Halloween II (1981) Review

© Dino De Laurentiis Company © Universal Pictures

After Dr. Sam Loomis shoots Michael Myers six times causing him to fall off a balcony, Michael disappears. Laurie is then taken to the hospital to be treated for the injuries she received from earlier that night, while Dr. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett go on the hunt for Michael.

I love that this movie takes place directly after the first one, occurring in the same night. It shows the aftermath of the events from earlier as well as the fallout. Sheriff Brackett finds out that Annie was killed, causing him to go off duty and replace himself with Deputy Hunt, giving us a new supporting character to follow along with Loomis.

I still find it strange (along with many other people) how empty the hospital is. I think it’s a pretty small town, but if they’re big enough to have their own hospital in the first place, you’d still think there would be more patients. There are a lot of new-born babies in maternity, so where are all the women who gave birth to them? Are they out partying? Is the whole town out partying in a neighbouring town? Since the events of the first movie showed the streets to be empty, I have to assume the town took their partying elsewhere. There’s no time to be sick or injured when there’s Halloween partying to be had. In my experience from watching medical shows over the years, Halloween is one of their busiest nights (along with Christmas and New Years Eve), since people tend to get drunk and stupid that night. Are these more sensible people? We know that Laurie’s parents are at a party, the same one that her Doctor is at, who by the way comes into work after a few drinks. Maybe not that sensible then. I wonder how this would have played out if there were other patients. Would there have been more kills or would Michael have been more stealthy? These are a lot of questions! The emptiness of the hospital isolates those inside and creates a creepy mood throughout the movie. See, I know why they did it, it’s just fun to ask questions. I love this movie!

Laurie doesn’t get to do an awful lot this time around, but to be fair, she did a lot in the previous one. Now she gets a rest. She’s mostly lying in a hospital bed, sometimes she sleeps, but she’s awake for her final girl victory tour of the hospital at the end.

There are plenty of nurses and paramedics kicking around, and only one doctor and one security guard. Why is there only one security guard? Why doesn’t Laurie have a few police officers hanging about when she was almost killed and the killer is still out there? The governor of Smith’s Grove sends a US marshal to collect Loomis, but no one sends for police protection for Laurie, who nearly died? I really do love this movie!

Some of the kills are quite creative. A couple are kind of meh, but you can’t get creative all the time when you’re stealthily killing people, so sometimes you have to just work with what’s around you.

The characters are varied. The paramedic, Bud, is the best character. He’s sarcastic and funny. Both the paramedics look really young. Bud looks like a frat boy, and Jimmy looks like he’s the same age as Laurie. He says that Laurie goes to school with his younger brother, and Bud calls him college boy at one point. He looks so young. And if he is older then why is he flirting with a 17-year-old? Jimmy’s played by Lance Guest, known for The Last Starfighter and Jaws: The Revenge. Okay here’s what confused me. I knew that Jamie Lee Curtis’s husband’s last name is Guest, so for some reason I thought that she married this guy. Turns out that her husband is Christopher Guest and he’s a 5th Baron, making Jamie a Lady. Also Lance and Christopher are not related, they just share a surname making this a coincidence. Jamie and Christopher were married three years after this movie.

Loomis is basically repeating his actions from the first movie, you know, running around Haddonfield looking for Michael. He still only finds him at the end where he rescues Laurie. It’s still fun to watch Donald Pleasance.