Halloween II 4K UHD (1981)

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by Martoto

It was not supposed to be revealed, to the audience, that Michael was still alive, and not the man killed by the cop car, until he appears at the hospital. (This was then changed to when Michael bumps into the kid with the radio in the added scene that was inserted a few scenes prior to his arrival at the hospital.)

It never occurred to me that the audience was supposed to think Ben Tramer was Myers and that Myers bumping into the radio kid was supposed to reveal that he’s alive. The Tramer mask is blond so I think it was just supposed to be that the characters aren’t sure if Myers was dead or alive, not the audience.

Edit: Tramer is also holding a bag of candy, so there’s no way the audience is meant to think that might be Myers.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

It never occurred to me that the audience was supposed to think Ben Tramer was Myers and that Myers bumping into the radio kid was supposed to reveal that he’s alive. The Tramer mask is blond so I think it was just supposed to be that the characters aren’t sure if Myers was dead or alive, not the audience.

Edit: Tramer is also holding a bag of candy, so there’s no way the audience is meant to think that might be Myers.

I know that. It's only the start of the movie. Of course Michael isn't dead. But there's no other explanation for Michael's total absence from the film from then on until he pops up outside the hospital, or on his way there in the finished film. The audience isn't expected to assume Michael is dead but it is supposed to accept that the film has supplied plausible doubt for the cops and Loomis which isn't dispelled until the dental records are checked and then confirmed in a more appealing way for the audience when Michael actually pops up. Carpenter was drawing on Jaws a little for inspiration in getting this on paper. There we get the fake out "we caught the shark", which the audience never buys but is nevertheless still the "official" end of the shark problem until the attacks on the fourth of July. Carpenter has just borrowed that, including an expert examining something's mouth and proposing that the shark problem may not be over. It's not too far removed. JC just wanted to take the audience on a similar ride. He even takes liberties like using the theme song when they are chasing Tramer down the street.

Incidentally. The TV version butchers the beginning of the film in order to correct the continuity. The movie goes from Loomis running off to find Michael after speaking to the neighbour to Laurie being carried out to an ambulance (which implies a significant time jump between scenes in the exact same location). Then we go all the way to the hospital with Laurie until she's put to sleep. Then we go to Loomis and Brackett driving around and so on. Then we DO cut from the Tramer crash immediately to the opening tracking POV shot after the titles in the theatrical cut. But they cut out the part where Micheal sees Loomis and Brackett meeting and it still implies a weird time scale since Bracket is on his way there but the TV news are already broadcasting. Would a local news crew even be broadcasting live from the scene that way? Seems unlikely in 1978.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by Martoto

I know that. It's only the start of the movie. Of course Michael isn't dead. But there's no other explanation for Michael's total absence from the film from then on until he pops up outside the hospital, or on his way there in the finished film. The audience isn't expected to assume Michael is dead but it is supposed to accept that the film has supplied plausible doubt for the cops and Loomis which isn't dispelled until the dental records are checked and then confirmed in a more appealing way for the audience when Michael actually pops up. Carpenter was drawing on Jaws a little for inspiration in getting this on paper. There we get the fake out "we caught the shark", which the audience never buys but is nevertheless still the "official" end of the shark problem until the attacks on the fourth of July. Carpenter has just borrowed that, including an expert examining something's mouth and proposing that the shark problem may not be over. It's not too far removed. JC just wanted to take the audience on a similar ride. He even takes liberties like using the theme song when they are chasing Tramer down the street.

In Jaws we didn’t get a good look at the shark until late into the movie, so blaming the smaller shark is more believable as a fake-out. In Halloween II we already know what Myers looks like from the first movie and the beginning of Halloween II. It seems the filmmakers went out of their way to make it obvious that Tramer isn’t Myers due to the blond hair and bag of candy. If the intention was to have a fake-out for the audience similar to the Jaws one, I don’t think it worked at all. Not for me at least. That idea has never crossed my mind.

Originally Posted by Martoto

For a start, the local radio, and a TV news team, are all reporting the discovery of Michael's victims well before the town sheriff, whose daughter is one of the dead teens, knows about the murders.

