Halloween II 4K UHD (1981)

[Torgon]

Originally Posted by buck135

Loomis was played by David Ogden Stiers?

He would have made a perfect replacement.

[Croweyes1121]

I wish SF would share a screenshot comparing the new OCN scan with the old UHD. They shared some screens of their The Thing release before it came out. I don’t see why they couldn’t do it here.

[DaylightsEnd]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

Only ones I don’t like are 5, 6 andZombies part 2. Glad H20 saved the franchise after 5 and 6 nearly killed it.

I even have grown to like something about the first 25 minutes of part 5. It feels like a continuation of part 4 (much like how part 2 picked up from 1978), until it slides off a cliff shortly after...and the remainder of part 5 is still middle-of-the road 80's slasher fodder. It's really weak, but I'll take it.

I can also find things to enjoy about Zombie's reboot which has some pretty intense, creepy, skilled camera work and brutal kills, if you can look past most of the characters, but I agree his part 2 was too weak and disjointed with an even more rubbish script.

I caught H20 in the theater back in the day, with an old girlfriend and we had a blast, so the nostalgia is strong, and it still feels like "Halloween back on track" to me, after 6 had gone off the rails, plot-wise. I know that H20 is much-hated, but it was still nice to have Laurie Strode back, front and center, and it has some decent Fall atmosphere. Curtis' acting and character portrayal of Strode in H20 is still miles ahead of the mentally disturbed lunatic they portrayed her as (and Curtis' utterly gag-worthy off-the-chain hysterical, ridiculous overacting) in the pathetic 2018 rehash. I'd watch a 4, 5 and H20 marathon back-to-back for 15 hours straight while tied to a chair, before I watched 2018 again. I even think the 4k uhd of 2018 is utterly ugly and unappealing (the drab look of the film is just gross to me) notwithstanding the loathsome characters, abysmal script, lousy acting, and the fact that the music sounds like digital garbage recorded on a $90 casio keyboard. After watching 1978, 2018 sounds incredibly cheap and plastic, a big downgrade on my fairly revealing theater system, which really helps to ruin it for me even further. I truly wanted to like it, and even bought the 4k steelbook, but just can't find any redeeming qualities in it beyond

[Show spoiler]the fact that they gratefully butchered off those retarded podcast losers

.

[bailey1987]

Originally Posted by DaylightsEnd

I caught H20 in the theater back in the day, with an old girlfriend and we had a blast, so the nostalgia is strong, and it still feels like "Halloween back on track" to me, after 6 had gone off the rails, plot-wise. I know that H20 is much-hated, but it was still nice to have Laurie Strode back, front and center, and it has some decent Fall atmosphere. Curtis' acting and character portrayal of Strode in H20 is still miles ahead of the mentally disturbed lunatic they portrayed her as (and Curtis' utterly gag-worthy off-the-chain hysterical, ridiculous overacting) in the pathetic 2018 rehash. I'd watch a 4, 5 and H20 marathon back-to-back for 15 hours straight while tied to a chair, before I watched 2018 again. I even think the 4k uhd of 2018 is utterly ugly and unappealing (the drab look of the film is just gross to me) notwithstanding the loathsome characters, abysmal script, lousy acting, and the fact that the music sounds like digital garbage recorded on a $90 casio keyboard. After watching 1978, 2018 sounds incredibly cheap and plastic, a big downgrade on my fairly revealing theater system, which really helps to ruin it for me even further. I truly wanted to like it, and even bought the 4k steelbook, but just can't find any redeeming qualities in it beyond

[Show spoiler]the fact that they gratefully butchered off those retarded podcast losers

.

this

[DaylightsEnd]

I can't lie. Just thinking about it, I have ants in my pants for this Halloween II 4k uhd. Pretty excited to see Halloween 1 also, with possibly an alternate color palette from the Lionsgate 4k release, and the original mono audio remastered and in lossless format. H III could use more clarity, depth, and better grain management as well. October 5 feels like an eternity away. Man, am I hoping that Shout doesn't futz this up. I grabbed all five Halloween 4k releases, so they have 5 chances to nail something down in the franchise......And like it or lump it, I hope H20 isn't far behind on the release slate. 2022, please!!!!!!!!!!

