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Here’s the Facts: “Halloween II” is the Scariest Halloween movie of the Franchise

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It’s been 40 years since studios practically begged Carpenter for a sequel to his monumentally successful Halloween movie; and an unforgettable one at that. I realize this might be a hot take dubbing Dick Warlock King Myers over his amazing predecessor Nick Castle- but I’ll die on this hill. Warlock scared the ever-loving shit out of me as a kid in this simply fantastic sequel more so than the original.

John Carpenter’s Halloween was everything a perfectly effective horror slasher should look like without the heavy gore effects. The film used tension-building sequences paired with genius camera work and of course, the infamous score by Carpenter himself that practically made the movie what it is today. When Halloween II came around three years later, the film allowed Myers to continue his killing quest but in a much more sinister tone; if that were even possible but hey- here we are. The sequel was Halloween on steroids (by 1981 standards anyway), with both an angrier Myers and soundtrack to accompany him during his “walk”, and it made The Shape that much scarier.

Here me out but first, enjoy the greatest pumpkin intro of the franchise that breaks apart into a grim, grinning skull foreshadowing that is a lot more evil and death was built into this installment so hold onto your kitchen knives ladies-especially YOU Mrs. Elrod!

Now, after Loomis unloads all his bullets into Michael and he simply just walks away from the scene, he slinks into a neighboring home occupied by the Elrods who are winding down from the night with a couple of ham sandwiches and a viewing of Romero’s Night of the Living Dead; or at least they think they are. Michael, in a very ballsey fashion, opens up the back patio door to the kitchen where Mrs. Elrod is preparing her sleepy husband some food, and had her back not been turned, she would have been extra meat for those sandwiches for sure. Myers just grabs the knife sitting on the cutting board and walks out, and Mrs. Elrod lets out a blood-curdling scream that would wake the dead once she sees the missing knife and drips of blood all over the counter. This then grabs the attention of her own neighbor, Alice Martin, who unfortunately doesn’t get away so lucky; and that’s when we see that Myers really isn’t fucking around in the sequel. In the first film, Myers, while it was at random, set his sights on a specific group and stayed the course. Even people getting in his way, by just basically being in his path, didn’t get the slash treatment. Marion Chambers, while he scared her goddamn good, he didn’t kill her. He just needed the car and he very well could have.

Same for little Lonnie- Myers seemed to get off just as well in putting a good fright into his victims while maintaining his kill course targets. BUT, Alice, performing her civic duty upon hearing her elderly neighbors’ screams, got her brutally murdered most viciously and we get our first real jump scare in the sequel. Why? My best-educated horror guess is because she WAS simply in his path and now we know that absolutely NO ONE is safe this time around.

It did its job too. Scared the piss out of me when I first saw it.

Moving on to a now hysterical Loomis who in the first film kept his composure throughout quite well, damn near shoots a kid because he is wearing a similar mask to Michael’s. May as well have anyway since we all know how that scene worked out. The good doctor, throughout the franchise sinks deeper into madness in his fight to stop Michael and, in doing so, endangers those around him. Just look what happened to poor Ben Tramer and then the deputy at the end of the film. The guy was just doing his job-he certainly didn’t ask for this shit.

That’s just terrifying.

Even more horrifying is the scene with the razor blade in the apple. Good LAWD seeing that as a child was traumatizing, almost even more so than Myers on a rampage itself. The lore and urban legends swirling around Halloween night of bastards putting arsenic and razor blades in candy for kids put the fear of GOD into a lot of parents and even some anxious kids as well. Well, in Halloween II they made it real, and it was real disgusting at that. Fairly brilliant writing to add that little extra tidbit in there. Also, full disclosure, for years as a kid, I thought this was an ice cube in the kid’s mouth until my father corrected me; and that totally blew my mind and horrified me. I’m all about transparency here.

Now, aside from a crazy Loomis, laced candy, and an angrier score by John Carpenter and Alan Howarth, we have to discuss the biggest sell here as to why Halloween II is much scarier than its predecessor- and that everyone is DICK WARLOCK.

Nick Castle did an absolute bang-up job as The Shape in the original, but it was Warlock’s menacing force of nature that gave Myers a more evil presence. Kind of like what Kane Hodder did for Jason Voorhees, Dick did for Michael and he nailed it as what I think, is the perfect personification of Michael Myers. Many see his moves as robotic in nature, but I think that is precisely what makes The Shape slightly scarier. As stated earlier, Myers is more focused and determined to get the job done this time around sort of like a Terminator. And honestly, would there be anything more terrifying than Michael Myers as a goddamn Terminator?! I think not… The guy walked through a glass door without hesitation without any problem to get to Laurie for fucks’ sake. Just straight through the thing! Or the fact he’s walking down a steep set of stairs without looking at his feet or holding onto anything in that mask that you and I both know is obstructive somewhat in the very least.

