Halloween 2 (2013)

Halloween 2 is a 2013 slasher horror film, the sequel to Halloween 3D and a remake of the 1981 sequel of the same name. The film was directed by Marcus Nispel and stars Emma Stone, Idris Elba, and Tom Hardy. It was followed by Halloween 3.

Plot

After Laurie Strode (Emma Stone) stabs Michael Myers (Tom Hardy) and he falls into the Doyle family swimming pool, the police and ambulance arrive at the scene. Michael's body, however, has vanished. Dr Sam Loomis (Idris Elba), now limping after Michael stabbed him in the leg, is determined to continue his search and find Michael. He stumbles through the streets and happens upon a squad car driven by his ally, Sheriff Tom Brackett (Bryan Cranston). The two drive off into the night to track Michael down. Meanwhile, Laurie is transported to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital.

Brackett is on his way over to the Wallace house, where the bodies of four teenagers have been discovered. He and Loomis watch as the bodies are removed and he recognizes one of them as Lynda Van Der Klok (Amanda Seyfired), a friend of his daughter Annie (Lyndsy Fonseca). Brackett then barges into the upstairs bedroom and discovers the body of his own daughter. A heartbroken Brackett decides to go home for the night, leaving his deputy, Gary Hunt (James Franco) to assist Loomis in finding Michael.

At the hospital, we are introduced to the various staff on duty. Ambulance attendants Budd Scarlotti (Shia LeBeouf) and Jimmy Lloyd (Armie Hammer), Budd's girlfriend Karen Bailey (Megan Fox), kindly nurse Jill Marshall (Carey Mulligan), newest nurse Alice Martin (Kaley Cuoco) who is having an affair with the head doctor, Fred Mixter (Powers Boothe) and head nurse Virginia Alves (Zoe Saldana). Jimmy and Laurie hit it off and he decides to sit in her room and watch over her. Mr Garrett (Kevin James), the lazy security guard, is sent out to the supply room to fix the phone wires, which are down. He finds that someone has cut the wires. Suddenly, Michael appears behind him and ends his life by striking him on the head with a hammer claw.

Budd tries to persuade Karen to have sex with him as they are alone on an empty ward, but Karen refuses, citing the risk of getting caught by Alves. Budd convinces her to meet him in the hospital therapy room and the have sex in the therapy pool. Michael sneaks into the adjacent room and alters the temperature gauge. Karen becomes irate because the pool is to hot and sends Budd to lower the temperature. As he fiddles with the various knobs, Michael appears behind Budd and kills him by bashing his head against the pipes. He then walks up behind Karen and drowns her in the pool.

Meanwhile, Alice sneaks into Dr Mixter's office to sleep with him. As she undresses, she notices that he is not responding to her. She turns his chair around and finds that his throat has been slashed. Michael suddenly appears behind her and kills her with a syringe.

Laurie starts to hallucinate so Jimmy goes to look for help. He runs into Jill, who goes to look for Alves while Jimmy goes to look for Mixter. Jill finds Alves in her office and bangs on the screen door. Michael suddenly appears behind Alves and a horrified Jill looks on as he stabs her to death.

Jimmy cannot find Mixter and returns to check on Laurie, only to find her missing. He runs into a sobbing Jill, who tells him about Alves. Michael emerges and stabs Jill in the back with a scalpel, lifting her up off her feet. Jimmy makes a run for it and finds a dazed Laurie wandering the corridors. He tries to snap her out of it, but she doesn't react until Michael appears. He chases the two of them into the hospital basement, where Michael throws Jimmy down a flight of stairs, knocking him out. Laurie escapes in an elevator.

Meanwhile, Loomis' assistant Marion Chambers (Krysten Ritter) arrives in Haddonfield looking for Loomis. She tells him that the governor had previously sealed a file regarding Michael Myers, but in light of his escape he has allowed for it to be opened. It turns out that Michael had a baby sister, Angel, who was put up for adoption at some point after his incarceration. The girl now goes by the name of Laurie Strode. Loomis realizes that Michael must be at the hospital so he, Chambers and Hunt race over there.

Laurie manages to get outside the hospital and limps across the parking lot. Michael bursts out the shadows and continues to pursue her. Laurie trips but continues to crawl. She spots Loomis and the others arriving and tries to call out to him, but he doesn't hear her. Laurie's survival instinct kicks in and she gets up and runs to the front door, banging on it to alert the others to her presence. Loomis lets her in just as Michael arrives and crashes through the glass. Hunt pulls out a gun and shoots Michael, who collapses.

Loomis sends Chambers outside to radio for help, while Hunt inspects Michael's body. Michael suddenly leaps up and kills Hunt by squeezing his head. Laurie and Loomis retreat into the operating room, where Loomis opens several canisters of ether, and is joined by Laurie. Michael breaks through the door and stabs Loomis, but Loomis manages to shove Michael against the wall. He orders Laurie to run and she does. Loomis then uses a lighter to ignite the gas, blowing up both the operating theater and he and Michael. Outside, Laurie is comforted by Chambers.

As the dawn and emergency services arrive, Brackett asks a young police officer, Ben Meeker, what the body count is, but Meeker replies that it's too early to tell. Laurie is wheeled out in a wheelchair and stops some paramedics carrying a body bag, saying she wants to see his face. They unzip the bag to reveal Michael's charred corpse. After she is wheeled away, Brackett speaks to the attendants who reveal that they have detected a weak pulse and the comatose Michael is being brought to Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium. Laurie is reunited with Jimmy and they share a kiss in the back of an ambulance before being driven away from the smoking hospital.