I look forward to having strong uhd's of the first five films to crank in my home theater throughout October, to help offset the flaming turd-pie of a disappointment that will likely be Halloween Killz. I'm willing to live entirely in the past so long as it's a gorgeous enough uhd rendition of same....

[Jay Mammoth]

Halloween Kills will be even better than the last film. So glad they went back to the original vision of Micheal Myers instead of the watered down version we got in the later sequels.

[DaylightsEnd]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

So glad they went back to the original vision of Micheal Myers instead of the watered down version we got in the later sequels.

You mean the full-strength, rebooted, very dangerous new Michael....the same one that got tricked and trapped in a basement by a girl and an old lady, in 5 minutes flat, and set ablaze? If the 2018 reboot had started with Michael showing up at Laurie's house, it would've been a 6-minute short. Laurie's own flakey daughter and worthless family in that movie got more screen-time verbally assaulting and abusing and bashing Laurie, than Michael did.

The next sequel HAS to be better than that sad farce, even by accident.

[Jay Mammoth]

Originally Posted by DaylightsEnd

You mean the full-strength, rebooted, very dangerous new Michael....the same one that got tricked and trapped in a basement by a girl and an old lady, in 5 minutes flat, and set ablaze? If the 2018 reboot had started with Michael showing up at Laurie's house, it would've been a 6-minute short. Laurie's own flakey daughter and worthless family in that movie got more screen-time verbally assaulting and abusing and bashing Laurie, than Michael did.

The next sequel HAS to be better than that sad farce, even by accident.

Better than 5 and 6 by far. A cult and Micheal crying lol, I guess he would cry after realizing the terrible movies those thorn movies were. Glad 2018 was the highest grossing slasher film ever. Well deserved.

[DaylightsEnd]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

2018 was the highest grossing slasher film ever

Notwithstanding massive inflation accounting for a goodly portion of that skewed statistic, and the fact that it's in UNADJUSTED DOLLARS, it's still such a sad statement on the pathetic state of affairs. People are DESPERATE for even fair entertainment. It WAS a reboot of one of America's top favorite horror franchises in history, and couched as a direct sequel to possibly the greatest slasher movie ever made. After years of dead air on the franchise, and nothing for decades from Carpenter himself, fans of Halloween 1978 would have turned out for absolutely ANYTHING bearing the Halloween name. It was going to be an epic marketing/cash-grab slam-dunk, no matter what. People also have to PAY for their ticket before they get to see the movie, and before knowing whether it's even decent. Based on Hollywood's recent abysmal production record for horror catalogs, Carpenter himself could have peed in a Jack O' Lantern, called it Halloween Pee, people would have paid to see it in droves, it would have earned a record gross in unadjusted dollars, and many would likely have ranked it the best Halloween sequel yet....

It also doesn't change the fact that it was an utterly rubbish script chock full of intolerable characters and ludicrous performances, that fell flat for many hardcore fans of the entire original franchise.

[Jay Mammoth]

Lol whatever you have to tell yourself. I’ll just leave it at this if it had bad word of mouth it would have crashed and burned like the Friday remake did in its 2nd weekend. Cant wait for Kills.

[Mean Streak]

It blows my mind how anyone can think the last one was any good. Not only for all the reasons DaylightsEnd mentioned, but i'll add a couple things things I really hated about it. The people in this movie are really dumb, even for horror movie standards. Like the idiot that leaves his kid alone in the car to go help the bus with escaped mental patients. And then there was the twist with the doctor that helped Michael Myers escape. That was so retarded and cringe worthy. Aside from a couple of nice gore scenes, the rest of the movie is really bad. I wouldn't say its the worst movie in the franchise, but its definitely near the bottom.

