Rick Rosenthal's Halloween II (1981) pulls off the near impossible task of matching John Carpenter's original horror classic chill for chill. Despite the fact that Dick Warlock takes over as 'the shape' from Nick Castle in the original film this reviewer has never been able to discern any real differences in the performances given. Purists, please don't flood this blog with examples of how the two men differ in their take on Michael Myers. Let's just agree that they do, but unremarkably so to the untrained eye.
Hence, continuity is upheld, not only through performance but also in the narrative structuring of this sequel. Scripted by John Carpenter and Debra Hill Halloween II takes up from exactly the moment the original film ended and it is to the film makers credit that despite this passage of nearly four years between films the visual time lapse is virtually unperceivable. Doctor Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) sends Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) over a second story balcony to his presumed death by firing six slugs into him from his revolver. Regrettably, the inhuman Michael is immune to gunfire. He gets up and continues his bloodthirsty pursuit of Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), the only survivor from the first movie.
After witnessing the slaughter of virtually all her high school friends, Laurie is in a state of shock. She is hurried to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital by attending EMS workers Budd (Leo Rossi) and Jimmy (Lance Guest) for treatment (In the original script by Hill and Carpenter Michael stalked Laurie through her new high rise apartment complex).
The hospital is well staffed but totally unprepared for the evil lurking just outside. Dr. Mixter (Ford Rainey) administers a powerful sedative to Laurie that leaves her incoherent and barely conscious. Meanwhile, Michael has arrived at the hospital to inflict his carnage. Systematically he picks off the staff one at a time and in the most awful, creative ways.
He drains the blood from head nurse Mrs. Alves (Gloria Gifford) in an operating room, strangles Budd, drowns Budd's girlfriend, Karen (Pamela Sue Shoop) in a scorching recuperative bath that also peels away her skin, sticks a hypodermic needle through nurse Janet's (Ana Alicia) eye, whacks a hammer through security guard Mr. Garrett's (Cliff Emmich) head and sticks a knife into nurse Jill's (Tawny Moyer) back, using the handle to raise her to the ceiling until her shoes fall off. If nothing else we have to give writers Carpenter and Hill top marks for keeping the slaughter amusing and varied at all times.
In the meantime, Laurie becomes semi-conscious. Realizing she must escape Michael once more, Laurie stumbles through the bowels of the hospital, crawling on wounded hands and knees through tight windows and air ducts until Sam Loomis arrives. He confronts Michael inside one of the operating rooms, opens the valves on the oxygen tanks and instructs Laurie to run for her life, moments before igniting the tainted air with an open flame from his cigarette lighter. Michael emerges from this blaze as a human torch but falls to his 'presumed death' inches away from Laurie.
It was always Carpenter's intension that his serial killer should die at the end of this sequel. That various directors have continued to resurrect Michael Myers from the ashes is a pity because none of the subsequent movies have been able to retain that all pervasive air of unbridled evil that permeates every frame of the original film and nearly all the scenes from this first sequel.
Director Rosenthal has taken valuable lessons from the master of the first movie. He recaptures the mood and terror of the original without 'aping' it. Stylistically, Rosenthal manages a minor coup. His staging retains the best elements of suspense from the first film. Even so, it is rumoured that Carpenter was recalled after the rough cut to re-edit the footage. Rosenthal was reportedly not pleased with this decision nor with Carpenter's 'tampering'. Nevertheless, Halloween II stands on its own because of Rosenthal's meticulous attention to detail.
Universal Home Video's 30th Anniversary Blu-ray is cause for celebration, though not as perfect as it should be. The one gripe this reviewer has is that age related nicks and chips have not been cleaned up. In a movie as darkly lit as Halloween II these white specs are even more glaringly obvious when viewed in 1080p. Otherwise, this is a superior visual presentation to anything we have seen before on home video.
Colours are bold, even robust at times. The depth of the image is impressive. So is the amount of fine detail present throughout. Film grain looks like grain, not digital grit. The audio has been reprocessed to 5.1 DTS with a remarkable amount of clarity. Dialogue still sounds frontal and a tad strident but otherwise the sound mixers at Universal have done a rather handsome job of upgrading this vintage audio.
For this 30th Anniversary Universal has added some meaningful extras. Besides getting virtually all of the scenes shot for the television release included as outtakes (it would have been nice to have the entire TV version included, but we're not really complaining) we also get the TV ending that has Laurie reunited with Jimmy in the back of an ambulance. In the theatrical cut Jimmy slips and falls in a pool of blood siphoned from Nurse Alves, presumably dying from the fall by cracking open his skull.
But by far the most impressive extra is the feature length docu-tainment, Andrew J. Kuehn's Terror in the Isles, narrated by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen. This retrospective of horror/suspense and sci-fi movies covers everything from Hitchock's To Catch a Thief and De Palma's Dressed to Kill to Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein, Forbidden Planet, The Birds, The Exorcist, The Omen, Halloween and Jaws and just about everything in between. Great stuff! Bottom line: Halloween II on Blu comes highly recommended! A must have!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
4.5
VIDEO/AUDIO
4
EXTRAS
3.5
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