Halloween II, 1981
We are entering the home stretch of Saturday Night Sleepover‘s October month of Horror! For the fifth and final week Dion Baia and J. Blake are continuing with the tradition (granted it’s only the second year) of doing a film that not only is a horror (which is a given in a month of October) but a movie that also actually takes place on the holiday itself (and coincidentally has the name in the title). Along with all the parentheses, you might have guessed the boys are doing Halloween II, from 1981.
This film has an interesting backstory as that John Carpenter originally declined to direct instead opting to write the screenplay and produce, but then actually took the project away from director Rick Rosenthal, adding and directing additional scenes to make the film gorier than the original, so to compete with the other ‘slasher’ films of the time. This may have ended up confusing audiences because the film had a notorious ‘TV‘ or ‘Producers‘ Cut, which not only changes the fate of some central characters, but also varied the degree of gore associated with each of Michael Myer’s victims. Was this really the first time a sequel picks up seconds after the original ended, since Bride of Frankenstein some 50 years earlier? Did Rosenthal actually get Orson Welles-ed by Carpenter? How does this compare to the original, a classic that practically jump started an entire subgenre? What was the controversy some years back with the omission of legendary Producer Moustapha Akkad‘s credit on the 2011 Blu-ray rerelease that so enraged the loyal fans of the franchise? How awesome was Donald Pleasance‘s performance? Did Lance Guest‘s character actually die or not? And what the heck happened to Ben Tramer?! Plus, hear Blake talk about the afternoon he spent with Joe Bob Briggs in all places- a hotel room? All these questions and more will be answered in this exciting, Halloween Edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!
EXTRAS:
Check out the Original Trailer for Halloween II!
Here’s the Alternate Television Ending!
Take a look at the TV show Hollywood Structured, this episode with Dick Warlock from 1991.
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The main problem is the film’s underlying motivation. Halloween was a labor of love, made by people committed to creating the most suspenseful and compelling motion picture they could. Halloween II was impelled by the desire to make money. It was a postscript—and not a very good one—slapped together because a box office success was guaranteed.
Hey RuKompas3d,
Thanks so much for the comment! We really appreciate your taking the time to drop by and share your thoughts…and of course your opinion is completely valid, but I share a slightly different one. And please don’t take my following comments as my arguing with you. I get where you are coming from, but in my opinion and there are numerous interviews with all the people involved to support this theory…
Carpenter and Hill were hired to make Halloween, it wasn’t a passion project or a “labor of love,” it was a job that they accepted and they made the best film they could, given the resources. Of course they wanted it to be good, suspenseful and compelling, but the the truth is every director wants to make a good film. Nobody sets out to make a bad film. But ultimately Halloween was made because Irwin Yablans thought a horror movie about babysitters would make money and he had the foresight to hire a young filmmaker named John Carpenter to make it. But Halloween was only made with the intention of making money…not art. It just happened to be very good and groundbreaking.
But you are definitely correct that Halloween 2 was also made with the intention of making money…trying to capitalize on the success of the first film and films like Friday the 13th. But isn’t every sequel? At the same time though, I really don’t think Carpenter, Hill and Rosenthal weren’t trying to make a good movie. I think they really wanted to make the best film they could. Carpenter cared so much about it being good that he consented to writing and producing it and then when he wasn’t pleased with Rick Rosenthal’s edit of the film, he reworked the film himself in an effort to make it better. One doesn’t put that kind of effort into a project if they don’t care about quality.
I personally love Halloween 2, but I do understand why some people don’t care for it. Its script is not quite as strong as the first film’s and the upped gore factor, done with the intention of trying to compete with the other “slasher” films being released around that time, can be perceived as being cheap and tasteless…but in my opinion it has a lot of strengths too.
I would never tell somebody they are wrong if they think Halloween 2 is inferior to the first Halloween, but I just kinda think that both films were made for the money…and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Thanks again for sharing your opinion!
Blake
Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers
The main problem is the film’s underlying motivation. Halloween was a labor of love, made by people committed to creating the most suspenseful and compelling motion picture they could. Halloween II was impelled by the desire to make money. It was a postscript—and not a very good one—slapped together because a box office success was guaranteed.