HALLOWEEN II wraps up our craziest month ever as October 1981 concludes
But that's not the only sequel to an iconic '70s original that came out
How about two iconic movies both releasing less-successful sequels on the same day?
Wait, what? What’s the other one, you ask? Well, since there were only four films released on this final weekend of October 1981, we’ll get to that answer quickly. When we discuss these films, though, there’s an asterisk next to one of them because it was one of those titles that was released in different parts of the country at different times. It didn’t hit Los Angeles until November, but in a good chunk of the country, this was the widest release it got, so we’re going to include Saturday the 14th here.
As far as that other sequel is concerned, this is one of the weirder films of the decade, and a misfire of brutal proportions. It’s also a cautionary fable about trying to recapture lightning in a bottle. Halloween II is a film that fails because it tries too hard to be the exact same experience as the first film, but Shock Treatment fails in a way that is all its own.
We’ll get into both of them as we finally wrap this month up once and for all…
OCTOBER 30
Halloween II
Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Pamela Susan Shoop, Hunter von Leer, Dick Warlock, Leo Rossi, Gloria Gifford, Tawny Moyer, Ana Alicia, Ford Rainey, Cliff Emmich, Nancy Stephens, John Zenda, Catherine Bergstrom, Alan Haufrect, Lucille Benson, Howard Culver, Dana Carvey, Billy Warlock, Jonathan Prince, Leigh French, Ty Mitchell, Nancy Kyes, Pamela McMyler, Dennis Holahan, Nichole Drucker, Ken Smolka, Adam Gunn, Roger Hampton, Robin Coleman, Jack Verbois, Tony Moran, Kyle Richards, Brian Andrews, Anne Bruner
cinematography by Dean Cundey
music by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth
screenplay by John Carpenter & Debra Hill
produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
directed by Rick Rosenthal
Rated R
1 hr 32 mins
Michael Myers is back about two minutes after the end of the first film. Some very familiar things happen.
Not everything is a franchise.
Now, yes, you can turn anything into one, but what I’m talking about is how much narrative meat there is on the bone. I think 1978’s Halloween is one of the great horror films. It is effortlessly cool and stylish, with one of the most instantly iconic boogeymen of all time. It put John Carpenter on the map, and while you can argue about the origins of the slasher genre, there’s no doubt that Halloween is the film that opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of imitations, with Friday the 13th throwing the follow-up punch that turned the raging river into an entire ocean. Halloween is sacred text for independent filmmakers of any stripe because of how well it executes on limited resources, and how big a ripple it made when it landed.
My own personal I-can’t-believe-it’s-controversial take is that Halloween is the only good film in the series, and the problems start immediately with this movie, the took-too-long sequel that turned it from a singular phenomenon into a deeply labored and repetitive franchise. Carpenter didn’t want to make this film. He and Debra Hill knew that what they made the first time worked perfectly as a stand-alone film with an open ending that allows you to fill in the blanks for yourself. But he also knew he didn’t want someone else deciding how that story continued, so he and Debra Hill agreed to at least write the film. Meanwhile, Robert Rehme and Irwin Yablans were suing each other over The Fog, and that lawsuit led to Yablans gaining full control over Halloween II for Compass International Pictures. He almost immediately then sold those rights to Dino De Laurentiis, who had big plans to exploit the title. By the time they actually made the film, Irwin Yablans was barred completely from even visiting the set. One of the first decisions made by Carpenter was to use the second film to wrap up the Laurie Strode/Michael Myers completely so they could use Halloween III as a blank slate to launch the idea of “Halloween” being more of an anthology title. That’s why you get Halloween II and III so close together after it took three years to get this one off the ground.
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