‘Halloween’: 40 years of the Boogeyman -

Halloween II (1981)

By the time Halloween II came around, the slasher genre was well underway. The Sean Cunningham-directed Friday the 13th (1980) followed John Carpenter’s playbook of suspense and atmosphere quite religiously, but the death scenes were far graphic. Along with other splatter flicks as My Bloody Valentine, New Year’s Evil, He Knows You’re Alone and The Burning, among countless others, blood, guts and gore became the norm.

Irwin Yablans was itching to make a sequel, of course, to the frightful Carpenter benchmark. When proposed with the idea, Carpenter believed there wasn’t any story left to tell. “I know the three of us traded glances and went, ‘What? Why would we do a sequel? We nailed that movie. Why go on?’ We were that naive,” says Wallace, who was initially approached to helm the follow-up. “But it became clear that the train was going to leave the station whether John and Debra were on it or not. So, they took hold of that opportunity and did what they did.”

The original idea was to set Halloween II sometime in the future and follow Laurie Strode to a high-rise apartment building. That concept was quickly abandoned, and a five-minutes-later storyline was soon set in motion. Carpenter was still left with the nagging question: what to do next? So, he concocted a “twist” that Michael Myers and Laurie Strode were siblings. “That was purely a function of having decided to become involved in the sequel to this movie where I didn’t think there was really much of a story left,” Carpenter once told journalist Murray Leeder in a wide-ranging interview. “What was I going to say? There was nothing more to say. That night’s done; that story’s over. Why are we beating this to death? But I couldn’t stop it from being made. So, I went ahead and decided to write the script. I didn’t do a very good job, but that was one of the things that came out. The second script…mainly dealt with a lot a beer [and] sitting in front of a typewriter saying, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I don’t know.’”

As a result, Wallace says, Halloween II “negated what we did in the original. The first movie was sensationally suspenseful and played with fear, doubt, dread and expectation in a classic way. That movie is almost bloodless. There is little gore involved, mostly just suggestion. I thought that was brilliant. I loved that and embraced it.”

Key players Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence returned to their roles of Laurie Strode and Dr. Loomis, respectively, but Nick Castle (Michael Myers) had since moved on with his career as a director. Stuntman Dick Warlock, whose previous work included 1968’s The Green Berets and Jaws (1975), stepped into the role of The Shape, and having studied the original and many of Castle’s signature quirks, he seemed a prime candidate. The rest of the cast comprised of many bright fresh-faced talents, including Gloria Gifford (Mrs. Alves), Ana Alicia (Nurse Janet), Lance Guest (Jimmy, a paramedic) and Pamela Susan Shoop (Nurse Karen). Nancy Stephens, who made a brief appearance in Halloween as Nurse Marion Whittington, reprised her role, as well.

With a much bigger budget of $2.5 million, Halloween II was filmed over April and May of 1981 and predominantly took place at Los Angeles’ Morningside Hospital and Pasadena Community Hospital. Again, the production team, which now featured Rick Rosenthal in the director’s seat, had little wiggle room to make the script work. With Dean Cundey returning as director of photography, Rosenthal took great care to emulate as much of Carpenter’s original as possible ⏤ with heightened stakes, of course.

“There was an arms race in low-budget horror and slasher movies where it just got gorier and gorier. So, when John agreed to do ‘Halloween II,’ he felt pressured into participating in that and not trying to hang on to the classical approach but to get in the race and be gory,” says Wallace.

“I just hated the script. I didn’t like it at all. Hypodermic needles in people’s eyes…it was just…oh, please. They graciously invited me to direct it. I was the logical person to step into the director’s chair. My heart wasn’t in it, and I knew that would show if I tried to fake it,” he says. “Plus, I believed John and Debra deserved somebody who was totally enthusiastic about the script and would do a 100 percent job. I just wasn’t that person. That was a terrible opportunity to pass by, but it wouldn’t have been right.”

