Halloween is one of my favourite movies. I have nothing to write about it.
Since it is Halloween season, I wanted to check out something in the family tree. So if not the original, why not the younger sibling.
It has been a few years since I watched it.
I first watched a crappy cut recorded off the TV. The rough transfer ended up being a bonus, although even at the time I remember being put off by the inconsistent pacing and vague sense of redundancy.
Halloween II is a perfect case study in the difference between filmmakers tackling the same subject matter.
The shift from the re-used ending of the original to the opening of Halloween II is tangible.
Even though it’s Dean Cundey behind the camera and John Carpenter scoring, you can feel the difference.
The shot section and blocking lack Carpenter’s sense of precision and control.
Even the scenes Carpenter added lack the magic of that first film. There is a blunt functionality to the kills, but these brief additions only provide momentary jumps.
Michael is more visible in Halloween than you remember but he is kept at a distance or on the edge of the frame. At a distance, the mask is less identifiable, and more uncanny.
In Halloween II, he is more visible and more the centre of the frame.
The scene where Michael sneaks into Alice’s home while she talks to a friend on the phone feels like it could have come out of the original (it was also directed by Carpenter himself), but there is something rough and unsatisfying about it.
There are a couple of reasons why.
Michael is so close to the camera when he enters the room behind Alice, it starts to feel theatrical, like a farce about cheating lovers, rather than scary.
Another reason might have to with Dick Warlock’s more deliberate movements in performance, which turn Michae into more of an automaton.
It is not ineffective, but in scenes like this you miss the more fleet-footed Nick Castle.
Fundamentally, because the mystery of his appearance has been defused by the previous movie, Michael is robbed of his mystique.
The additional backstory is hackneyed, and his inability to die ruins any tension.
There is also none of the malicious prankster quality that Myers had in the first movie.
Michael is now just a bland killing machine - a Terminator with less personality.
Once Michael is at the hospital, the film picks up.
With the focus on a single location, and a smaller cast, Michael 2.0, the human battering ram, works.
The filmmaking also becomes more assured - the shot of Michael reflected in the wing mirror, as he arrives at the hospital; the POV shot as Michael tracks a nurse through a window in the baby incubator room; the shot of Michael walking down a corridor, shown on CCTV.
The film seems to figure out how to recreate Michael’s menace in a new location.
The set-pieces are blunter, but effective - Michael’s attack on the lovers in the therapy room is the most basic of slasher premises (people have sex and die).
One particularly effective scene is the the death of the nurse after she discovers the Doctor murdered in his office - Michael slowly appearing out of the darkness behind her is one of the few times this film evokes the original.
The hospital is a great location but it is also a weakness - it is so large you cannot help wondering why there are not more people. It is also hard to get a sense of geography.
There are elements of the storytelling that feel contrived to bring the story more in line with the original.
Potential saviour/love interest Lance Guest slips in a puddle of blood and knocks himself out.
When the film turns into a chase through the bowels of the hospital it is working - that mask looks great under flashing emergency lights.
It becomes less effective when the filmmakers repeat the setpiece, by having Laurie and Loomis flee from Michael through the hospital.
Blinded Michael’s frenzied swiping at Laurie is unsettling, but the air is out of the movie at this point.
It misses the haiku-like simplicity of the original, but I kinda like Halloween II.
This is on the level of a Friday the 13th movie - it is meant to be enjoyed and forgotten.
The characters are not as vivid. And it lacks the original’s sense of humour. But as a cookie cutter slasher, it does the business.
Dean Cundey’s work as cinematographer is a major asset, while Carpenter’s familiar score, now in a more bass-heavy iteration, remains enormously effective. It is probably a significant reason why the movie remains as atmospheric as it is.
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