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Halloween II

Halloween II

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A good effort
Review: Halloween 2 is the 1981 sequel to the horror classic halloween(1978). This film follows on exactly after the first halloween, in fact it even opens with the closing scenes from halloween (although slightly moderated). The film reunites all the big names from the first film, such as Donald Peasance and Jamie-Lee Curtis, again for more of the same mixture of suspense and toe-curling horror.
Only this time, there are suttle differences. Halloween 2 is a slight shift away from the suspense filled original and more towards a blood-soaked sequel. The body count is higher this time around and there are more violent deaths and gore is used more widely. Some people will love these changes, but i didn't. I think that halloween 2 has lost some of the raw terror that made the original so special in terms of horror.
The films opening 20 minutes are very promising. It picks up well and makes an ideal start from the first movie, and seems like an ideal sequel. After these opening stages though, the film becomes more of a mediocre slasher that is trying hard to pick up the best ingredients from the first film, but not quite succeding, although it comes close. It's not as scary as the first film, but has several jump out of your seat moments. In terms of horror, it's a good effort on the first one, but not quite matching it.
The acting in this is also a notch down from the first film. Jamie lee Curtis is underused and only gets a few lines. Donald Pleasance is used more though and has the pick of the lines (you don't know what death is!!) which is an advantage for the film, and he always keeps it above the mediocrity of most slasher films. The supporting actors are OK, but lose charm quickly. Some may root for Myers to kill them.
Overall, Halloween 2 is a good effort and is a decent sequel, but cannot really be considered a classic in it's own right like the original. But any halloween fan should buy it for their collection.
Pros: More suspense and shocks. A good start.
Cons: Film loses momentum later on. A notch down from part 1.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The best horror sequal ever
Review: You should've known it was gonna happen.When Donald Pleasance walked out on that balcony only to find that Michael Myers was gone...You should've known a sequal was coming!Well....everyone knew it was coming.Everyone,that is,except for John Carpenter and Debra Hill.But hey...you've gotta hand it to them for finding a way to keep the story going.And I love John's reasoning for the "family ties". "It was two in the morning.I was getting drunk.And I just said "[....] it" They're brother and sister." Hey,that's when I do my best writing!Still it's an entertaining follow up to the original(I won't bother to say sequals aren't as good as the originals).My favorite moment: After the balcony scene at the begining,Dr. Loomis races out to the front yard where he's confronted by a sleepy-eyed neighbor.When Loomis's pleas for him to call the police are answered with "Is this some kind of joke?I've been trick or treated to death tonight!" I like how Pleasance turns cold as he retorts "You don't know what death is!"

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: GET THE 1978 ORIGINAL HALLOWEEN INSTEAD OF THIS
Review: Halloween 2 is a disappointment from the first Halloween which is a classic horror masterpiece. Sure Halloween 2 leaves off from the original and it should because its a sequel,but that is the only decent thing going for this movie. It's not scary like the original and I feel Halloween 2 is trying to hard to throw in gore since Friday The 13th was released in 1980 and Halloween 2 in 1981 ,it seems like this movie is trying to hard to compete in gore. Also I hate the fact the entire movie is basically in a hospital that is empty(well besides 5 or 6 people) and Jamie Lee Curtis has 4 or 5 lines in the movie and the rest actors besides Donald Pleasence of course can't act worth a darn. I was hoping this would be as good or maybe better than the original but I was proven to be wrong. BOTTOM LINE:NOT SCARY,BORING HOSPITAL ATMOSPHERE,DEATH SCENES ARE STUPID(A PEN THE EYE,LOL),TERRIBLE DVD IN 2.O MONO SOUNDTRACK,NO EXTRAS,OK PICTURE(HALLOWEEN 1 WAS REMASTERED IN THX PICTURE AND SOUND W/ A 5.1 MIX)I WOULD SKIP THIS AND FIND ANOTHER HORROR MOVIE INSTEAD! SHAME ON GOODTIMES VIDEO,I WISH ANCHOR BAY WOULD HAVE HANDLED THIS DVD LIKE THEY DID HALLOWEEN 1

