Halloween 2 (1981) – A horror movie review a day Halloween 2025 - October 27th

Welcome to Knockout Horror. It’s day 27 of our 31 days of Halloween 2025 movie-review-a-day feature. We’ve been going pretty hard on the classic horror sequels this past week so let’s keep that going with another. This movie is the follow up to a film many consider to be the greatest slasher of all time and one of the quintessential October essentials – Halloween. Today we are going to be taking a look at Halloween 2 from 1981.

The story picks up right where the first film left off. Laurie Strode is left deeply traumatised by her fight with Michael Myers. Dr Loomis arrived just in the nick of time and managed to subdue the maniacal killer with some persuasion from a bullet or six. Despite that fact, Myers got up and managed to escape. While Laurie heads to the hospital, the search continues. Little do they realise that the shape will soon be hot on their heels.

A “Cash Grab” Forged from a Six-Pack of Beer

Much like some of the other sequels we have reviewed for this feature, Halloween 2 was not without its problems. It’s another classic tale of a creator who felt like he was done with his creation and a movie studio desperate to cash in.

John Carpenter and Debra Hill were ready to wipe their hands of this story. They felt as though the whole purpose of Halloween was to create a bogeyman with no motivations beyond carnage, have him terrorise a suburban neighbourhood, and then kill him off.

There was no design to Michael Myers. He was a random killer with no motive outside of butchering random people. The only problem was, the studio owned the rights to a sequel and Irwin Yablans had just missed out on producing The Fog. He needed another cash cow and was desperate to revisit the movie that had brought him huge success a few years earlier.

Since Halloween’s release, slashers had become big business with films like Friday the 13th attaining massive financial wins at the box office. These movies were big money-makers that could be produced on low budgets. The demand was immense so what better time for the shape to return to killing than now?

Carpenter and Hill realised that they were backed into a corner so agreed. Carpenter grabbed a six pack of beer and wrote a drunken script that would form the basis for Halloween 2. There was a big problem, though. Why would this relentless killer still be tracking down the first movie’s final girl?

Tasked with finding a way to explain Myers’ desperate pursuit of Laurie Strode, he added a link between the two characters that he would immediately regret but would go on to form the narrative basis for many of the films, and even reboots, that followed.

When ’70s Suspense Clashed With ’80s Splatter

Due to Carpenter’s reluctance to actually be involved with producing this sequel, he categorically refused to direct. He instead hired the relatively unknown Rick Rosenthal to helm the movie. Rosenthal believed that, due to the story picking up only an hour or so after the original, it should feel tonally identical.

He basically copied Carpenter’s slow deliberate filming style. Utilising many long, drawn-out shots, a heavy use of lighting and shadows, limited jump scares, and minimal gore. This was a movie that was designed to be watched immediately after the first with virtually no difference in presentation.

The only problem with that was the fact that Carpenter deemed the cut to not be remotely scary. There had been something of an inflation when it came to scares and gore in slasher movies. Films like the aforementioned Friday the 13th had turned things up a notch. Carpenter saw this and wanted to move in a similar direction.

In the post-production process, he chopped the movie up, filmed additional scenes, and spliced them in. This lead to a movie that feels tonally all over the place. The carefully considered and brilliantly atmospheric moments of Halloween-esque scene setting were punctuated by numerous moments of splatter-horror gore and nudity. This was a movie that was legitimately at war with itself and the result was not pretty.

More Splatter Than ‘The Shape’

Carpenter turned Halloween 2 into the very movies he had originally inspired and it is all the worse for it. Films released after his 1978 hit were criticised for their over-dependence on gore and shock value. Something which Halloween never had with most of the kills taking place off-screen. Halloween 2 was conflicted and featured two competing styles. On one hand, it was slow and deliberate. On the other hand, it was frenetic and over-the-top.

The movie succeeds immensely when it is fully aware of the fact that it is part two to the original. Rosenthal’s shots perfectly capture that atmosphere and tension. He’s not at all afraid to linger on a moment, allowing you to scan the background and search the shadows. He is keenly aware, as Carpenter was with the first film, that the viewer’s imagination will do the heavy lifting when it comes to horror.

