halloween ii 1981
Universal Pictures

With all the recent discourse of whether Halloween (2018), Halloween Kills (2021), or even Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers is the better sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 classic slasher, people seem to forget that over 40 years ago, Carpenter handed over the directing reigns to Rick Rosenthal while he and Debra Hill continued the story, and the best Halloween sequel was made.

Released just three years after the original Halloween, Halloween II picked up mere minutes after the first film’s end. Michael Myers has vanished from his landing spot in the yard, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is being rushed to the hospital, and Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and Brackett (Charles Cyphers) are frantically trying to hunt down and put a stop to Michael before he can continue his murderous night. In a lot of ways, Halloween Kills took inspiration from this film, continuing directly where Halloween (2018) left off, bringing back all of the major characters, ramping up Michael’s aggressiveness, instilling thoughts of mob-style justice, and, of course, a new score from John Carpenter.

While the first Halloween film is known as a slow-burn slasher, Rosenthal did a great job upping the intensity for the sequel. The Haddonfield PD went completely off the rails, even straight-up murdering a teenager who was similarly dressed to Michael Myers, with no consequences to follow, by the way.

Most of the film is in the hospital, as a drugged-up Laurie tries to find her bearings while evading Michael. Michael’s kills rose in brutality against the first film as well, moving on from his typical choking and stabbing to drowning a woman in boiling water, draining all of the blood from someone, and lifting a nurse off her feet with a scalpel in her spine (followed by an awesome shot of her shoes falling off). Stylistically, Rosenthal was able to create a very similar film to Carpenter, using the giallo technique of first-person shots but also bringing forth the much-needed gory ’80s-era slasher feel that had begun popping up in films like Friday the 13th and The Burning and driving horror fans wild.

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Two sorely missed pieces of Halloween II were when the franchise rendered the sequels as non-canon for the new trilogy. The first is the added character development of Laurie, Loomis, and Brackett. Halloween II did a wonderful job of making an even more weakened Laurie look strong, which I think would have fed into the new hardened version of her character more smoothly. Loomis was fully unhinged in this film, and self-sacrifice to take out Michael would have been a great send-off for his character, rather than his demise being in limbo in this new trilogy.

Then you have Brackett, to which this film goes into more detail about the mourning over his murdered daughter, which sets up his vengeful acts in Halloween Kills even more nicely. The argument can be made that they shot Michael and burned him to death at the end of Halloween II, but as we’ve seen in Halloween Kills, the supernatural element is alive and well, so his survival could be easily explained.

The second piece is the reveal of Laurie being Michael’s sister in Halloween II, which just feels like better overall writing than his attachment to the house motive that the David Gordon Green films are taking. There’s just something about the familial good vs. evil in sibling rivalry that tells a more solid story. It makes the eventual end-all battle feel like the stakes are higher. Plus, Michael’s history of sororicide creates a firmer lead-in. I think the new trilogy’s story is creative and works fine, so far, for this older Michael, and I expect to learn some house backstory in Halloween Ends. But going the sibling route feels like a stronger and more personable climax to having them go all out now that it’s being done well (sorry, Halloween: H20).

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to be truly happy that Halloween II was scrubbed from the new timeline (though I’m fine seeing where this goes), as it remains one of the best slasher sequels in horror history and is the best sequel in the Halloween franchise, even four decades later.

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