Persephone's (Gothic) Insights

Here is part two of my three-part review of   Halloween II  (1981), where I ’ll examine what I disliked about the movie .  In part one , I looked at what I liked, larger themes, and the music; in part three , I'll close the review by looking at more of the good stuff the movie has to offer. Everything in Halloween II is crowded. The town is simply too alive and full to generate the quiet, unsettling atmosphere featured in Halloween . Too many names and too many faces dominate the urban carnival of a main street Haddonfield for Michael to stand out. Instead, he’s made to blend in. On one hand, this makes sense, since he’s a man in a costume, and no one knows what he’s wearing. Conversely many scenes show him in full-view. In Halloween , Carpenter generally didn’t shoot Michael from the neck up, in close-up shots. Any full-body shots of him were generally from a distance. That, or his mask, when the face was revealed, was still partially concealed in shadows. In ...