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Editorials

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.

Editorials

Let’s Celebrate the Ultimate Nostalgia of Halloween in the 70s!

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Halloween throughout the 70s seemed like a special time for the holiday. Granted, I was only a twinkle in my father’s eye during the 70s (born in 1982 here), but with plenty of family, friends, and the good ol’ internet handy, to tell the story of a magnificent decade that really began the mainstream commercialized hype of Samhain, Halloween in the 70s looked to have kicked all kinds of ass. While Halloween’s traditions were well established in the U.S. decades earlier, it became a national, mainstream celebration for both adults and children in the 1970s, driven by the rise of horror films, increasing commercialization, and the growth of adult parties. 

And to be quite frank, those parties looked like PARTAYS.

The Decorations

The 70s is when that vintage decor Halloween junkies search for, everyone has at least one Holy Grail vintage item, went from mostly handmade, to commercialized die-cuts that were mass-produced and placed on store shelves. Stores also began decorating more for Halloween themselves with this decor to showcase and a buying incentive. Of course, the infamous Beistle and Dennison had been doing this since the early 1900s and only grew stronger with the rise of the Halloween culture in the 70s, but a slew of production companies and new KINDS of decor had entered the market like Empire Plastics Inc.,  Bernard Edward Co. (later called Beco), Poloron Products, Dapo, General Foam, and many others, that became a mainstay in Halloween traditions ever since: the Blow Mold. And in the 70s, the Blow Mold was as hot as ever since making its initial appearance a few years earlier during the 60s. After some decline after the 90s began, Halloween blow molds became almost extinct and has only in recent years made a comeback to Halloween. Nostalgia is a powerful tool, folks!

The Costumes

Picture it: The night before Halloween, mom takes you into K-mart, where you look through the picked-over plastic masks with matching costumes. You clutch that $5.99 Wonder Woman or Spiderman mask and matching costume to your chest on the way home as you slide around on the bench seat without a seatbelt in the back of your parents’ wood-paneled station wagon, while your mom smokes in the front seat. You immediately run up stairs to your room and place your beloved lucky find on All Hallows Eve on your bedroom wicker chair for the next day’s exciting events while you can smell the frozen Salisbury steak TV dinner cooking in the oven (and this time, mom remembers to pull back one corner of the aluminum foil on top, so the sauce isn’t frozen popsicle gravy). All is right in the world.

While homemade costumes from sheets and everyday items were common, the 1970s also saw a surge in store-bought, plastic costumes, often featuring popular TV and movie characters like the Universal Monsters, Star Wars, and even Alien! Largely thanks to the now infamous Ben Cooper company for providing kids with a smack of pop culture and barely breathable masks for trick-or-treating.

The Candy

Halloween candy culture in the 70s saw the beginnings of a widespread fear surrounding Halloween candy, stemming from an op-ed in The New York Times in 1970 and escalating with the Ronald Clark O’Bryan case in 1974, where a man intentionally poisoned his son with cyanide-laced Pixy Stix. Though these were isolated, publicized incidents, they fueled the “Halloween candy scare” and a lasting urban legend of random tamperings, which studies later found to be unsubstantiated. But that didn’t stop people from making those homemade popcorn balls or candied apples to give to kids coming to their door on Halloween night, Whether mom allowed you to keep it was entirely on her and trying to hide those in your pumpkin pail or pillow sack didn’t seem to work much. Also, she inspects every one of your pieces of candy for pinholes before allowing you to keep it. This was the beginning, folks. A few years later, HALLOWEEN II features that parental fear into a side scene in the film that was actually, one of the terrifying moments of the movie itself.

The Horror Movie Influence

The rise of commercially successful shock horror and slasher films like THE EXORCIST, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, and, of course, the one and only, HALLOWEEN gave some much-needed holiday OOMPH for the adults and their enjoyment of Samhain. And any kids that happened to sneak into the movie theater to watch any of these, added an either amazing or traumatized element of horror to the holiday for them; one that is highly played on now rather than just plastic skeletons and sheet ghosts.

Imagine sitting in the theater and watching Halloween for the first time? In case you’re wondering what that’s like, check out this audio from 1979 from an audience viewing HALLOWEEN for the first time.

Halloween Television Specials

Before the 70s, Halloween television specials were nonexistent except for “IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN”. But with the rise in television programs and public interest, cozying in that crocheted blanket on your parents’ couch in the days leading up to Halloween and tuning into Casper’s Halloween, Witch’s Night Out, or my personal favorite, The Halloween That Almost Wasn’t, while perusing the Kmart or Woolworth ads in the local newspaper searching for your perfect costume sounds like heaven on Earth to me. I mean, I pretty much did this in the 80s too, so I can imagine it wasn’t all that different. But credit to the 70s and for starting a Halloween Special revolution.

Also, shout out To Paul Lynde and his Halloween special that pretty much rules to this very day.

Neighborhood Haunted Houses

As previously mentioned, the emergence of horror films spurred a significant transformation in Halloween culture, leading to the rise of neighborhood haunted houses, catering to both trick-or-treaters and emerging horror enthusiasts. These homemade, community-driven affairs, in contrast to today’s high-tech, professional productions, the ones I grew up with as well in the mid to late 80s, were full of passion and a promise to scare the piss out of you because these adults did not give one fuck about traumatizing you. In fact, they made it their business to do so. Kids today are too damn soft and will never have their balls molded of steel like the generation of the 70s and 80s.

Although because of the popular interest and success in these little haunts, full-on production haunted houses began in the late 70s and man, they looked richly aesthetically gothic.

Again, being only a nut in my dad’s sack at the time, I can only believe Halloween in the 70s was nothing short of a religious experience. And given what knowledge I do have and the faithful internet archives, it’s safe to say I’m probably right about that.

If you liked this piece, check out my Halloween in the 80s, and Halloween in the 90s articles. Happy Halloween Season!