Originally Posted by Martoto

Incidentally. The TV version butchers the beginning of the film in order to correct the continuity. The movie goes from Loomis running off to find Michael after speaking to the neighbour to Laurie being carried out to an ambulance (which implies a significant time jump between scenes in the exact same location). Then we go all the way to the hospital with Laurie until she's put to sleep. Then we go to Loomis and Brackett driving around and so on. Then we DO cut from the Tramer crash immediately to the opening tracking POV shot after the titles in the theatrical cut. But they cut out the part where Micheal sees Loomis and Brackett meeting and it still implies a weird time scale since Bracket is on his way there but the TV news are already broadcasting. Would a local news crew even be broadcasting live from the scene that way? Seems unlikely in 1978.

Couldn’t Brackett just not have heard about the news reports until later? He’s driving around with Loomis for a while and out of the loop.

[bobbyh64]

Halloween II would’ve been much better without the sibling connection. Without Laurie as the main target there could’ve been a few more sequences in the beginning of the film where Michael kills some random people. I’d much rather see that than some of the really slow hospital sequences. The Elrod scene is a highlight of the film with Night of the Living Dead playing on the TV and hearing news reports of the grisly murders. Gimme more of that and less hospital! Michael would learn about Laurie’s location a bit later in the film and decide to finish what he started.

[LanceL]

Originally Posted by CptHowdy87

Michael Myers lurks in the shadows and dispatches his victims as silently and efficiently as possible in the original. Halloween 2, 4 & even 5 & 6, for all their other faults, at-least get Michael right and also portray him in this manner.

In Halloween (2018) and Halloween Kills, Michael is a brute like Jason who just walks onto the scene and starts cracking skulls. The old Michael would've dispatched the first 2 firefighters and then quietly made his escape out the backdoor, but in Halloween Kills he walks right out the front door and takes on half a dozen firefighters like he's John Wick...

I seem to remember a John Wick type scene at the end of Halloween 4 in the bed of the pickup truck.

I haven't seen Halloween Kills yet, but I enjoyed 2018 for what it was. Things change. Are you the same person you were 20-40 years ago? I know Michael is very old in these movies, but if he's supposed to be a supernatural killer, then maybe him doing what it sounds like it does in this Kills is the way to go...? I'll reserve my judgment until I view it some time in the future. I still have movies to watch from my collection, but when I can, I will be renting Kills. I wonder what I would think? I understand that most want Michael to be like he was in the 70s/80s. But, as I mentioned, people change. Even evil changes.

Just my two cents without being able to have an actual opinion due to not having seen this "Kills" yet.

[LanceL]

Originally Posted by buck135

People change.

Holy, Jesus. Someone beat me to it. But I'm glad I'm not the only one who realizes this, even though it comes with sarcasm.

[Jay Mammoth]

5 and 6 were an embarrassment to the franchise and definitely didn’t get the character right lol

[LanceL]

Originally Posted by BluProofie

It’s happening Arrow and Kino, too. Look at how they have “handled” the errors on Dune and Silence of the Lambs.

Kino's Silence of the Lambs has a glitch, too? Great. Another thread I will have to read through. Is it during the scene with Multiple Miggs throwing her his 'blood'? If so, that's even worse than pixelated- uhem.

[Jay H.]

Originally Posted by LanceL

Kino's Silence of the Lambs has a glitch, too? Great. Another thread I will have to read through. Is it during the scene with Multiple Miggs throwing her his 'blood'? If so, that's even worse than pixelated- uhem.

The first twenty minutes or so of the 4K has the wrong color scheme.

[LanceL]

Originally Posted by tazz13

So Shout is still doing nothing about this huh? What a shame as it's obviously an issue and very noticeable particularly because of when it happens.

Them saying it's a player issue is especially stupid since it's obviously effecting many different players. So umm, maybe it's YOUR issue Shout if multiple players are all the "problem."

Bear this in mind, I have not read through this whole thread yet. So, I'm asking just so I don't forget to later. If this is answered, you can just ignore this post because I'll probably read the answer in the near future if my thoughts are indeed answered.

Has anyone replied to Shout! saying that if it's a player issue, then there are going to be many people with this issue? It being a player issue makes it an issue. Completely and totally an issue with the disc makes it a player issue. If you buy the player that causes the issue with the disc, they should correct the disc so it can play in every single player on the market. Not just special UHD players. If they correct the disc, it wouldn't be an issue with any player, now would it?

[LanceL]

Originally Posted by Brian81

I wish they would have deleted two scenes…that awful scene with the child with the razor in his mouth (really, just remove the thing - it is vertical (to show it on camera, of course).