Cast

Emma Stone - Laurie Strode

Idris Elba - Sam Loomis

Krysten Ritter - Marion Chambers

Bryan Cranston - Tom Brackett

James Franco - Gary Hunt

Armie Hammer - Jimmy Lloyd

Shia LeBeouf - Budd Scarlotti

Megan Fox - Karen Bailey

Powers Boothe - Fred Mixter

Zoe Saldana - Virginia Alves

Carey Mulligan - Jill Marshall

Kaley Cuoco - Alice Martin

Kevin James - Mr Garrett

Scout Taylor-Compton - Janet Franco

Tom Hardy - Michael Myers

Ty Simpkins - Young Michael Myers

Lyndsy Fonseca - Annie Brackett

Amanda Seyfried - Lynda Van Der Klok

Henry Cavill - Paul Freeman

Aaron Paul - Ben Tramer

Bella Thorne - Lindsay Wallace

Bradley Steven Perry - Tommy Doyle

James Remar - Morgan Strode

Jane Lynch - Cynthia Strode

Julie Benz - Rachel Myers

Steve Buscemi - David Myers

Bryce Dallas Howard - Judith Myers

Jai Courtney - Steve Haley

Deaths

Janet Franco - Choked to death

Mr Garret - Head bashed in with tree branch stabbed with Knife

Budd Scarlotti - hit with machete

Karen Bailey - stabbed

Fred Mixter - sliced open with machete

Alice Martin - head bashed in

Virginia Alves - axed in back

Jill Marshall - killed

Gary Hunt - axed in chest

Sam Loomis - knifed

Production

Halloween 3D was shot back to back with the sequel in late 2011 and early 2012. Most of the cast members from the first film reprise their roles, including Emma Stone, Idris Elba, Krysten Ritter, Bryan Cranston, James Franco, Tom Hardy and Ty Simpkins in the main cast. Amanda Seyfried, Lyndsy Fonseca, Aaron Paul and Henry Cavill appear in the form of dead bodies early in the film. Flashbacks are seen of Laurie and Michael's youth, allowing Julie Benz and Steve Buscemi to reprise their roles. James Remar, Jane Lynch, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jai Courtney appear in flashback material.

Newcomers to the film are Armie Hammer as Jimmy Lloyd, a paramedic who falls for Laurie when he accompanies her to the hospital, Shia LeBeouf as his oversexed friend and colleague Budd Scarlotti, Megan Fox as his girlfriend Kare Bailey, Powers Boothe as Fred Mixter, the head doctor who is having an affair with new nurse Alice Martin, played by Kaley Cuoco, Zoe Saldana as the head nurse Virginia Alves, Carey Mulligan as Jill Marshall, another nurse who is kind and friendly to Laurie, and Kevin James as lazy security guard Mr Garrett. Scout Taylor Compton, star of Rob Zombie's Halloween, has a cameo as Karen's friend Janet Franco, who is killed by Myers.

Steve Jablonsky returned to perform the musical score, calling it the evolution of the theme from the first film.

This is the last Halloween film for cast member such as James Franco and Bryan Cranston. Idris Elba would continue to appear via flashbacks in the later sequels, and Emma Stone, Armie Hammer and Krysten Ritter would all later return. Tom Hardy is the only actor to appear in every film without the use of archive material. This also the last time Marcus Nispel directed a Halloween movie, although Steve Jablonsky returned for one more film before leaving the franchise.

Unrated Edition

As with the first film, there were certain scenes that Nispel didn't know if he wanted in the film. After deciding to cut down the first film somewhat, he decided to take the same route with the sequel, but the deleted material was edited into another version of the film which also had a home video release.

There are a number of differences between the two:

• The theatrical version of the film opens with the theatrical ending to Halloween 3D whereas the unrated version opens with the unrated ending to Halloween 3D.
• The font of the opening titles is different.
• There is another alternate take of the opening titles, where the pumpkin is now in the center of the screen rather than off to the left.
• In the theatrical version, Michael strangles Janet Franco to death. In the unrated version he guts her with his knife.
• In the theatrical version, the characters of reporter Debra Lane and her cameraman Barry McNichol are very minor and they survive, never even encountering Michael. In the unrated version, Lane learns that Laurie has been taken to Haddonfield Memorial Clinic so she decides to go over there with Barry. They encounter Michael, who impales Barry with a camera tripod and then stabs Lane to death.
• There is a longer shot of the hammer claw embedded in Garrett's head in the unrated cut.
• In the theatrical version, when Alice goes to have sex with Dr Mixter, he is already dead and she is then killed by Michael. In the unrated version, Mixter is alive and well and they start having sex before Michael bursts into the office and decapitates Mixter with a surgical machete. He then rams it into Alice's stomach, killing her.
• Michael stabs Alves more times in the unrated cut.
• When Michael kills Hunt in the unrated version, it is much more violent.
• At the climax of the theatrical cut, Loomis blows up the operating theatre and both he and Michael seemingly burn to death inside, although Michael is shown to have survived. In the unrated version, Michael survives the initial explosion but is engulfed in flames. He manages to walk out the room and continues to come after Laurie. However, Laurie retrieves Hunt's gun and she shoots Michael, who finally collapses.

Reception

Like it's predecessor, Halloween 2 received positive reviews. Many felt it was on par with the first film in terms of quality and some even claim it to be the superior version of Halloween II.