“There is a noticeable stylistic shift, just the fact that it wasn’t directed by John. Then, the fact that Jamie Lee is wearing a wig throughout the movie. Everything shifted. People seemed to love it, and more power to them. It made a lot of money, so it’s pointless to really argue with that.”

Even Carpenter knew he couldn’t retread what he had done before. “I don’t think John felt comfortable in being able to do the same sort of light and shadow, not much violence approach. I think he felt it just wouldn’t work,” says Wallace. “He must have been right, in terms of the fact that it satisfied the audience. It did really well at the box office. It still has diehard fans.”

Regardless, Wallace finds few redeeming qualities in the ultimate film. “I think the metaphor for the whole movie is that you have the star of the show in a five-minutes-later sequel but because of circumstance, she’s wearing a wig that isn’t very effective. It looks fake. That’s the metaphor for the whole movie.”

Halloween II picks up mere minutes after the original and centers on Laurie Strode, now injured and traumatized, who is bedridden throughout most of the movie. It’s a slow burn, as much as the original is, and we’re introduced to a slew of hospital staff, who are lined up for slaughter and get little backstory or truly humanizing characteristics. It’s just a matter of time before each are picked off one-by-one, from Shoop’s character of Nurse Karen meeting her fate in a hot tub to Alicia’s Nurse Janet getting a needle to the eye. The kills are gnarly and only tighten the film’s generally grittier and more sinister tone.

Halloween II opened October 30, 1981 and grossed $7 million opening weekend. With a 30 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it went on to gross $25.5 million, domestically.

Below, Wallace discusses his initial plans for Halloween II and how he showed Rosenthal unwavering support. Actor Gloria Gifford, who portrayed the sassy head nurse named Mrs. Alves, recalls her audition, Rosenthal’s vision and legacy within the Halloween universe.

A Seed of an Idea

Wallace: When I was asked to do the movie, my idea was to do it five years later. Now, Laurie is in college, and she’s still traumatized, of course. She’s trying to cope. You follow her to this college campus, and it’s got a wall around it. Really, my idea was very much what they wound up doing with ‘Halloween H20.’

But John had a different idea. He wanted a five-minutes-later kind of sequel. I can understand that approach, but it created a flaw. Laurie just did not have much to do. You had to develop these subplots that were opportunities for horror showpieces involving a lot of gore, like the needle in somebody’s eyeball. I just thought it was a sellout.

Lending a Helping Hand

Wallace: When I quit ‘Halloween II,’ they went off in search and found Rick Rosenthal. At some point, he called me because there’s a carry over of the radio voice, which is me. He needed me to come down to the sound studio and record a few lines for the radio. It was no more than that. They called me several times when they were wrestling with getting The Shape’s mask just right, too.

Mrs. Alves’ Ruly Thumb

Inside the walls of Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, Mrs. Alves rules with a firm but compassionate hand. She gets the job done with no fuss, but her band of paramedics and nurses, which includes Ana Alicia as the endearingly sweet but naive Janet and Lance Guest as the bumbling and handsome leading man Jimmy, respect and adore her.

Gifford: The role was written for a 55-year-old Caucasian nurse, so when I read the script I couldn’t relate. It was Rick Rosenthal who recommended me to audition because he knew I was the “authority” type, even back then. In the audition, Rick and Debra were both there. [My audition] was strong, but Debra thought I was too young to be a head nurse. Rick assured her that if the girls were younger it would work. Rick was right.

A Strong Cast of Characters

Gifford was one of many of the cast taking an acting class with Rick Rosenthal, so his options in casting were plentiful. Those also included Leo Rossi (as the hyper-sexual paramedic named Budd Scarlotti). “I’d been studying acting with Milton Katselas at the Beverly Hills Playhouse and I brought many people from the Playhouse into Halloween II,” Rosenthal once stated.

Gifford: This was Rick’s first feature film and my second. Rick is smart, savvy, has great sense of humor and was very easy to work with. I loved filming this project. I knew many of the actors from my acting class ⏤ and Ford Rainey, Jamie Lee Curtis, Lance Guest and Pamela Shoop and Tawny [Moyer] were very good to work with, also.