Halloween II (1981) [Widescreen] – DVD

**/**** Image A Sound B+
starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer
screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill
directed by Rick Rosenthal

by Bill Chambers Halloween II picks up exactly where Halloween left off, although a seam would show if you pasted the two films together, and that seam goes by the name of Rick Rosenthal. Director John Carpenter's handpicked replacement (Carpenter came on board as co-writer, co-producer, and co-composer), Rosenthal tries for the slow-burn intensity that the original had and achieves mere slowness. The film may feel even logier now because it helped consecrate the formula for the slasher movie, then in its infancy but now old hat. That's not exactly Halloween II's fault, but saying this doesn't make it any more palatable 20 years later.

If you remember Halloween as being a gory picture, that's because its sequels and countless imitators have distorted the reality. Halloween II's violence was reportedly beefed up by none other than Carpenter himself, after Rosenthal had been a little too faithful to the spirit of what came before–suggestive or implicit violence had no place in the Eighties horror marketplace. And I can't tell which was more pitifully conceived: this added grue (about as convincing as an Erik Estrada performance–a victim of a hot tub boil-and-drown, for instance, looks like she's fallen face down in a bowl of bowtie pasta), or Carpenter and Debra Hill's screenplay, which envisions a hospital with no one in it–on Hall-o-goddamn-ween–save for one overnight patient, one out-patient, one nurse, and a maternity ward. Creepy, yes, but also patently absurd.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is the overnight patient. She survived the psychotic rampage of Michael Myers (Dick Warlock), who remains AWOL despite getting shot six times at close range by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and being thrown from a second-floor balcony. In Halloween II, Michael stalks Laurie to the hospital, perhaps determined to finish the job, while the increasingly Ahab-like Loomis becomes equally obsessed with putting former patient Michael, his white whale, out to pasture.

Now, don't get me wrong: I'm not against a sequel to Halloween, whose open-endedness never felt as profound to me as it has to some–including, judging by interviews, Carpenter. And the premise here, picking up right where they left off, is novel, as well as probably the best hope the filmmakers had at recapturing the flavour of Halloween. But there is surprisingly little urgency or weight to it, even with the addition of the twist–seemingly inspired by the previous year's The Empire Strikes Back–that Michael and Laurie are brother and sister. Oddly, this provides more grist for the non-Carpenter sequels than for Halloween II, as does some shoehorned-in supernatural justification for Michael's invincibility.

Laurie herself doesn't really get a chance to register this information, although it makes for some ambiguity in their final confrontation with regards to Michael's actions. Cornering her, he briefly lowers his weapon and cocks his head sideways with a curiosity we haven't seen from him before. What does he know about their family history? These are questions finally too arcane for the world Carpenter and Hill built in Halloween–and with the in-name-only sequel Halloween III, Carpenter proved he didn't have much interest in looking backwards, anyway. (Bogeymen in general need to stop asking, "What's my motivation?") Thank goodness, at least, for the liquid camerawork of returning cinematographer Dean Cundey, and for the effective, if cushy, use of The Chordettes' "Mr. Sandman" over the closing credits, which provocatively suggests it was all a bad dream.

THE DVD
Once available on a non-anamorphic letterboxed DVD from Goodtimes, Halloween II has been reissued on the format in 2.35:1, 16×9-enhanced widescreen by rightful owner Universal. With demand for this title less than pressing, one wonders why the studio went ahead and put out another bare-bones version after Rosenthal's work on Halloween: The Homecoming (yep, part eight) delayed work on a previously-announced Collector's Edition. For what it's worth, the new transfer is at least as remarkable as Anchor Bay's Halloween, a presentation that received the THX seal. I was stunned by the mouth-watering hues and minute detail on display. An enthusiastic Dolby 2.0 surround mix (Alan Howarth's electronic re-orchestration of Carpenter's theme is a fan controversy, but it sounds great on DVD!), thorough production notes and bios, and a cropped trailer accompany the lovely image.

93 minutes; R; 2.35:1 (16×9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround; English, French, Spanish subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Universal