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5:40 p.m. - 2021-10-02
HALLOWEEN 2 (1981)
John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) is a horror classic for several reasons. The original score is simple but highly effective, creating an atmosphere of foreboding and suspense. The excellent camera work switches back and forth from creepy nocturnal wide angles to the killer's point of view, accentuated by his heavy breathing. The relentless, silent Michael Myers has a sinister and imposing physical presence, seen initially only in brief snatches but revealed more and more as the murders increase and the film moves to its climax (not unlike the approaches used in JAWS and ALIEN.) The performance of Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis forms the heart of the narrative, and a lesser actor would have reduced the movie's effectiveness. HALLOWEEN is almost unique (sadly!) among horror films in its ability to artistically craft a suspenseful tale without reliance on overt violence. So what happened to the sequels?

Approached by the studio with a big budget offer, Carpenter wasn't particularly interested in making a sequel, and it shows. He felt that he had already told all the story there was to tell, so he turned the actual directing overto Rick Rosenthal, who had reasonable success in imitating Carpenter's style. Unfortunately, the finished product didn't seem scary enough to Carpenter, so he made the decision to "improve" it with added violence and gore.

The setting for much of the movie is a small hospital after hours, where Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken after being attacked by Michael Myers in the original movie. The staffing is minimal, the hallways all but empty and dimly lit. It is an eerie environment with great potential, but used clumsily in the film. Cardboard characters whose personalities are distinguished only by a remarkable lack of common sense are murdered one by one in colorful and gory ways: a claw hammer to the head, hypodermic needle to the eye, a scalpel stabbing that lifts the victim off the ground, a slashed throat, a gruesome drowning in scalding water, and an IV line diabolically calibrated to drip the victim's blood out slowly like a Chines water torture. This last method of execution provides an unintended moment of humor, when one of the characters slips on the victim's blood and knocks himself out when his head hits the floor.

The once admirable Laurie Strode is as unimpressive in this movie as Jamie Lee Curtis's less than realistic wig. She spends most of her time asleep until the final twenty minutes, when she limps and crawls painfully around the hospital--including trips to the basement and even the parking lot--while Michael Myers pursues her in his plodding, unhurried way. Modern viewers cannot help but notice the film's portrayal of women as either helpless victims or naughty girls deserving of punishment. The subplot that Laurie is in fact Michael's sister adds nothing to the story, nor does the decision to emphasize the supernatural character of the killer (previously suggested only by the surprise ending of the first film).

Watching HALLOWEEN 2, one would almost think that Carpenter had forgotten much of what made the original so good. (He's not alone; Rob Zombie made the same mistake with his reboot in 2007.) The sad irony is that horror films that were inspired by the original HALLOWEEN (think FRIDAY THE 13TH and others too numerous and mundane to mention) had turned from story-telling to gore--becoming slasher films rather than exercises in suspense. Plot and character were sacrificed to explicit violence and grisly special effects. Carpenter could have risen above his imitators with a sequel worthy of the first HALLOWEEN, but he chose instead to lower his standards and conform to the work of lesser talents. Assuming that movie audiences were as mentally challenged as the stumblebums continually offered us as sacrifice to Michael Myers, he lowered the bar forever. Instead of emulating his first masterful film or even building on it, he slipped and fell in his own slick pool of prop department blood.

 

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