That’s just gangster.

Stabbing down at empty pillows, getting his hand almost caught in an elevator door, and his quick- jolt-like movements without using all of his body parts are just nothing short of brilliance on Warlock’s end. Without ever saying a word, a grunt, or even having that heavy breathing as pronounced as it was in the first movie, Warlock managed to give us a more pissed-off Myers and execute it perfectly. I just wish we would have seen more of him in subsequent sequels. But hey, we’ll always have his robotic, malevolent force in Halloween II and Season of the Witch.

Making a good argument for Halloween II being the scariest installment of the Halloween franchise isn’t a hard task, but hey if you disagree , let me know below! Also, if you haven’t already picked up this masterpiece, or have it in your collection, I always prefer the 30th-anniversary edition Blu-Ray from Shout Factory, as it contains the bonus feature of Terror In The Aisles! There are a few third-party sellers, and it’s most definitely worth having a copy of this one in particular.

Now if you know what death is like amazing grace sitting on your face, be sure and get this sequel in during Halloween week!

News

[VIDEO] The Alternate Ending Revealed for “HALLOWEEN ENDS” is What We SHOULD Have Had

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Well, Cochran, I know this much: “HALLOWEEN ENDS” had the same kind of potential as SEASON OF THE WITCH, but it was all shot to shit in favor of a “deader than dead” ending that killed Michael Myers off for good. HALLOWEEN ENDS somewhat followed the formula of the now cult classic, HALLOWEEN III, with something new, fresh, and exciting. taking the franchise in a different direction felt like a breath of fresh air until they completely kicked themselves in the nuts by *SPOILER*, killing Corey and finishing that movie with the very appropriate “trash-bag” ending that we have.

It’s a damn shame, and in the new BLUMHOUSE behind-the-scenes book, “Horror’s New Wave: 15 Years Of Blumhouse” which was sent to me for a review and it is quite the masterful book, actress and Halloween franchise star, Jamie Lee Curtis opens up about the alternate ending that was considered for HALLOWEEN ENDS and quite frankly I’m severely pissed they didn’t go in this direction. It would have changed the tone of the movie entirely, and I feel would have been so much better received by fans and critics alike.

“The original ending of “Halloween Ends”, which was originally titled Halloween Dies, was a scene in a mask factory. You see a conveyor belt of masks being manufactured. They’re all Michael Myers masks, which was saying, “We’re all monsters if we put on the mask. It’s not just Michael, it’s all of us if we wear the mask.” And yet somehow it didn’t satiate. I think it was too intellectual for this finale/ It was a big swing, and I honor and support the big swing.

So basically, they wanted to dumb it down for everybody. Cool.

Here’s the entire passage from the book, including another alternate ending that was scrapped.

Now while that ending, which in my humble opinion, would have been the proper ending, never came to fruition, good ol’ HERE LIES made his own fan edit ending for HALLOWEEN ENDS a whole two years ago before any of this actually came to light via the book! And I’ll just say, they should have hired him as a consultant and I’ll take this ending and splice it into the movie just to satisfy my own bitterness over what could have been.

Sometimes, we just need a master VHS and digital video fan editor to step in and do the studio’s job and the holy horror Lord’s work.

Creature Features

Celebrating 40 Years Of Practical Effects Werewolves with “STEPHEN KING’S SILVER BULLET”

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CREATURE FEATURES: CELEBRATING 35 YEARS OF PRACTICAL EFFECTS WEREWOLVES VIA STEPHEN KING'S SILVER BULLET

When I say I’m a fan of STEPHEN KING’S SILVER BULLET, there’s my commitment status. I don’t fuck around like a virgin on prom night.

Anyway, let’s start with the obvious. I understand a lot of people disregard the Reverend Werewolf’s final reveal look; comparing it to something of a dog-bear (and honestly, you aren’t wrong about that). However, it is meant as an insult rather than a critique, and I think a lot of these people have An American Werewolf on London on the brain. I will argue till the day I die that THIS look (not transformation but LOOK) in particular, is far scarier and that is my personal, and firm opinion on the matter.

And I will fucking die on that hill.

