MURDER SET PIECES BLU RAY MOVIE
While the aging actor doesn't go as over the top as he would in later sequels, Pleasance chews through a fair bit of scenery and the movie is all the better for it. Dick Warlock doesn't have any dialogue here but he makes for an imposing figure, his menacing frame doing a fine job of playing the boogeyman, while Donald Pleasance ramps things up to ten and doesn't really ever turn it down. Her character is understandably upset and confused by all of this and she handles this range of emotions well. She has some legitimately sympathetic character traits that are handled well and we feel for her. We don't get the same sort of perfect pacing and thick, black tension that the first movie is so well known and well regarded for, but we do get a good bit more gore, so much so that in one scene a character actually slips and falls from all the blood on the floor!Īs far as the cast are concerned, Jamie Lee Curtis is once again very good as Laurie Strode. You definitely get the impression that the movie is trying to outdo not only the original Halloween but also the countless knock offs that followed in its wake, and scenes such as the 'needle into the eyeball' bit that we get here do a good job of pushing the envelope in that regard. The makeup effects are done well and go further than anything that we saw in the first movie, and the murder set pieces in the film hold up well. With much of the film taking place in the dark the movie manages to do some interesting things with the contrast provided by shadow and light, letting the white of Myers' mask peer through just enough to make sure we see it without having to give away the farm to get a scare. Nicely shot by cinematographer Dean Cundey, the film looks good and makes excellent use of shadows throughout. Additionally, Rosenthal's film has some solid moments of legitimate suspense that work in its favor, and if it's too bloody and too exploitative to qualify as the classy suspense film it at times seems to be reaching for, at least it doesn't suffer for entertainment value. It expands on the storyline that the Carpenter's film started things off with in a fairly logical manner and it brings back the surviving characters for another round of mayhem. While Halloween II doesn't really recreate the slasher film the way that the film that came before it did, the movie still works quite well for what it is. Myers inevitably shows up and starts systematically eliminating everyone who gets in his path, be they doctor, nurse or what have you, while Loomis starts to ponder the connection between Myers and Laurie. Thankfully a helpful ambulance attendant named Jimmy (Lance Guest), who takes a shining to Laurie, is intent on keeping tabs on her even if the head nurse keeps trying to get rid of him. With Michael still on the loose and bound and determined to kill poor Laurie, Loomis finds himself in a race against time to stop Myers from killing again and saving Laurie from certain death. Around the same time, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), has been whisked off to a nearby hospital after that events that took place earlier that night.
Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and his handy pistol. Picking up pretty much directly where John Carpenter's original left off, Rick Rosenthal's 1981 sequel, Halloween II begins when infamous murder machine Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) basically gets up and walks away from the damage inflicted on him by Dr.