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: It's okay .. but not nearly as good as the first one ..
Review: I loved the first movie because it was all suspense and scare with no blood or special effects, but the second one was basically just gory .. i didn't get scared at all! Also, in the first movie, we all liked and understood all the characters, making it much more powerful when they died. The second Halloween made no effort whatsoever to make us like and empathize with the characters, making us care very little whether they live or die. The second movie, however, is pivotal to the series, considering the fact that we learn of Micheal's and Laurie's relationship. And, I don't think that Jimmy and Laurie got enough time together in Halloween II .. it would have been nice to have a little romance between them .. I hope that this review was helpful to you!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: MICHAEL IN A HOSPITAL IS LIKE A KID IN A CANDY STORE!
Review: When I first saw this movie I was terrified!This is the perfect movie to watch on Halloween or if you feal like being scared.Laurie barely says more than three lines in the whole movie but it is still good.This is by far the goriest of the series.With Laurie in the hospital, Michael sets out to find her.Michael has many options of weapons in this film.Scalpuls,scaulding water,hammers,needles,and his knife are some of the many he uses.Tawny Moyer gives a wonderful performance as nurse Jill Franco.This is a must have for any Halloween fan!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Very Frightening Sequel
Review: Michael Myers lives on in this terrifying halloween sequel made by John Carpender!The first Halloween was my favorite movie ever and I did not hesitate to try to find the second halloween.Even though they changed the ending of the first one a bit by not showing Michael's face and by not showing Sam Loomis' "I knew this would happen" face and replacing it with a "how can this be posible" face.But overall it was a pretty good horror movie sequel even though parts of it were very fake or random like all this druid talk dr. Loomis made so much of a fuss over.After I watched this movie I started to become even more interested in this type of movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: GREAT SEQUEL
Review: Part 2 takes place in a hospital (the only buildings on earth that have over 70,000 people die in them each year are hospitals)
As if that wasn't scary enough, Laurie is being stalked by Michael Myers in the hospital! And nobody can help her, will Doctor Loomis come in? Will anybody make it? See this movie, then H20, it's a great trio with part 1!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great Sequel
Review: Jamie Lee Curtis is back and so is Donald Pleasence.
Micheal Myers is also back. Jimmy(Lance Guest)joins in also.
Micheal is more mad this time around.
He is blood thirsty. The most gruesome demise is also the most memorable. It is when Karen (Pamela Susan Shoop) in drowned in scalding hot tub water. Mrs. Alves (Gloria Gifford also was given a gruesome bloody death. Jill(Tawny Moyer) and Janet (Ana Alicia)gave great performences. It was a great movie. did i mention it was GGGGGGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTT.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Black cats and goblins...
Review: One of the better sequels in the series, although it comes nowhere near approaching the sheer suspence of the original, it does remain relatively creepy. Picking up where the first film left off, this sequel chronicles the final hours of Halloween night, in which the survivor of the original (Jamie Lee Curtis) is stalked once again by the knife wielding maniac. It has its clever moments ("Mister Sandman") and a few interesting tricks, but the magic simply isn't there. There are several alternate cuts that should have been included on this DVD but are not, including a TV version, a theatrical version, and also an alternate ending.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Enjoyable sequel, no more or less
Review: HALLOWEEN II (USA 1981): Following her terrible ordeal in the original HALLOWEEN (1978), Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to the local hospital where she's pursued by the murderous Michael Myers.

Fraught with production difficulties and critically reviled upon its original theatrical release, Rick Rosenthal's entertaining sequel manages to defy low expectations, despite a ho-hum script by co-producers John Carpenter and Debra Hill. Taking place immediately after events in the first film, the movie benefits enormously from the work of ace cinematographer Dean Cundey, who transforms the wide Panavision frame into a patchwork of light and shadow. The immortal theme music (slightly reworked from the original by Carpenter and associate Alan Howarth) is beautifully incorporated into the memorable credits sequence, in which a spectral jack o'lantern dissolves into a grinning skull, followed by an episode which establishes Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) as the central character, an obsessive psychologist whose former patient is now the soulless killer running amok in small-town America. The opening fifteen minutes are terrific, an exhilarating combination of atmosphere, suspense and impressive visual technique. But the narrative quickly succumbs to rambling plot developments and a series of routine set-pieces, much of it centered around one of the most understaffed hospitals in movie history! That said, however, the movie recreates the look and feel of the first film in spades and delivers a couple of really good scares along the way. Pleasence gets most of the best lines ("We're all afraid of the dark inside ourselves"), and Curtis does her best with an underwritten role, but few of the actors are stretched by their material. The gore quotient has been upped this time around, the result of post-production tampering by Carpenter, who added extra 'kill' footage against Rosenthal's wishes, and there's a plot twist at the halfway mark which probably contributed to the movie's poor reception in 1981. Nice touches abound, however, including a ghostly flashback to Laurie's past as she comes face to face with the boy who will grow to adulthood harboring a supernatural impulse to kill her, and the tears of blood which roll down the killer's face during his final showdown with the main protagonists. For all its flaws, the movie has much to recommend the casual viewer, and was followed by the unrelated (and poorly conceived) HALLOWEEN III SEASON OF THE WITCH (1983).

Universal's region 1 DVD - which runs 92m 15s - letterboxes the wide Panavision frame at 2.35:1 (anamorphically enhanced). Picture quality is generally OK, though spoiled by faint blemishes which flicker almost constantly across the left side of the image. It's particularly noticeable during dark sequences (check 01:11:16 onwards, for example), and while it may be less of a problem on 4:3 TV's, viewers with widescreen monitors may find it distracting. Sound format is 2.0 stereo, and while the multichannel effects are generally subdued, it makes a real virtue of Carpenter's creepy music score. English captions and subtitles are provided. Extras include a trailer and production notes, along with brief biographies of the movie's key personnel.


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