Everyone has that horror comfort film, and for myself, SILVER BULLET is one of them. For what I can recall in a string of several months when I was about eight or nine years old, I went to sleep to this movie every. Single. Night, I’m not entirely sure to this day exactly why I find so much ease and relaxation with a film that gave me my first vivid nightmare that I can actually remember. I can’t say I have ever met someone who actually remembered dreams they had as a toddler; but when I was 3 years old, I had a nightmare about this movie that had me waking up screaming and crying for my father, as in my dream, Reverend Werewolf busted through our kitchen pantry from outside and mauled my dad, spilling his insides on the floor. Sort of like the ending of the film, but my father didn’t get to survive like the Busey.

Then approaching me, but not before waking up into hysterics. Now I never actually watched the film that young, however, I remember my parents and grandparents renting the film, and watching it in the living room, with me sneaking around the corner catching sneak peeks while I’m being screamed at to go play in my room. But I’m a rebel. I kept slithering around the corner and checking out what was keeping their interest piqued at the boob tube. I recall catching the bridge scene, and of course, the ending. Which would explain my nightmare fully.

You would think a memory and a dream that has stuck with me for 40 years would do the exact opposite. But what can I say, I’m a special kind of breed. Regardless of the hate people give the werewolf suit, it worked well enough to scare the shit out of me as a kid. As an adult, I don’t see too many issues with it either, because having read the novella, ”Cycle of the Werewolf”, I get what they were going for: A man that is truly a monster, hiding among everyone. Something we all know is a very real thing. And the practical effects of this movie need to be celebrated because if I have to read another AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON piece praising its special effects (which, by the wa,y I am not undermining- credit where it is due), I’m going to lose my shit. And maybe we should be giving a little more credit to Stephen King’s first attempt to screenplay his own vision from pages to the screen.

Special effects master Carlo Rambaldi, whose notable works include creating the works behind King Kong (1976), Alien, and E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, was tasked as the special and make-up effects head to complete the werewolf looks in Stephen King’s novella turned featured film. The realistic style suit was one piece that was topped with a mask that was operated by a variety of mechanics operated by the crew. Twelve levers to be exact, like that of a bicycle, that could manipulate the wolf’s facial expressions. For long-distance shots, there was a simpler mask that didn’t require all the fancy tech wires.

However, Rambaldi was only given five executive weeks to pull of this sorcery. Hey, if the master of Queen Alien could do it, anyone can! Still, shooting had commenced even before the final suit and mask were ready. So those little snips of the werewolf, leading up to the big reveal, were done with another purpose behind them.

“Ultimately, it looked like a bear,” confesses Attias. “The werewolf was very late in being designed, and Carlo (Rambaldi) was given very little time or money to work on it. In fact, it was so late that we had already started filming before we had the suit, so we started shooting scenes without it. I tried to make sure the audience would see it as little as possible. – Excerpt from interview with the Master Cylinder.

Everett McGill wore the suit for most of the shooting and spent a considerable amount of time figuring out the perfect walk for something that was neither man nor beast. But a man that has been trapped inside an animal, who eventually accepted his fate and embraced this dark shadow within him. Resulting in the werewolf quenching his thirst for blood on the “sinners” of the town- as McGill puts it speaking to the Shadow Nation podcast. However, he wasn’t even the first choice! Attias had hired a dancer to wear the suit, but apparently, it didn’t work out, resulting in McGill going hairy balls deep in the role-playing of both the wolf and his not-so-holy counterpart. More demanding stunts in the costume required a double; which was taken on by Julius Le Flore, the stunt coordinator for the film.

Now. We certainly can’t talk about the effects without mentioning the greatest scene in the movie that brought together a record FORTY werewolves on screen together, the most in any film to date. Instead of Rambaldi, make-up artist Michael McCracken, Jr. was in charge of the dream sequence that involved a few actors already in the film, and the rest were made up of Julius Le Flore’s friends of gymnasts and dancers. Clearly distinguishing themselves as different from Lowe’s wolf persona, but were taught the “werewolf walk” McGill had been practicing by the good ol’ Reverend himself.

The congregation of wolves was broken down into three groups. One group had a radio transmitting facial features, providing movement in the ears, forehead, and mouth. The second bunch had a “tongue device”; allowing the performer to snarl by simply moving the device around with, well, their tongue. The third had no special effects at all, other than make-up and served as the background werewolves.

And since it’s such a wonderful sequence, let’s give it a watch.

To say the least, there were a lot of painstaking elements involved in the production of these creatures. And while some may mock Rambaldi’s werewolf concept, including that of Producer Dino De Laurentiis, it was again the only one that gave me nightmares when I was a kid. That has to account for something!

Grab the 4K Blu-ray over on AMAZON today for only $21 Tarkers Mills bucks!