10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween II (1981)

John Carpenter's Halloween was always going to get the sequel treatment. The unexpected success of the original film started a whole new subgenre of horror, the slasher, with countless imitators attempting to cash in on its popularity. It was just a matter of when and not if, a follow-up would be made.

All things considered, it's a minor miracle that a sequel wasn't just immediately rushed out the following year with none of the original creatives involved. The resulting film audiences did get was released in 1981, a full three years after the release of the original, with all of the major components of the cast and crew returning in some capacity.

And in following up the original film, Halloween II faced the incredibly daunting task of followiing in the footsteps of a masterpiece. It had to simultaneously invoke the same tone and mood as the original, while also crafting something new enough to prove that it worthy of even existing. Did they succeed, or does Halloween II take the franchise to immediate new lows?

This week's edition of the Halloween retrospective, is a deep dive on the good, the bad, and everything in-between on Halloween II.

When it came to crafting the sound of the sequel, Carpenter teamed with legendary composer and sound designer, Alan Howarth, to create an updated take on his instantly-iconic score.

Fittingly, the score for Halloween II is very similar to the film itself; a beefed up version of what came before it, with a higher level of production and a bigger budget, but arguably less effective. Carpenter and Howarth completely eschew the simplicity of the piano keys in the original score in favour of creating a synth and organ-heavy soundtrack.

Howarth has since essentially taken all the credit for these updates, saying:

"Basically, I overdubbed me over John. John was still there on tape, and then my overdubs were what shaped the sound of Halloween II."

So while Howarth was working with the bones of Carpenter's original tracks from the first film, he was the one actually writing and recording the new parts. And while the music is undoubtedly great and arguably a much better recording from a musical standpoint than the original, it's never quite able to capture the off-kilter edge and uneasiness that Carpenter's score embodied so well.