AWSUM MOVIES: HALLOWEEN II

AWSUM MOVIES:

Surviving the Gore-fest Slasher Arena:

HALLOWEEN II

Halloween II. Take it or leave it. Like Marmite, you either love it or hate it. Personally, I loved it. When you consider the amount of crappy Halloween sequels that have been made, it is interesting to note, that this is the only sequel that still retains a large fan base compared to its successors. But lets face it, besides Part Three (which didn’t even feature Michael Myers, & was supposed to be a stand alone movie anyway), the post Halloween II sequels were all pretty bad. Nothing but low budget Tv movies shot on video, with a music score done on a cheap 80’s synthesiser. 

Even the mask they chose for Myers was terrible, if not comical - for all the wrong reasons, looking like Stan Laurels mug. (The original intense looking William Shatner mask apparently went up in flames at the end of Halloween II) .  

Gone too, are all the traces of Carpenter, bar the occasional theme tune: ill placed throughout the film.  Part 5 was equally bad and I didn’t even bother watching part Six. The only reason to watch them at all, is Donald Pleasance: who is awsum in anything he does. Unfortunately he has a terrible array of sequels to work with. H20 at least made an effort but still lacked something and I haven’t seen the Rob Zombie movies yet.

           

So, compared to the others, Halloween II is a masterpiece. And that’s saying something. Because Halloween II has a lot going for it. John Carpenter (even if he wasn’t actually directing it) was heavily involved and you can see it in the mood and cinematic feel of the piece. Ironically, he loathed the idea of doing a sequel, noted for typing up the script in a half drunk stupor and trashing the film to the press every chance he got. Halloween II’s director Rick Rosenthal, went on record saying that Carpenter ruined his interpretation of the movie, by re-filming certain Myers scenes with extensive gore. Carpenters argument was that the film (as it was), didn’t hold up too well in the Gore-fest Slasher Arena. 

Compared to its imitators, Friday the 13^th was coming up trumps with the gore and inventive deaths and teens were lapping it up. Carpenter wanted to keep up with the changing times, while Rosenthal’s direction of Halloween II was firmly stuck in the 70’s, in a by the book  thriller method: Basically emulating the style of Halloween 1 but lacking all the gore, required for a 1980’s fan base hungry for blood.  

The great thing about Halloween II is that it picks up immediately where the first movie left off and you can quite easily watch both movies back to back and feel like you are watching one long marathonic two-parter slash fest. Like some gore drenched Lord of the Rings, (in two parts), we get to see all our favourite characters return: such as Dr Loomis, Laura Strode and the sceptical Charles Cyphers as Sheriff Leigh Brackett and a cameo by Nancy Loomis as the corpse of the sheriffs dead daughter!  They even used the same William Shatner mask. Never again will a Halloween sequel posses all the elements that this movie contained, including the majority of the original film crew.

There is also a sense of 1970’s nostalgia about the film. It was made three years after the original and times were changing fast towards the slasher trend. The song Mr Sandman is used to great effect to take us back to that time, emulated by pastiche for Carpenters work while at the same time bringing us forward, with new locations and introducing new characters.

Its not a perfect movie. I get that. But a little simple editing might remove the seventh shot blooper etc but whatever. All things considered, Halloween II, while technically not a John Carpenter sequel, was never the less written and produced by him with second unit additions. All in all, despite all the rotten tomato’s,  it was an instant box office success and still to this day, is holding up well in the Gore-fest Slasher Arena. 

So for better or worse, Carpenter pushed this sequel in the right direction, which sets it on a different plain to its contemporary’s, making Halloween II a Ferrari compared to its clapped out second hand sequels. Trust me, they are so bad, you will gladly praise the gods, that Halloween II was ever made at all.