Original Release: 1981

Returning to the final climactic moments of October 31st, 1978, Dr. Loomis intervenes in Michael Myers' attack on Laurie Strode, shooting Michael six times and finally blasting him off the upstairs balcony of the Doyle home.

But The Shape disappears before Sheriff Brackett arrives and paramedics take Laurie to the hospital. Loomis warns Brackett to continue the manhunt because Michael Myers is still a murderous threat to anyone in Haddonfield.

Blamed for letting Michael escape yet again, Dr. Loomis is ordered back to Smith's Grove sanitarium under police custody, foiling his attempt to hunt down Michael before he can kill again.  Unknown to anyone, Michael has pursued Laurie to the hospital where she's being treated for her wounds and severe shock.

Soon The Shape emerges from the shadows of the hospital to murder Garrett the night watchman, leaving the skeleton staff on-duty unprotected and dangerously vulnerable.  Michael resumes his Halloween killing spree, strangling ambulance driver Bud and drowning Nurse Karen in a scalding hot therapy pool.

Hospital orderly Jimmy attempts to warn Laurie and seek help, but he soon disappears after the nursing supervisor, Mrs. Alves, is found drained of blood in an operating room. 

Drugged and terrified, Laurie stumbles from room to room in an attempt to hide from her masked hunter.  In her escape, Nurse Jill is stabbed to death before Laurie's eyes.  Michael has finally tracked down his intended target and a suspenseful chase after Laurie ensues through the empty hospital.

Dr. Loomis commandeers the Deputy's patrol car and returns to the hospital to save Laurie from Michael's bloody quest.  Michael is shot, feigning death just long enough to kill the Deputy and continue his relentless pursuit of Laurie.

The climactic finale pits Loomis and Laurie against The Shape, seemingly indestructible in his evil mission to kill Laurie for the living secret she unwittingly holds.

As originally intended, the final battle ends in a fiery cataclysm, presumably with Dr. Loomis sacrificing himself to destroy Michael Myers and end The Shape's reign of terror in Haddonfield forever.

While the story picks up right where the first film left off, three years had elapsed since John Carpenter directed the original and immensely popular HALLOWEEN in 1978.

Carpenter and co-producer Debra Hill had contracted for total control over a possible sequel and wrote the script for HALLOWEEN II.   Reassembling most of the original production crew, the most significant change arose from Carpenter refusing to direct the sequel himself. 

While he was interested in continuing the HALLOWEEN series, basically he felt directing the follow-up film would be repeating a job he'd already completed with amazing success.  Also he no longer 'needed the work' since he was fortunate enough to participate in HALLOWEEN's net profits which were substantial indeed.

Production designer Tommy Lee Wallace was originally approached by Carpenter and Hill to direct their sequel script, but Wallace backed out of the opportunity, having a different vision where to take the second chapter in the HALLOWEEN saga.

Instead the directing job went to Rick Rosenthal, a television director, producer and now first-time director of a feature film. 

The original production executives — Moustapha Akkad, Irwin Yablans and Joseph Wolf — returned to fund the project and guide it into theaters in time for a Halloween 1981 release.

Cinematographer Dean Cundey shot the film, giving it an effective continuity in visual style and menacing mood with the original hit.  Cundey's contribution to both films is not to be underestimated, and his photographic style is one of the key reasons HALLOWEEN II recaptures the satisfying feel from its predecessor.

Carpenter, Hill and Rosenthal had roughly eight times the budget of HALLOWEEN (about $2.5 million), and so the dramatic scope and on-screen cast of HALLOWEEN II expanded accordingly.  Fans would argue that this budget proved to both benefit and undercut the sequel's effectiveness as an edge-of-your-seat horror thriller.

The script opened up the plot to include much more of Haddonfield, though the main action would take place in the dreary, deserted town hospital.  This wider scope diffused the claustrophobic terror of a maniac killer pursuing victims in a suburban house, thus watering down the film's suspense compared to the first film.  The increased cast results in a series of more grisly murders which are less horrifying by their sheer number, time-released through the story to increase the body count but blunting their dramatic impact.

