Halloween II is a 1981 American slasher film directed by Rick Rosenthal, in his directorial debut, written and produced by John Carpenter and Debra Hill, and starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence, who reprise their respective roles as Laurie Strode and Dr. Sam Loomis. It is the second installment in the Halloween film series and serves as a direct sequel to Halloween (1978). The story picks up immediately after the cliffhanger ending of the first film, with Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) following survivor Laurie Strode to the local hospital, while his psychiatrist Dr. Loomis continues his pursuit of him.
Though Carpenter and Hill co-wrote the screenplay to the sequel, Carpenter was reluctant to extend his involvement and declined to direct, instead appointing the direction to Rosenthal. Filming took place in the spring of 1981, primarily at Morningside Hospital in Los Angeles, California, on a budget of $2.5 million. Stylistically, Halloween II reproduces certain key elements that made the original Halloween a success, such as first-person camera perspectives, and was intended to finish the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. It also introduces the plot twist of Strode being the sister of Myers, an element that would form the narrative arc of the series in subsequent films after Halloween II—including Rob Zombie's remake and its sequel—but was dropped from the current series' canon from the 2018 film onwards.
Halloween II was distributed by Universal Pictures, and premiered in the United States on October 30, 1981. The film received mixed reviews from critics and grossed $25 million domestically. A third film with an unrelated story, titled Halloween III: Season of the Witch, was released in 1982. A sequel, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, was released in 1988. Another sequel, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, was released in 1998, which acknowledges only the first two films.
Plot On the night of October 31, 1978 in the town of Haddonfield, Illinois, Laurie Strode is narrowly saved from Michael Myers when his psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis shoots him off a balcony. Michael wanders the alleys, stealing a kitchen knife from an elderly couple the Elrods and kills Alice Martin, the teenage girl next door.
Laurie is taken to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital while Loomis continues his pursuit of Michael, along with Sheriff Leigh Brackett. Loomis mistakes teenager Ben Tramer for Michael due to Ben wearing a similar mask, before Ben is hit by a police car which veers into a nearby van and bursts into flames. The dead bodies of Annie Brackett, Lynda Van der Klok and Bob Simms are discovered by the police at the Wallace residence. Upon learning his daughter Annie was murdered by Michael, Sheriff Brackett blames Loomis and abandons the search to inform his wife, leaving Deputy Gary Hunt to take his place.
At the hospital, paramedic Jimmy Lloyd develops an attraction to Laurie, but head nurse Virginia Alves limits the time he spends with her. After hearing a newsflash revealing Laurie's location, Michael makes his way to the hospital, where he cuts the phone lines and slashes all the cars’ tires so no one can escape or call for help. Wandering the halls in search of Laurie, he kills the security guard Bernard Garrett, Dr. Frederick Mixter, paramedic Budd Scarlotti, and several nurses throughout the night. In her hospital room, Laurie dreams about the time she learned she was adopted, and remembers she once visited a young Michael at the sanitarium. Jimmy and nurse Jill Franco grow increasingly concerned when they discover that more and more staff have gone missing throughout the night and search the hospital for Laurie, who is trying to evade Michael. As Jill tries to start the car to drive to the sheriff's department, it fails to start and she sees that all the car's tires in the parking lot have been slashed.
After finding Mrs. Alves dead, strapped to a gurney with an empty IV needle in her arm draining all of her blood out of her body, Jimmy turns to go for help but slips in a pool of her blood and knocks himself unconscious, giving himself a concussion. Meanwhile, Loomis is informed that Michael broke into the local elementary school earlier that day. He discovers a drawing of a family with a knife stabbed into the figure of "sister", and clues connecting Michael to Samhain and the occult, which might explain his apparent indestructibility. His colleague Marion Chambers arrives to escort him back to Smith's Grove on the governor's orders and under the enforcement of a US Marshal Terrence Gummell. On the way, Marion tells Loomis that Laurie is Michael's younger sister; she was put up for adoption after the death of Michael's parents, with the records sealed to protect the family.
Realizing that Michael is after Laurie and being told she was brought to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, Loomis forces Gummell at gunpoint to drive back to Haddonfield. Jill finally finds Laurie, only to be killed by Michael, who then pursues Laurie through the hospital. She manages to escape to the parking lot and hides in a car. Jimmy regains consciousness and soon arrives and tries to start and drive the car to safety, but passes out again from the concussion, causing the horn to blare, which attracts Michael's attention. Loomis, Marion, and Gummell reach the hospital just in time to save Laurie by letting her back into the building and locking Michael out. However, Michael breaks into the hospital by walking through the glass door, and Loomis shoots Michael until he falls down, seemingly dead. While Marion is calling the police on Gummell's radio, the marshal tries to check Michael's pulse as Loomis warns him to stay away, knowing he is not dead. Michael revives and slits Gummell's throat with a scalpel.
