenter Written By: John Carpenter, Debra Hill Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Lance Guest, (more at IMDB) Watch the trailer  (Note, this is the original Halloween II, not to be confused with the 2009 Rob Zombie remake of the same name. If you want to comment on that movie, you'll need to start a new thread.) We know the original Halloween is considered a classic for it's suspense. It's a simple, clean horror movie with a simple premise, not a lot of unnecessary gore, blah blah blah, but what about it's sequel? Well if you believe Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic (25 and 32 respectively), you'd probably think that it were universally hated. I'm not convinced it deserves such vitriol, for a sequel, I think it deserves some praise for doing at least a few things right. Halloween makes the attempt to follow the events immediatley following the first film. Really, this movie is more like Halloween 1, Part II, since it sees the return of all of the surviving characters and even takes place in the same night as the first film. They tried to keep the style and set design true to the first movie and it really pays off, making it feel like a natural extension to the first movie. Despite the film's other flaws, I never felt as though I was watching a movie made four years after the first or felt as though it was a non-cannon supplement to the story. The movie begins recaping with great intensity the last moments of the first movie and the first new scene of a frantic Dr. Loomis trying to track Myers. The main theme kicks in very effectively leading to the main title. A synthesiser organ was used instead of a piano and the effect is a feeling that the piece, while updated, is much more synthetic. You could probably interperate that as a sign of what's to come of the movie as a whole. That said the opening was very gripping and definitley got you pscyhed. It's one of the best parts of the movie. See it here. With the first kill of the movie, you realize the pace is different and this is the first real indication the movie isn't going to live up to the first one. There's something missing in the quiet intensity of the previous entry. It still tries to implement the feeling of "you know he's there, but can't see him," but it's less drawn out and much more predictable. Laurie Strode is taken to the hospital after the events in the first movie. Myers tracks her there and continues his killing spree. The rest of the film has small amounts of insight, but is mostly littered with, "BAH! Lets kill these sexy kids in a series of uninspired events!" Then there's the plot twist. Oh God it's a bad idea if you've ever heard one. Laurie is Michael Myers's sister. It's one of those implementations that might have worked had there been a small hint in the first movie that such an idea could have been possible, but here it just feels rotten and forced. Couple that with some bizzarly lovely cop drivers killing a kid for no apparent reason (you'd have to see it) and you can see why some people aren't too keen on this movie. It definitley deserves praise for what it did right. There are times when this film is epic. It has some important lessons I think film makers should learn from both in the good and bad ways. If you liked the first one, I'd say see it. It even works if you see one right after the other. 3/5
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Sep 9, 2009 16:50
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| # ? Apr 27, 2024 04:15 |
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