[Chie Satonaka]

Originally Posted by Jay Mammoth

Lol whatever you have to tell yourself. I’ll just leave it at this if it had bad word of mouth it would have crashed and burned like the Friday remake did in its 2nd weekend. Cant wait for Kills.

I agree, love 2018. I think kills will be even better.

[hungrywives]

There's hardly a scene in Halloween 2018 that I don't like. Even the scenes with the doctor that are at their core pretty lame and just not well thought out to begin with are executed well enough. It's like a series of decent to good to great short films all strung together. So like all the previous sequels it's just needlessly busy and complicated. Watching interviews with the filmmakers before it was released it sounded like they had cracked the code and understood what made the original work so well but nope. It's just as hopelessly convoluted as every other film in the series past the first one. You'd think it would be easier to keep these films simple but they will always, ALWAYS overthink everything.

[DaylightsEnd]

Originally Posted by Mean Streak

It blows my mind how anyone can think the last one was any good. Not only for all the reasons DaylightsEnd mentioned, but i'll add a couple things things I really hated about it. The people in this movie are really dumb, even for horror movie standards. Like the idiot that leaves his kid alone in the car to go help the bus with escaped mental patients. And then there was the twist with the doctor that helped Michael Myers escape. That was so retarded and cringe worthy. Aside from a couple of nice gore scenes, the rest of the movie is really bad. I wouldn't say its the worst movie in the franchise, but its definitely near the bottom.

THIS.

Jay is right that 2018, for as bad as it is, it's still not of the same third-tier ilk as something like Resurrection or Part 6. However, one of the biggest problems with the 2018 reboot, and why it incurs such wrath and disappointment, is the fact that we all had impossibly high expectations, hoping that it would be at or near the level of Halloween 1978. It's like being Michael Jackson's little brother....and it turns out you can't dance or sing worth a sh*t....

MANY of today's new movies commonly have pure rubbish scripts that contain ludicrously moronic dialogue, lousy story-telling, and have characters speaking and acting in outrageous or ridiculous ways that no normal person ever would. The cringe factor is off the charts. This causes films to lose massive credibility almost immediately out of the gate. Halloween 2018 suffers from precisely that malady, but some folks seem to be more accepting of that. We just didn't need 20+ pointless minutes of Dawson Creek style teen drama, with Laurie's completely asinine, despicable family ripping her to shreds, or ridiculous scenarios such as a couple of nobody podcasters suddenly showing up at an asylum to purposefully incite Michael and the entire asylum to a murderous frenzy, using his original kill mask which some cop or prosecutor just "gave" to them. Nor did we need Laurie acting like an unhinged maniac at every turn. If you can ignore all that lunacy, and just be happy that Michael is creepy and menacing and has a few good kills, then you can declare 2018 a win. We all WANTED it to be a win. But if you can't accept its heinous transgressions, it will fall to the bottom of your halloween franchise ranking like a concrete balloon. Probably the most divisive film in the series. I'm a fan of saucy, slick characters, and tangible tension from almost viable scenarios, that feels so real you can practically experience it yourself. 2018 has none of this, and repulsive characters I can't tolerate, so to me, it's just bile. If you edit out all the meaningless scenes that go nowhere and simply don't advance the slasher horror aspects of the film toward the inevitable final conflict, it would be an incredibly short film, indeed.

[jess1581]

IMO, H18 needed HII to better sell the events of that film. H1 is a true classic, but to me it does not fully justify the results of H18. They coulda worked it out to where the brother angle didn't need to be mentioned or further explored... 40 years ya know, I forgot prolly half my relatives by now(j/k), and Michael woulda made a very creepy burned up guy with no eyes. I always wanted Michael to be able to see without seeing, really spike up the supernatural element to his character. Like not even blindness can stop evil.

Anyway, yeah with H1/2 together it makes a more solid case for H18. Without it, makes for a weak and overstated case.

[Robbie The Robot]

The hyperbolic acting by the reporters at the beginning, the endless running upstairs and downstairs, the redic AF room full of mannequins... Ugh 2018 was cringe and a massive disappointment for me. Even the trailer for the sequel with Laurie screaming "Let it burn" made me cringe.