While stunt actor Dick Warlock did a yeoman's job taking over the role of The Shape, he wasn't entirely successful recapturing the physicality of Nick Castle who performed the role originally — though Warlock might have come the closest of all the subsequent men who donned the mask.

Warlock's shining moment (literally) was his dangerous fire walk stunt in the aftermath of the operating room explosion. Increasing his peril, Warlock had to perform this blazing stunt twice, since the first shot failed to achieve the right effect.

Alternate TV versions of the film (often aired during AMC's annual Monsterfest horror marathon) include additional scenes and deletes others compared to the theatrical release.  Most significant of these is the survival of Jimmy Lloyd, who rides with Laurie in the added 'happy ending' ambulance finale scene.  By HALLOWEEN 4, the backstory implies Laurie and Jimmy eventually married and had daughter Jamie, who is pursued by her uncle, Michael Myers in parts 4 and 5.

In 1980, Paramount released its own gore-filled entry into the new slasher genre with Friday the 13th, a film that focused less on the Hitchcock-inspired suspense Carpenter employed to create terror, and instead cashed in on bloodier murders and more emphasis on teen sex.

While HALLOWEEN had become the most successful independent film in history, Friday the 13th had taken control of the cinematic vacuum left in Carpenter's wake and steered the genre in a more exploitative, blood-thirsty direction.

Thus the creators of HALLOWEEN II were reacting to the genre it helped create, rather than leading it as the first film had done.  The sequel's higher gore content is a sometimes jarring, often less satisfying contrast to HALLOWEEN's preference for chilling suspense over a high body count.

In fact producer John Carpenter actually shot some additional, more violent and bloody insert shots after Rosenthal's first cut was deemed too tame, despite Rosenthal's protests.

The most significant development of the sequel was definitely the plot twist involving Laurie as Michael's younger sister, secretly adopted by the Strodes for her own protection after Michael's first murder.

Again fans would debate the necessity of this plot point: some argue this revelation provided a new dramatic hook that gave Michael something of a reason for his relentless rampage pursuing Laurie; others point out that this twist isn't supported by the original film and was tacked onto the second story artificially.

In either case, this plot device served much more to complicate and contradict future installments in the HALLOWEEN franchise than it ever benefited HALLOWEEN II.  Michael would return again and again to kill, but Laurie wouldn't — at least not for three Myers-based sequels and 17 years.  How Michael and Dr. Loomis escaped the hospital inferno with just a minimum of scar makeup effects is neither explained nor logical . . . except that the failure of HALLOWEEN III demanded their presence in future films.

With Laurie absent from the action, The Shape was left to pursue his niece Jamie (Danielle Harris) in HALLOWEEN 4 and 5, after Laurie Strode and her husband were reportedly killed in a car accident.  Jamie's supposed psychic link with her murderous uncle proved a poor substitution for the direction relationship between Michael and Laurie, who would be resurrected to confront her brother again in HALLOWEEN H20 in 1998.

Further adding to the story line contradictions in the series, HALLOWEEN H20's story effectively erases parts 3-6 from existence, choosing to pick up Laurie's plot thread extrapolated from HALLOWEEN II.  The film establishes that Laurie later faked her own death to live in safety from Michael's threat.  H20 also contradicts earlier films by denying the existence of daughter Jamie from 4 and 5, replacing her with Laurie's son John.

While fans may have applauded Jamie Lee Curtis' return to the franchise and the film's effort to stay truer to the original HALLOWEEN I and II story, this strategic move caused logical havoc across the entire film series for devoted viewers.

Twenty-five years after HALLOWEEN II's explosive finale, it's tough to appreciate the film for the 'final word' it was intended to be — especially since five direct sequels have ensued and ignored a tangle of plot complications to keep Michael coming back for more blood.  But the film remains a worthy follow-up to the original, if only slightly less scary for attempting to accomplish too much, where simplicity was the key to HALLOWEEN's initial brilliance.