HALLOWEEN II (1981)
HALLOWEEN II poster artwork
JAMIE LEE CURTIS.....Laurie Strode
DONALD PLEASENCE.....Dr. Sam Loomis
CHARLES CYPHERS.....Sheriff Leigh Brackett
JEFFREY KRAMER.....Graham
LANCE GUEST.....Jimmy
DICK WARLOCK.....The Shape/Michael Myers
Directed by RICK ROSENTHAL
Written by JOHN CARPENTER and DEBRA HILL
Produced by DEBRA HILL and JOHN CARPENTER
REVIEW BY JANET MASLIN
All those long, dark corridors. And all those empty---or are they empty?---rooms.
Not to mention all those wicked-looking medical instruments. Halloween II is set in a
hospital at night, on the precise night when the original Halloween left off. The bodies
are being counted. The killer is still at large. And the heroine, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee
Curtis), has been whisked off for medical treatment at the local hospital, where she is
given a sedative and put to bed. And left in her room. All alone.
Will the killer follow Laurie to the emergency ward and pick off nurse after nurse until he
gets to her? Will the nurses wander off one at a time and play right into his hands? Will the
killer think of new and ingenious ways to dispense with them? The answer to these
questions is probably also the answer to “Will there be a Halloween III?”
Actually, Halloween II is good enough to deserve a sequel of its own. By the standards
of most recent horror films, this---like its predecessor---is a class act. There’s some variety
to the crimes, as there is to the characters, and an audience is likely to do more screaming
at suspenseful moments than at scary ones. The gore, while very explicit and gruesome,
won’t make you feel as if you’re watching major surgery. The direction and camera work
are quite competent, and the actors don’t look like amateurs. That may not sound like
much to ask of a horror film, but it’s more than many of them offer. And Halloween II,
in addition to all this, has a quick pace and something like a sense of style.
John Carpenter, who directed the first film, is co-writer and co-producer (with Debra Hill)
this time, and composed the repetitive, nerve-jangling music with Alan Howarth. He has
assigned the directing chores to Rick Rosenthal, who follows ably in Mr. Carpenter’s
footsteps. Mr. Rosenthal’s methods are sometimes familiar but almost always reliable.
When a yellow light summoning nurses goes off at the hospital, Mr. Rosenthal makes the
accompanying sound so loud and startling you’ll think there’s a Canada goose honking in
your ear---a cheap trick, but an effective one. On the debit side, Mr. Rosenthal is capable
of showing not one but three closeups of a hypodermic needle entering flesh when one of
his characters is due for some harmless injections.
The timing of the killer’s surprise appearances has a dependable regularity. Halloween II
is suspenseful enough, incidentally, not to rely too heavily on the killer’s sneaking up on
his victims out of nowhere. Sometimes he just appears in the corner of the frame and
stays there for a while, toying with the audience before moving in upon his prey.
Halloween II, which opens today at the Cinerama II and other theatres, is something of
an audience participation movie, if the shrieks and giggles of one preview audience are any
indication. In addition to the shouts of “Get outta there!” that accompany each nurse’s
efforts to find out what was making that funny noise in that spare room, the movie
prompts Laurie Strode’s well-wishers to scream in excitement once Laurie wakes up and
starts running. By this time the killer has developed some supernatural powers, which
suggest that a Halloween III may be a lot more farfetched than its predecessors.
But don’t worry about Laurie: if there’s a next film, she’ll probably be around to see it
through. The same may not be true of Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis, who is caught up
in this film’s fiery crescendo, which is by no means the worst thing that happens to him.
The worst thing is his being forced to say “We’re all afraid of the dark inside of
ourselves,” in one of the film’s mercifully brief efforts to explain the killer, his horrid
habits and his troubled mind.
Review © 1981 THE NEW YORK TIMES. All Rights Reserved.
Poster artwork © 1981 DINO DE LAURENTIIS CORP. / UNIVERSAL PICTURES. All Rights Reserved.
Title and logo designed by Karen Rappaport
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