Loomis and Laurie run into an operating room, where he gives her Gummell's gun before being stabbed by Michael. Laurie then shoots Michael in both of his eyes, blinding him. As he swings the scalpel around the space violently, the two fill the room with flammable gas. Loomis orders Laurie to get out before igniting the gas, immolating himself and Michael in an explosion. Laurie watches as Michael, engulfed in flames, emerges from the fire before finally collapsing.
The next morning, she is transferred to another hospital, traumatized but alive, as Michael is shown still burning.
Cast
Dick Warlock as Michael Myers Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis Charles Cyphers as Sheriff Leigh Brackett Lance Guest as Jimmy Pamela Susan Shoop as Nurse Karen Bailey Hunter von Leer as Deputy Gary Hunt Tawny Moyer as Nurse Jill Franco Ana Alicia as Nurse Assistant Janet Marshall Nancy Stephens as Marion Chambers Nick Castle and Tony Moran as Michael Myers Gloria Gifford as Head Nurse Virginia Alves Leo Rossi as Budd Scarlotti Ford Rainey as Dr. Frederick Mixter Jeffrey Kramer as Graham Cliff Emmich as Bernard Garrett John Zenda as Marshal Terrence Gummell Anne Bruner as Alice Martin Lucille Benson as Mrs. Elrod Catherine Bergstrom as Debra Lane Anne-Marie Martin as Darcy Essmont Dana Carvey as Barry McNichol Billy Warlock as Craig Levant Alan Haufrect as Robert Mundy Nancy Loomis as Annie Brackett and as Sally (on phone) Kyle Richards as Lindsey Wallace Brian Andrews as Tommy Doyle Jonathan Prince as Randy Lohnner Jack Verbois as Ben Tramer
Production Development John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the writers of the first Halloween, had originally considered setting the sequel a few years after the events of Halloween. They planned to have Michael Myers track Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) to her new home in a high-rise apartment building. However, the setting was later changed to Haddonfield Hospital in script meetings. Tommy Lee Wallace, who served on the crew of the original film, stated that "no one was all that excited" over the prospect of a sequel, but producer Irwin Yablans was eager to make a second film. When Yablans approached them about the project, Carpenter and Hill were in the midst of developing The Fog (1980). According to Yablans, he had planned to produce The Fog, but that Robert Rehme intervened and acquired production rights with his company, Embassy Pictures as part of a two-picture deal with Hill and Carpenter. A lawsuit between Yablans and Rehme ensued, after which it was determined that Embassy would retain rights to The Fog, while Yablans's Compass International Pictures would be guaranteed production rights for Halloween II.
The sequel was intended to conclude the story of Michael Myers and Laurie Strode. The third film, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, released a year later, contained a plot that deviated wholly from that of the first two films. Wallace, who went on to direct Halloween III, stated, "It is our intention to create an anthology out of the series, sort of along the lines of Night Gallery, or The Twilight Zone, only on a much larger scale, of course." When asked, in a 1982 interview, what happened to Myers and Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), Carpenter flatly answered, "The Shape is dead. Pleasence's character is dead, too, unfortunately." This would later be retconned and both Michael and Loomis would return for multiple later installments.
Writing The screenplay of Halloween II was written by Carpenter and Hill. Carpenter described that his writing of the screenplay "mainly dealt with a lot of beer, sitting in front of a typewriter saying 'What the fuck am I doing? I don't know.'" In a 1981 interview with Fangoria magazine, Hill mentions the finished film differs somewhat from initial drafts of the screenplay. Upon receiving the script, Yablans was disappointed as he felt it was "pedestrian and predictable." The plot twist of Laurie being Michael's sister was initially never planned by Carpenter or Hill, but was conceived, according to Carpenter, "purely as a function of having decided to become involved in the sequel to the movie where I didn't think there was really much of a story left." He would later refer to this plotline as "silly" and "foolish," though it would go on to shape the narrative arc of the series in the subsequent films. It was retconned in Halloween, the 2018 rebooted sequel of the franchise, when Laurie's granddaughter Allyson Nelson (Andi Matichak) dismisses the idea that Laurie and Michael are siblings as "just something people made up." Screenwriter Danny McBride felt that Michael Myers would be scarier if he had no motive for killing people.
Film critic Roger Ebert, who praised the first film, notes that the plot of the sequel was rather simple: "The plot of Halloween II absolutely depends, of course, on our old friend the Idiot Plot, which requires that everyone in the movie behave at all times like an idiot. That's necessary because if anyone were to use common sense, the problem would be solved and the movie would be over." Hill rebuffed such critiques by arguing that "in a thriller film, what a character says is often irrelevant, especially in those sequences where the objective is to build up suspense."
Historian Nicholas Rogers suggests that a portion of the film seems to have drawn inspiration from the "contemporary controversies surrounding the holiday itself." He points specifically to the scene in the film when Gary (Ty Mitchell), a young boy in a pirate costume, arrives at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital with a razor blade lodged in his mouth, a reference to the urban legend of tainted Halloween candy. According to Rogers, "The Halloween films opened in the wake of the billowing stories about Halloween sadism and clearly traded on the uncertainties surrounding trick-or-treating and the general safety of the festival."
Casting