Remove ads

Information

Year
1981
Runtime
92 min.
Director
Rick Rosenthal
Genre
Horror
Rating *
6.5
Votes *
54,183
Checks
8,846
Favs
190
Dislikes
81
Favs/checks
2.1% (1:47)
Favs/dislikes
2:1
* View IMDb information

Top comments

  1. ChrisReynolds's avatar

    ChrisReynolds

    Nowhere near as good as the first but it still was a pretty effective slasher. Scares were well handled, lots of suitably gruesome kills (this sequel ramps up the bodycount). Plot starts to become silly, and Michael Myers is inexplicably invulnerable. Jamie Lee Curtis is pretty good, but Pleasance seems as though he's just phoning it in after a much superior performance in the first film. Most of the other characters are underdeveloped slasher fodder. 11 years 3 months ago
  2. BeasleyOnFilm's avatar

    BeasleyOnFilm

    It's not as good as the first Halloween film, but it's certainly a decent enough horror sequel. A little too much Myers though, which makes him less scary rather than more scary. 11 years 11 months ago
  3. tigh66's avatar

    tigh66

    Halloween II was always going to be judged against the success of the first film; as is often pointed out in many of the special features on the Blu Ray, this movie is inherently derivative of the first whereas the first one was an original. With all that said, this film succeeds where many of the latter slashers would fail.

    The setting is a huge asset here, as the hospital at night is wonderfully eerie and spooky. Similarly, the other half of the movie gives us Haddonfield up in arms over Michael Myers’ invasion of their idyllic suburb; notice how many shots have citizens mulling around the streets trying to catch a glimpse of the carnage.

    Donald Pleasence gives perhaps an even better performance here than the first film; once he realizes that Michael Myers is an unstoppable force of evil, you begin to see him lose his sanity and become more fevered in his actions and dialogue. Jaime Lee Curtis unfortunately has very little to do here, mostly lying in a catatonic state for the first half, than shuffling around the halls of the hospital in the second. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag similar to the first film.

    Rosenthal’s direction is solid, helped along by Dean Cundey’s continuity as cinematographer from the first film. And credit to Alan Howarth, who takes Carpenter’s famous score and dials it to eleven with a gothic vibe that works well with the idea that Myers is publicly on the prowl.

    Best scene: the final showdown in the surgery room. Suspenseful and brings our three main characters of the two movies together.
    4 years 4 months ago
See all comments

Friends

Login to see which of your friends have seen this movie!

Activity

  1. barrettmallard checked this movie 1 day 11 hours ago
  2. nezume checked this movie 3 days 10 hours ago
  3. theaterofhorror checked this movie 5 days 23 hours ago
See more activity

In 1 official list

  1. This movie ranks #219 in TSZDT's The 1,000 Greatest Horror Films
    TSZDT's The 1,000 Greatest Horror Films's icon

    TSZDT's The 1,000 Greate…

    219
View all lists this movie is in