The film's poster.
Halloween II is a 1981 American horror movie. It is a sequel to the movie Halloween that was released two years earlier. Halloween II was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill and directed by Rick Rosenthal. It stars Jamie-Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, Donald Pleasance as Dr. Samuel Loomis and Dick Warlock as Michael Myers, with some archive footage of Tony Moran as Michael Myers from the previous movie. The movie was a box office success, earning more than $25,000,000 in the United States. It was rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America.
Halloween II was intended to be the last movie in the Halloween franchise to feature Michael Myers. He does not appear in the 1982 movie Halloween III: Season of the Witch. However, after negative audience reaction to Halloween III, the character was brought back in the 1988 movie Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers.
Plot
The action of Halloween II follows directly on from that of the previous movie, continuing the events of Halloween night 1978. The opening scene shows Michael Myers apparently falling to his death after being shot but then disappearing.
Laurie Strode is sent to hospital, where she meets and befriends a young paramedic named Jimmy. Jimmy tells her that she was attacked by escaped mental patient Michael Myers. As she slips in and out of consciousness, Laurie remembers being adopted by the Strode family and being taken to visit a young boy in an institution.
Dr. Samuel Loomis and Sheriff Lee Bracket continue the search for Michael Myers. The two see a young man in a white mask die after he is hit by two cars and assume that Michael is dead. However, a brief examination of the body proves it is not Michael's.
Michael makes his way to the hospital where Laurie is staying. He cuts the phone lines and attacks and murders several members of staff before he reaches the girl. The sedated Laurie manages to limp away from Michael Myers and eventually makes it to the parking lot. She finds Jimmy hiding there and tries to get him to run off with her but he passes out as a result of an earlier fall.
While searching for Michael, Dr. Loomis enters an elementary school classroom. He finds the word "Samhain" written on the chalkboard and a picture of Judith Myers, Michael's murdered sister, with a knife in it. Dr. Loomis is then told that he has been ordered to return to Smith's Grove Sanitarium and that a state marshall will escort him back there.
At the sanitarium, a nurse shows Dr. Loomis a secret file which reveals that Laurie Strode is Michael Myers' younger sister and that she was adopted after Judith's murder. Dr. Loomis realises that Laurie is in great danger and orders the marshall to take him back to the hospital where she is staying.
Dr. Loomis finds Laurie at the hospital. They are both chased by Michael Myers, even though Dr. Loomis shoots him repeatedly. In an operating room, Michael stabs Dr. Loomis but Laurie blinds him by shooting him in the eyes. Laurie and Dr. Loomis open valves on tanks of oxygen and ether, filling the room with flammable gas. As they leave the room, Dr. Loomis uses a cigarette lighter to set fire to the gas. Michael Myers staggers out of the burning room and falls to the floor, apparently dead.
External links
- Halloween II (1981) on the Internet Movie Database.
- Halloween II (1981) on Rotten Tomatoes.
- Halloween II (1981) on AllMovie.
- Official website of the Halloween movie franchise.
- Quotations from Halloween II (1981 film) on Wikiquote.