The actual vibe of the holiday is there in abundance, as well, and there are some absolutely fantastic moments that work even today. One such example sees Myers literally emerge from the shadows just over the shoulder of a character as if he was never there in the first place. It’s a fantastic shot and utterly surprising. The restraint works wonders but herein lies the problem.

Whereas Rosenthal would likely have cut away from that scene, allowing the viewer to decide the victim’s fate. Carpenter indulges in the visual horror of the moment. Presenting the viewer with a graphic kill that leaves nothing to the imagination. It’s a massive detriment to the film and it occurs repeatedly.

Every one of his cuts stands out like a sore thumb as he attempts to outdo himself in every edit. Whether it is more gore, an added dash of body horror, or just a shot that lingers on a character’s breasts for just a tad too long. This is a movie that feels more like a cheap splatter horror than a deeply disturbing slasher.

The Lasting Damage of Halloween 2

While none of these things, nudity, detailed violence, and abundance of gore, are necessarily bad, they were bi-products of the cheapening of the genre as a whole. Halloween never needed to be defined by those things. They are a result of movie studios hungry for more profit and shock value. Halloween 2 became a pretender to the pretenders. It feels massively at odds with what the series was supposed to be about.

Halloween 2 would mark a decidedly steep slide for the series as a whole. It would never really return to that slow considered style. Instead opting for more of the same when it came to blood, guts, and excessive violence.

Even the sheer fact that the story had to accommodate a seemingly random killer’s desire to pursue one single character created lasting issues. Carpenter’s famous drunken twist became the catalyst for numerous sequels. Again, undoing his desire for Halloween 2 wrapping up the story for good.

It plays out as something of a senseless hail Mary designed to explain away a story that could have been kept a lot tighter by remaining contained to the streets of Haddonfield. There’s no reason we ever had to head to the hospital.

The entire angle forces an unnecessary plot deviation and takes us to a setting that really isn’t all that interesting and starts to feel old pretty quickly. That’s without mentioning the fact that extending what is, essentially, a twenty minute story into over an hour and a half of meandering.

It’s Not All Bad: The Good, The Camp, and That Damn Wig

With all of the above being said, there are things worthy of praise. Halloween 2 holds up better in 2025 than a lot of movies from that era. Rosenthal’s work is absolutely fantastic. He managed to completely recapture what it was that made the original so good.

His shots are tense, there is tons of atmosphere, and the scenes that take place in the streets of Haddonfield are still a lot of fun. It still feels extremely unique to have a horror movie pick up only an hour after its predecessor, as well. Thematically, the first half blends together perfectly with the previous film’s ending.

There is still an abundance of suspense as we never quite know where Myers is. He is, for the most part, a shape in the shadows, once again, and this still works incredibly well. It’s the moments where we see too much of him that display a massively declined return on investment. Less is more, here.

Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis both return and play the movie with a distinct sense of the camp that is a ton of fun throughout. Pleasence, in particular, isn’t about to let anyone stop him chewing the scenery. It’s great! We should probably mention Curtis’s horrifying wig covering up her stylish 80s short haircut (It’s Vidal Sassoon!), as well. The perils of big gaps between filming. It’s horrendous.

Some of the kills will probably make you chuckle as they feel distinctly 80s. They actually caused a bunch of outrage back on release which seems absurd today. It’s funny to see this movie forcing in some titillation, as well. The way they managed to weave having a nurse getting completely naked in the middle of a hospital without a shower scene is rather amusing.

Should You Watch Halloween 2?

Halloween 2 lost a lot of what made the original so great. The strange story pivot takes us to a location that is frankly quite boring. The introduction of random characters just to be murdered feels awkward and ham-fisted. A lot of the restraint shown in the first film is gone and the kills feel far more desperate to shock. Something which acts as a massive detriment to the suspense and tension. Still, it’s a watchable movie that feels, thematically, very fitting with the first for at least some of its length. Not a patch on the original but still quite enjoyable.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.

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