1978's Halloween is the film that started the 'slasher' genre, the first in a series of 'Halloween' films that continue the legacy to this day. There have been Halloween sequels, reboots, and sequels to the reboots. Michael Myers continues to slash away and probably will for the foreseeable future.
But in 1981, the future was not so certain. John Carpenter hadn't wanted to make a Halloween 2 and struggled with the script, then recut the finished movie to include more blood and nudity. While the film doesn't quite live up to the original, it is still a decent follow-up to a movie now considered a classic of the genre.
While the Halloween series has some scary kills, the first person killed in Halloween 2 is not done in by Michael Myers but is run over instead by a police deputy and crushed against an ambulance. This victim turns out to be 'Ben Tramer' in a Myers-like mask. According to Halloweenmovie.fandom, this is the boy Laurie professes a crush on and wants to go to the prom with in the first movie.
The deputy that hits him is played by Dick Warlock, who is also playing Michael this time around, as the original actor had since become a director and was unavailable.
This is one of Dana Carvey's first movies and is credited as such on his IMDB page. He has a small part as an assistant in the background. He can be seen in front of the Wallace house, getting instructions from a blond reporter. He can be seen again at the end as the film crew follows Laurie into the ambulance.
Both the sons of Michael Myers actor Dick Warlock are featured in small parts. Lance Warlock plays the boy holding a boombox who runs into Michael in the town square and Billy Warlock plays a teenager who asks Deputy Gary if he's seen Ben Tramer. Both boys are credited in the cast list on IMDB.
It's in Halloween 2 that audiences find that Jamie Lee Curtis' character and Michael Myers are brother and sister. This wasn't part of the original movie but is hinted at when Carpenter did reshoots on Halloween for TV. This revelation has been a focal point in the sequels and is used to explain Michel's murderous fascination with Laurie.
Carpenter has said in an interview with Deadline that he regrets making the decision, as it was done “purely as a function of having decided to become involved in the sequel to the movie where I didn’t think there was really much of a story left.” Making Michael's motivation so explicit takes away part of the mystery of the character, Carpenter felt.
With John Carpenter not interested in directing a sequel, according to Deadcentral, Rick Rosenthal stepped into the spot. He wanted to make a film much more like the original, desiring a less bloody, more intense thriller. But things had changed between 1978 and 1981. The slasher film, something the first Halloween helped to start, had become incredibly popular and the studio and Carpenter thought Halloween 2 should be more of the same.
After Rosenthal delivered his cut, Carpenter believed it too tame, that fans would want more of the blood and nudity that was popular in other films at the time. So Carpenter directed more scenes for Halloween 2 filming extra, bloodier ones to make the film more in line with the then-current market.
Although the mask was the same one used in the first film, according to Halloweenmovie.fandom it ended up looking quite different. The one Michael Myers wears in the film was a modified Captain Kirk mask, sculpted to resemble William Shatner. The sideburns and eyebrows were shaved, and the mask painted white. For Halloween 2, the same mask was reused, but in the three years since the original was filmed, the paint had been scratched as the original Michael, Nick Castle, kept it stuffed in his back pocket between shots.
Producer Debra Hill had kept the mask under her bed after filming was finished, where it was subjected to dust, dirt, and cigarette smoke as Hill was a smoker. This yellowed the mask and since the actor wearing it had a more rounded head, it made the mask appear different from the first movie.
According to HorrorGeekLife, Halloween 2 was thought by John Carpenter and the producers to be the last film for the characters of Michael Myers, Dr. Sam Loomis, and Laurie Strode. This is why Carpenter killed off Myers and Loomis at the end of the movie. When asked to do another sequel, Carpenter wanted to do a series of anthology films under the 'Halloween' banner.
The next film, Halloween: Season of the Witch would be the first one not to feature the Michael Myers character. Written and produced by creator John Carpenter, the film was not well-received, with most fans missing Myers and wanting to see the killer back in action. The next film in the series would be Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), done this time without Carpenter.
When the character of Jimmy (played by Lance Guest from The Last Starfighter) finds the body of Mrs. Alves in the hospital, he slips on a pool of blood, cracking his head on the floor. For the rest of the theatrical cut, he's suffering from a concussion, going in and out of consciousness, and finally collapses in his car, his ultimate fate uncertain.
According to Halloweenmovie. fandom, in the TV cut, which adds scenes back to extend the run time, you can see Jimmy in the back of the ambulance with Laurie. She holds his hand and tells him "We made it."
According to his IMDB page, when filming ended, Dick Warlock was allowed to keep the costume, iconic mask, boots, and knife used in the film. As this was supposed to be the last Michael Myers film, it was thought they wouldn't be needed again. He had these items in his possession until 2003, selling them to the owner of a haunted house attraction in Ohio.
After this, the producers would make it a policy to keep props and other items from film to film, although the Michael mask has changed over the years, sometimes drastically.
Besides Halloween inspiring many movies that came after, the sequel itself was blamed for an actual murder. According to the LA Times, Richard Delmer Boyer attacked an elderly couple on Dec. 7, 1982, and stole their wallets. Francis Harbitz, 67, and Eileen Harbitz, 68 were parents of a friend of Boyer's when he attacked the couple, stabbing them numerous times.
In Boyer's confession, he claimed he'd gone to the Harbitz home, high on drugs and alcohol and hallucinating that he was being attacked by Michael Meyers from Halloween 2. Boyer went through three trials before finally being found guilty.
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