Every Halloween Movie Ranked From Worst To Best
4. Halloween II (1981)
Plot: Continuing the story of the night Michael Myers came home, Michael goes after Laurie as she recovers in a hospital.
The best Halloween sequel prior to the 2018 film is a mixed bag to say the least.
Halloween II is very unevenly paced and it's frequently too silly to take seriously. After all, this is the film where Michael Myers somehow gets around a CCTV-covered hospital with no-one seeing him... and this hospital seems to have no-one in it aside from Laurie, a few (thoroughly incompetent) staff members and some new-born babies.
This also hinted at the problems the sequels would have. There's too much gore, not enough atmosphere and this was also the one that introduced the widely-derided twist that Michael and Laurie are siblings.
At the same time though, many have been far, far too hard on this movie over the years. It's not scary but it is still tense and brutal, the hospital setting (aside from the aforementioned plot holes) works solidly, Donald Pleasance is excellent in his expanded role as Loomis and although Jamie Lee Curtis isn't in it enough, she's very good once again.
As well as this, the film's third act is actually pretty awesome and Loomis' speech about Samhain is legitimately the best dialogue in the franchise's history.
Not an outstanding sequel then, but a good one and it's certainly preferable to the immediate sequels many other horror classics have received.