Halloween II (1981) review

A continuation of the events from the previous film - which takes place on October 31, 1978 - that has injured high school student Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) taken to the Haddonfield Memorial Hospital for treatment only to be pursued by the relentless killer Michael Myers and, as expected, Michael's long-term physician Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) is around to try to stop him (even though bullets don't work).  Despite some issues I have with the original, it's at least memorably tense and eerie, whereas the characters in this make multiple baffling decisions (that slip on the pool of blood is unexpectedly funny), the "big twist" (that Laurie and Michael are siblings) is treated as an afterthought and the medical facility is suspiciously vacant (I hope no one there gets truly sick in the middle of the night).  John Carpenter, who wrote the script with Debra Hill, called it "an abomination and a horrible movie" ... and then admitted he was drinking a six-pack of Budweiser a day when working on it.  Perhaps if he'd have switched to mint juleps he could have summoned his inner William Faulkner and this would have been a little smarter.