My Halloween begins and ends with H1 and H2 back to back. I appreciate some of the fun stuff in the rest of the sequels but they all get silly in one way or another. Can't wait to see H2 in UHD.

[Toddarino]

Omitting part two was the biggest mistake 2018 did and it made a lot of mistakes. I’m not digging how they’re apparently turning Michael into Jason Voorhees, but I’ll go see it and complain about it later.

[DaylightsEnd]

Originally Posted by jess1581

IMO, H18 needed HII to better sell the events of that film. H1 is a true classic, but to me it does not fully justify the results of H18. .... with H1/2 together it makes a more solid case for H18. Without it, makes for a weak and overstated case.

This is a very valid point I'd not considered before, probably because I just dismissed 2018 outright. But you're exactly right. Laurie only had a few brief moments of sheer terror encountering Michael at the very end of Halloween 1978. Laurie never experienced all the horror that WE the audience witnessed as Michael committed his atrocities all that day and evening, that led to that brief, final encounter between Laurie and Michael at the end of 1978. Sure, her friends were killed, but she didn't WATCH it all go down in detail. There's absolutely NO WAY that Laurie Strode would be the complete raging, alcoholic, paranoid, terrified, screaming, isolationist lunatic she's portrayed as in 2018, without having actually lived through the endless hours of pure terror, hell and shocking trauma of Part II later that night.....and probably also the horror and torment of his further relentless assaults in H20, decades later. Frankly, if the audience wanted Laurie to snap, and be this shot-out, 2018 should've picked up after H20.

[jess1581]

Originally Posted by DaylightsEnd

This is a very valid point I'd not considered before, probably because I just dismissed 2018 outright. But you're exactly right. Laurie only had a few brief moments of sheer terror encountering Michael at the very end of Halloween 1978. Laurie never experienced all the horror that WE the audience witnessed as Michael committed his atrocities all that day and evening, that let to that brief, final encounter between Laurie and Michael at the end of 1978. Sure, her friends were killed, but she didn't WATCH it all go down in detail. There's absolutely NO WAY that Laurie Strode would be the complete raging, alcoholic, paranoid, terrified, screaming, isolationist lunatic she's portrayed as in 2018, without having actually lived through the endless hours of pure terror, hell and shocking trauma of Part II later that night.....and probably also the horror and torment of his further relentless assaults in H20, decades later. Frankly, if the audience wanted Laurie to snap, and be this shot-out, 2018 should've picked up after H20.

Seeing Michael walking out of a blazing fire would put me in a terminal state of trauma, no doubt especially knowing he still LIVES.

[hungrywives]

Originally Posted by DaylightsEnd

This is a very valid point I'd not considered before, probably because I just dismissed 2018 outright. But you're exactly right. Laurie only had a few brief moments of sheer terror encountering Michael at the very end of Halloween 1978. Laurie never experienced all the horror that WE the audience witnessed as Michael committed his atrocities all that day and evening, that let to that brief, final encounter between Laurie and Michael at the end of 1978. Sure, her friends were killed, but she didn't WATCH it all go down in detail. There's absolutely NO WAY that Laurie Strode would be the complete raging, alcoholic, paranoid, terrified, screaming, isolationist lunatic she's portrayed as in 2018, without having actually lived through the endless hours of pure terror, hell and shocking trauma of Part II later that night.....and probably also the horror and torment of his further relentless assaults in H20, decades later. Frankly, if the audience wanted Laurie to snap, and be this shot-out, 2018 should've picked up after H20.

I can't stand the brother/sister angle of part II so I am glad that was omitted from '18 but you're not wrong. Her mental state seems to be a massive overreaction. But instead of keeping II canon my solution to that would have been to have Michael remain missing after falling off the balcony instead of being immediately recaptured. I think that him still being out there and the paranoia that would cause over a 40 year period instead of knowing he's incarcerated somewhere could possibly lead somebody to the place where Laurie is in '18.