You know, I never noticed that to be a razor. I need to watch that scene more carefully. I've only ever seen it once on a kind of big screen, so that might be why I missed it.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

In Jaws we didn’t get a good look at the shark until late into the movie, so blaming the smaller shark is more believable as a fake-out. In Halloween II we already know what Myers looks like from the first movie and the beginning of Halloween II. It seems the filmmakers went out of their way to make it obvious that Tramer isn’t Myers due to the blond hair and bag of candy. If the intention was to have a fake-out for the audience similar to the Jaws one, I don’t think it worked at all. Not for me at least. That idea has never crossed my mind.

People know what a shark looks like and even if the shark that was caught, which is a big shark itself by the way, had been close to the size of the shark they are truly after, the audience is still going along with it and expecting the reveal before too long too. It only has to convince the audience that the people involved are plausibly thrown off the scent by a decoy. With that you get the tension of the authorities being complacent and tension in the audience waiting for the killer to strike and prove them right and the authorities wrong. It is most usually desirable to milk that tension as long as you can. I don't think Jaws would have been as good if the shark actually appeared when Brody and Hooper go looking for Ben Gardner. We get a great scare moment when the shark isn't even there and it ramps up the tension between Brody/Hooper and the mayor when they can't convince him that there is still a problem. I don't really know if Halloween II would have been that better if it had successfully done the same. But it tried.

I don't agree they went out of their way to show that it was not Myers. Other people in this thread are questioning how Tramer conveniently has a costume that's so similar to Michael's. So it can't be both. They shoot it and edit it so that you don't really get too good of a look. And they intentionally have Tramer walk strangely (explained later by him being drunk). It's quite obvious that there is meant to be confusion. It's really only clear that it's not the same costume if you've seen the movie several times and studied the shots. Why can't Myers be carrying a bag at this moment? Tramer's costume is only different enough to allow people to suspend disbelief that there would be two costumes so similar to each other, one of them improvised by the killer at a moments notice.

Like I said. The audience fully expects it to be revealed that it definitely wasn't Myers because it's only minutes into the movie. But they are expected to accept that the people in the movie don't see it that way.

What is the point of having Michael lookalike killed at all if not for that purpose? And why show him walking around immediately after. All it does is undermine our sympathy for the authorities. And also with the film. I know audience members often like movies to acknowledge how smart or discerning they are. But cynically showing the authorities being so easily bamboozled and outwitted for no good reason (and especially when they methodically determine the body not to be myers not too long into the movie) kinda just seems like a waste. Especially since Michael stays out of their road and does nothing for long stretches of the movie. Might have been different if he was right under their noses while they assumed he was the deceased. But that's not what happens.

In truth all it really amounts to is Jimmy saying he heard that Myers is dead and Laurie not believing him and freaking out. So they trank her again. (Which makes little sense itself.)

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

Couldn’t Brackett just not have heard about the news reports until later? He’s driving around with Loomis for a while and out of the loop.

No. The radio and TV news said they were informed by the local police. There was nothing stopping the town sheriff from being informed by his own department before TV crews were filming in front of the house his daughter was murdered in. They were in contact by radio just moments before. It's just a plot hole.

[dubhousing]

Originally Posted by LanceL

You know, I never noticed that to be a razor. I need to watch that scene more carefully. I've only ever seen it once on a kind of big screen, so that might be why I missed it.

If I remember correctly, the viewer is never told that it's a razor blade (or shown a razor blade). The kid is bleeding from the mouth after eating a piece of candy, which is a variation on the urban legend of razor blades being hidden in candy bars on Halloween. But the movie doesn't explain why the kid's mouth is bleeding. I think the viewer who is familiar with the myth is expected to make the connection.

Honestly, I like the scene. In a movie that's formulaic too often, it's a nice, macabre touch that plays into the mythology of Halloween.

(The "razor blade" legend is a myth - no such incident has ever been reported to police, if it ever happened. A father in Texas did poison and kill his own son with a candy bar on Halloween in the early 70s, though, which probably started the urban legend).

