Review #85: Halloween II (1981)

This review was originally written in October 2020.

October Movie Review #2: Halloween II

I spent about forty minutes writing a review for this movie and then something happened and the page refreshed, and I lost it all. I don't plan on doing that again so I'll try to just hit the highlights.

Overall I liked this film. Not as much as the first one, but the action was good, it had a much better pace this time around, and although not all of the things it did were good, it felt like a suitable end for Michael Myers (as it seems it was intended to be at the time).

It has a lot of issues, though. It still does a lot of "telling", reminding us again and again about how Myers is apparently "pure evil", something they seem to be sticking to a lot. They certainly "show" us more than they did before (mainly by virtue of not having to spend 2/3 of the run time expecting the audience to not know who or what Michael Myers is, and by having a higher body count) but they still spend a good deal of time telling us what we should think about this villain instead of just showing us through what he does.

On that note, Myers' skillset in this series is kind of completely bonkers. So far, he's been seen driving a car, cutting the phone line to multiple buildings, disabling car engines, locating a hospital on foot without a map of the town, and (unless I am wildly mistaken) performing a blood transfusion on himself. Where and when, exactly, did he learn to do these things? He's been in an asylum since he was six years old- and while it's theoretically possibly for mental patients to take classes or read to try and develop skills to be a part of society, Myers was a patient whose primary physician considered him to be "less than human". I highly doubt Myers was sitting in on phlebotomy classes or watching electrical engineering programs. One possible explanation for that could be if this series is leaning towards some kind of a supernatural bent for their villain (again, with all of the constant "pure evil/devil's eyes" talk) and this could also explain why he's so hard to kill, but if he was capable of taking a dozen revolver slugs to the chest without so much as needing a nap, why did he need a blood transfusion? Do demon possessions only go so far?

One big complaint I have is that Jamie Lee Curtis gets to do basically nothing in this film. She spends the first hour in a hospital bed, and then when she finally gets up she runs from Myers for like five minutes and then the movie is over. Did she make someone angry before shooting began or something? I know she wasn't particularly badass in the first film either but at least she still got to DO something.

The absolute highlight of this film, though, has got to be the part where a police officer negligently plows straight into a teen innocently crossing the street, and then hits another car and explodes. Like, Loomis thought the teen was Michael Myers at the time, but the cop didn't even see the kid. He just barrelled right into this civilian at top-speed and then blew up. He seemingly received no reprimand, either- even when the teen's friends come looking for him later the only sentiment is "Oh darn, I killed some kid through negligence, I guess that means Myers is still out there."

Like I said, I did still enjoy this film and although I know Season of the Witch is its own thing I'm interested in seeing how they bring back (and then presumably kill off) Myers in a couple episodes.

Overall Rating: 6/10 Flat Tires

Most Unexpected Cameo: Dana Carvey for some reason!?