lenlarga
Joined Sep 2005
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lenlarga's rating
Compared to most of the other Halloween sequels, the second installment of the Michael Myers saga isn't half bad. However, it is probably the most disappointing of all the Halloween sequels. Much anticipated at the time it premiered in 1981, the movie opens up with a bang. The first ten minutes of the film, partially a reprise of the end of "Halloween", looks and feels almost exactly like the original. It culminates in "the Shape" a.k.a. Michael Myers taking the life of one more young girl in the residential areas of Haddonfield.
After that, the movie takes a steady dive downward. Whereas the original was about suspense and build-up, the sequel is all about body count. The sequel doubles the number of youngsters killed from the original. And most of the stalking and killing takes place in what looks to be the most pathetic excuse for a hospital in the world: Myers lays down his butcher knife in exchange for a scalpel.
By piling up the bodies, suspense is almost nonexistent. Making matters worse, the star of the show, Jamie Lee Curtis, walks around in a daze during most of the time. There are a couple of bright spots in Halloween II though: Alan Howarth's score and Lance Guest's performance as a Laurie Strode-smitten paramedic are among them.
Overall, though, Carpenter and Hill should have made a much better film, given the resources they had available to them. Not until H20, made 20 years after the original, did this series serve up a worthy sequel.
After that, the movie takes a steady dive downward. Whereas the original was about suspense and build-up, the sequel is all about body count. The sequel doubles the number of youngsters killed from the original. And most of the stalking and killing takes place in what looks to be the most pathetic excuse for a hospital in the world: Myers lays down his butcher knife in exchange for a scalpel.
By piling up the bodies, suspense is almost nonexistent. Making matters worse, the star of the show, Jamie Lee Curtis, walks around in a daze during most of the time. There are a couple of bright spots in Halloween II though: Alan Howarth's score and Lance Guest's performance as a Laurie Strode-smitten paramedic are among them.
Overall, though, Carpenter and Hill should have made a much better film, given the resources they had available to them. Not until H20, made 20 years after the original, did this series serve up a worthy sequel.
John Carpenter's Halloween's reputation, unfortunately, will always be somewhat inspired by the less than stellar imitations it inspired, including most of its own sequels.
This is the perfect horror film, with the tension building with every moment of every scene, taking only a brief respite about halfway through for the only moment of comic relief. The plot is simple: escaped madman from the lunatic asylum stalks teenage babysitters, with eerie white masked donned. Only the madmen's psychiatrist truly understands how dangerous and evil He is, and it's a race against time to find him before this force of evil slaughters young innocents.
The main point of the film is simply to scare the audience. In that sense, I believe this may be the most effective movie of all time. Yet, it is not a movie about parading one cardboard character after another across the screen and slaughtering them. First, there is the stalking, which occurs while we get to know the characters. Then, at a time of his choosing, the madman strikes When he does, the audience jumps out of its seat. Actually, there are also several false alarms that also cause the audience to jump in anxiety.
Ratcheting up the level of fear is our lack of knowledge about the killer. We never really know him at all, simply that he committed a heinous act while only a boy. We never hear him speak a word, and only glimpse his face briefly at the very end of the film. In many ways, he is like a ghost gliding among the shadows. Later sequels would try to explain his motives, which made him less scary, in my opinion.
Besides a wonderful script and great directing, Halloween is blessed with a great soundtrack, including musical cues called 'stingers' that increase the level of fear in the audience. And of course, there is the acting performance of Jamie Lee Curtis, in her very first film, that truly makes this a classic.
The unfortunate thing about Halloween is that made many in Hollywood realize they could make an easy buck by following the slasher formula. Just make a film about a madman butchering a bunch of promiscuous teenagers. Some truly awful films were created, somewhat tarnishing the legacy of Halloween. However, the reputation of the director John Carpenter remains intact: he would make other horror films, but never another slasher.
This is the perfect horror film, with the tension building with every moment of every scene, taking only a brief respite about halfway through for the only moment of comic relief. The plot is simple: escaped madman from the lunatic asylum stalks teenage babysitters, with eerie white masked donned. Only the madmen's psychiatrist truly understands how dangerous and evil He is, and it's a race against time to find him before this force of evil slaughters young innocents.
The main point of the film is simply to scare the audience. In that sense, I believe this may be the most effective movie of all time. Yet, it is not a movie about parading one cardboard character after another across the screen and slaughtering them. First, there is the stalking, which occurs while we get to know the characters. Then, at a time of his choosing, the madman strikes When he does, the audience jumps out of its seat. Actually, there are also several false alarms that also cause the audience to jump in anxiety.
Ratcheting up the level of fear is our lack of knowledge about the killer. We never really know him at all, simply that he committed a heinous act while only a boy. We never hear him speak a word, and only glimpse his face briefly at the very end of the film. In many ways, he is like a ghost gliding among the shadows. Later sequels would try to explain his motives, which made him less scary, in my opinion.
Besides a wonderful script and great directing, Halloween is blessed with a great soundtrack, including musical cues called 'stingers' that increase the level of fear in the audience. And of course, there is the acting performance of Jamie Lee Curtis, in her very first film, that truly makes this a classic.
The unfortunate thing about Halloween is that made many in Hollywood realize they could make an easy buck by following the slasher formula. Just make a film about a madman butchering a bunch of promiscuous teenagers. Some truly awful films were created, somewhat tarnishing the legacy of Halloween. However, the reputation of the director John Carpenter remains intact: he would make other horror films, but never another slasher.
"Kingdom of the Spiders" is one of a long line of movies that hit the theaters in the 1970s about man's destruction of the environment coming back to hit him in a horrific way. Like other films of the genre, it has a very bleak outlook on mankind's fate. Many of the movies of this type are simply horrible: "Rattlers", "Dogs" and "Empire of the Ants" to name a few.
"Kingdom of the Spiders" is one of the few of this genre that is actually entertaining and can be watched more than once. A bonus for those who don't like excessive violence is that there is no gore to speak of. The sense of horror is accomplished with the use of live tarantulas (as well as a generous sprinkling of cobwebs), and not with the mutilation of teenagers.
To be sure, much of the acting is on the "made for TV" level and there are more than a fair share of clichés here, including the 'greedy Mayor' archetype that is ripped off straight from "Jaws". Despite its shortcomings though, this B movie is a good little flick and one of the best horror films of the 70s. And it stars Bill Shatner too!
"Kingdom of the Spiders" is one of the few of this genre that is actually entertaining and can be watched more than once. A bonus for those who don't like excessive violence is that there is no gore to speak of. The sense of horror is accomplished with the use of live tarantulas (as well as a generous sprinkling of cobwebs), and not with the mutilation of teenagers.
To be sure, much of the acting is on the "made for TV" level and there are more than a fair share of clichés here, including the 'greedy Mayor' archetype that is ripped off straight from "Jaws". Despite its shortcomings though, this B movie is a good little flick and one of the best horror films of the 70s. And it stars Bill Shatner too!
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