Kevin Coughlin
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FULL WATCHALONG ~ HALLOWEEN 2
🕑 Added 2025-10-26 05:36:46 +0000 UTCHalloween II (1981) picks up right where the first one leaves off—literally seconds later—and dives headfirst into the bloodier, meaner, more dreamlike side of Haddonfield. Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode, stitched together and heavily sedated, while Donald Pleasence’s Dr. Loomis is still wandering the streets, yelling “EVIL!” and waving his gun like a doomsday preacher who’s been up for three days.
The shift to the hospital setting is genius—it’s dark, empty, and unsettling, the perfect hunting ground for Michael Myers, who’s now officially entered his “unkillable slasher terminator” phase. He stalks the sterile hallways like a ghost with a grudge, and every kill hits harder than in the original. Director Rick Rosenthal amps up the tension with cold lighting and a thicker layer of atmosphere, while John Carpenter’s sharper, synthier score pushes everything into full-blown nightmare territory.
And of course, this is the movie that introduced the infamous twist—Laurie and Michael as siblings—which Carpenter later admitted was written at 2AM with the help of a six-pack. It doesn’t ruin the movie, but it does shift the tone, giving Michael’s obsession a weird, almost tragic weight that the first film never needed.
Tara’s take? She’s decided Michael kills out of “middle kid syndrome.” He’s not evil incarnate—he’s just the forgotten sibling with abandonment issues who decided the best way to get attention was through creative knife work. It’s hard to argue with that logic, honestly.
We both still loved it. Halloween II is bloodier, weirder, and moodier than the first, with a surreal, dreamlike energy that makes it feel like the perfect nightmare sequel. It might not be as groundbreaking as Carpenter’s original, but it’s a worthy follow-up—and one hell of a second act in the legend of The Shape.
Comments
Kevin Coughlin
very cool stuff! Thanks for sharing!
Wade Wallenstein
I'm glad you're starting to like these films! I've watched so many retrospective videos for the Halloween franchise so I know the most about it. John Carpenter wanted to do an Anthology series about different things happening on Halloween but it was so successful they made him do a sequel. Killing off Michael and Loomis was meant to end this story and do something else. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch didn't do well because of that but it's definitely worth a watch just to see what could have been. Some trivia: The mask Michael wears is the exact same mask worn in the original film. It looks different because the paint had faded due to a few reasons, first because Nick Castle, the original Michael, kept it in his back pocket during shoots. Also, Debra Hill kept the mask under her bed for several years until the filming of Halloween II, causing it to collect dust and yellow because Hill was a heavy smoker. Also, the mask appears wider because Dick Warlock is shorter and stockier than Nick Castle, so the mask fit his head differently. Since Jamie Lee Curtis had begun to wear a much shorter hairstyle in the 1980s, she had to wear a wig that matched her original hairstyle for the film.