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by Martoto

People know what a shark looks like and even if the shark that was caught, which is a big shark itself by the way, had been close to the size of the shark they are truly after, the audience is still going along with it and expecting the reveal before too long too. It only has to convince the audience that the people involved are plausibly thrown off the scent by a decoy. With that you get the tension of the authorities being complacent and tension in the audience waiting for the killer to strike and prove them right and the authorities wrong. It is most usually desirable to milk that tension as long as you can. I don't think Jaws would have been as good if the shark actually appeared when Brody and Hooper go looking for Ben Gardner. We get a great scare moment when the shark isn't even there and it ramps up the tension between Brody/Hooper and the mayor when they can't convince him that there is still a problem. I don't really know if Halloween II would have been that better if it had successfully done the same. But it tried.

I think in Jaws it’s also possible for the audience to think there might be more than one shark responsible for the attacks, so that combined with not having seen the shark yet allows for some uncertainty.

Originally Posted by Martoto

I don't agree they went out of their way to show that it was not Myers. Other people in this thread are questioning how Tramer conveniently has a costume that's so similar to Michael's. So it can't be both. It's quite obvious that there is meant to be confusion. It's really only clear that it's not the same costume if you've seen the movie several times and studied the shots. Why can't Myers be carrying a bag at this moment? Tramer's costume is only different enough to allow people to suspend disbelief that there would be two costumes so similar to each other, one of them improvised by the killer at a moments notice.

For me it seems obvious that the filmmakers want you to know it’s not Myers because the mask has very light blond hair and it’s hilariously sticking up. Reminds me of this:





If they wanted it to kind of look like Myers, why didn’t the mask have brown hair instead of blond?

Originally Posted by Martoto

Like I said. The audience fully expects it to be revealed that it definitely wasn't Myers because it's only minutes into the movie. But they are expected to accept that the people in the movie don't see it that way.

What is the point of having Michael lookalike killed at all if not for that purpose? And why show him walking around immediately after. All it does is undermine our sympathy for the authorities. And also with the film. I know audience members often like movies to acknowledge how smart or discerning they are. But cynically showing the authorities being so easily bamboozled and outwitted for no good reason (and especially when they methodically determine the body not to be myers not too long into the movie) kinda just seems like a waste. Especially since Michael stays out of their road and does nothing for long stretches of the movie. Might have been different if he was right under their noses while they assumed he was the deceased. But that's not what happens.

In truth all it really amounts to is Jimmy saying he heard that Myers is dead and Laurie not believing him and freaking out. So they trank her again. (Which makes little sense itself.)

Yeah, I agree with this, but I think in Jaws the audience can almost believe that the shark that was caught was responsible for the attack whereas with Tramer the audience is just waiting for the authorities to find out it wasn’t Myers. I think it was just meant to be deliberately shocking and show how desperate and reckless Loomis is to catch Myers. The Jaws scene has a different feeling. It’s supposed to almost create a false sense of security and it adds some mystery to the proceedings. Yeah, they’re similar to each other but the Tramer scene is so over-the-top with no real subtly that I don’t really see it on the same level as the Jaws scene.

[bobbyh64]

Originally Posted by dubhousing

If I remember correctly, the viewer is never told that it's a razor blade (or shown a razor blade). The kid is bleeding from the mouth after eating a piece of candy, which is a variation on the urban legend of razor blades being hidden in candy bars on Halloween. But the movie doesn't explain why the kid's mouth is bleeding. I think the viewer who is familiar with the myth is expected to make the connection.

You can see the razor blade in the kid’s mouth. I don’t think anyone in the film mentions that’s what it is, but you can see a piece of metal stuck in his mouth, so it’s pretty clear that’s what it is. It’s the most disturbing thing in the movie IMO.

[Martoto]

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

I think in Jaws it’s also possible for the audience to think there might be more than one shark responsible for the attacks, so that combined with not having seen the shark yet allows for some uncertainty.



For me it seems obvious that the filmmakers want you to know it’s not Myers because the mask has very light blond hair and it’s hilariously sticking up.

It's not that obvious unless you are looking for it. The blondness of the hair is only really noticeable at the last moment when the cop car's full beams are on him and only for a brief second. Hell I remember people not believing me that Myers had a blond haired mask on in that scene in H4 and claimed it was just the lights. People see what they want to see a lot of the time and Carpenter was probably expecting that people would accept Loomis and the cops thinking it's Myers and maybe even some of the audience believing it was supposed to be Myers.

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

If they wanted it to kind of look like Myers, why didn’t the mask have brown hair instead of blond?

Why don't you ask all the people who claim it's a preposterous coincidence that someone else is going around with the same costume? How can they be saying that if it's supposedly meant to be abundantly clear that it's not Michael?

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

Yeah, I agree with this, but I think in Jaws the audience can almost believe that the shark that was caught was responsible for the attack whereas with Tramer the audience is just waiting for the authorities to find out it wasn’t Myers. I think it was just meant to be deliberately shocking and show how desperate and reckless Loomis is to catch Myers. The Jaws scene has a different feeling. It’s supposed to almost create a false sense of security and it adds some mystery to the proceedings. Yeah, they’re similar to each other but the Tramer scene is so over-the-top with no real subtly that I don’t really see it on the same level as the Jaws scene.

It was just a freak accident caused by Tramer's intoxication as much as anything (and by the exploding gas tank which just doesn't happen IRL either).

Carpenter has already mentioned Jaws 2 when talking about the sequels he had to try and take inspiration from. I've no doubt the decoy Myers being killed leading to the cops not being urgent to find Michael in the first half of the movie was borrowed from Jaws.

The audience in Jaws does NOT accept that they killed the shark less than half way through. But it does allow the audience to understand that the authorities have reason to assume this and go along with it. There's no other explanation for Michael's long absence in between Tramer getting killed and the next time he actually shows up. Which is around the same time that the cops confirm that the teeth of the victim don't match (Hooper claims that the teeth of the shark don't match the bites on the victim in Jaws) and that Ben Tramer is missing. (In the shooting script, the TV producer gets killed on her way to the hospital right after the scene with Loomis convincing Hunt to arrange for a dentist to meet them at the morgue.)

The point is that Spielberg has the town assume that the shark is caught and doesn't violate that plot device right away as some are suggesting would have happened in Halloween II but things got rearranged creating the plot hole of the premature news reports. The truth is that the scenes had always been in that order.

I'm not comparing the Tramer death scene with any scene in Jaws. I'm saying that Carpenter might have further emulated and even had a scene in Halloween II where "proof" that Myers is still at large could have been found in a scare scene which doesn't involve Michael. But he had already pulled that trick with Loomis and Myers checking out the Myers house in the first movie.

[Steel76]

Originally Posted by Martoto

It was just a freak accident caused by Tramer's intoxication as much as anything (and by the exploding gas tank which just doesn't happen IRL either).

The cop must have been blind, to not seeing him in the middle of the street.
He didn't exactly "come out of nowhere".

And why the hell did he drive so damn fast anyways?

I love Halloween 2, but the entire scene is so ****ing stupid and hilarious.

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by Steel76

I love Halloween 2, but the entire movie is so ****ing stupid and hilarious.

Fixed

[questrider]

Originally Posted by LanceL

You know, I never noticed that to be a razor. I need to watch that scene more carefully. I've only ever seen it once on a kind of big screen, so that might be why I missed it.

Originally Posted by dubhousing

If I remember correctly, the viewer is never told that it's a razor blade (or shown a razor blade). The kid is bleeding from the mouth after eating a piece of candy, which is a variation on the urban legend of razor blades being hidden in candy bars on Halloween. But the movie doesn't explain why the kid's mouth is bleeding. I think the viewer who is familiar with the myth is expected to make the connection.

Honestly, I like the scene. In a movie that's formulaic too often, it's a nice, macabre touch that plays into the mythology of Halloween.

(The "razor blade" legend is a myth - no such incident has ever been reported to police, if it ever happened. A father in Texas did poison and kill his own son with a candy bar on Halloween in the early 70s, though, which probably started the urban legend).

Originally Posted by bobbyh64

You can see the razor blade in the kid’s mouth. I don’t think anyone in the film mentions that’s what it is, but you can see a piece of metal stuck in his mouth, so it’s pretty clear that’s what it is. It’s the most disturbing thing in the movie IMO.

Obvious that it's a razor blade since 1981! I remember squirming in the theater because it's so visceral.

https://twitter.com/retronewsnow/sta...94789775695873

[Show spoiler]

[mar3o]

I never realized it was a razor blade when I saw it aired on UHF back in the 80's. Between the resolution and the reception you couldn't tell what it was. I thought he had been injured somehow and had an ice cube in his mouth to help somehow. It wasn't until blu-ray that I realized what it was.