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Michael Meyer is Back! HALLOWEEN II Midnights This Weekend at The Moolah – We Are Movie Geeks

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Michael Meyer is Back! HALLOWEEN II Midnights This Weekend at The Moolah

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“I shot him 6 times! I shot him in the heart-but… HE’S NOT HUMAN!”

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HALLOWEEN II screens Midnights this weekend (October 28th and 29th) at The Moolah Theater and Lounge (3821 Lindell Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63108) as part of  Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse film series.

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Three years after the original HALLOWEEN, the powers that be behind the original wanted another film. With John Carpenter off doing other projects, first time full length film director Rick Rosenthal took over while John Carpenter and Debra Hill both returned to write this sequel. They sought out the idea to have the film continue exactly where the original film left off. While this story is hardly as groundbreaking as the first film, Rosenthal, Hill and Carpenter still delivered a good, scary film. A twist in this sequel was that we found out that Michael Myers had another sister, and her name was Laurie Strode. Some fans even to this day question the logic behind this twist, but considering the powers that be behind the cameras wanted a sequel, I think this plot device works out rather nicely. HALLOWEEN II hits the ground running and throws us back into the action right where the first film left off to deal with the fallout of what’s just happened: masked serial killer Michael Myers is still on the loose and the injured Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is rushed to hospital as psychiatrist Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) desperately searches the streets of Haddonfield, Illinois for the murderer.

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Like many sequels, it doesn’t have quite the freshness of the original, but keep in mind HALLOWEEN II came after a few of the spiritual successors of HALLOWEEN had already been released, such as FRIDAY THE 13th (1980). There’s less of the understated menace of the original; where the first film kept to the shadows, the sequel shows more explicit gore and violence. Whether this is simply a reflection of the larger budget facilitating better makeup effects, or a pandering to the new slasher demographic is unclear. The hospital setting (Haddonfield Memorial Hospital) is a fairly common horror movie location, whether a psychiatric hospital, ground zero for a zombie outbreak, or the lair of a mad scientist. It’s even revisited in later Halloween movies. It’s not a bad choice, but it’s unoriginal compared to the previous film’s deconstruction of idyllic suburbia. Hospitals can be creepy with little creative effort, naturally playing on our fears of injury and mortality, and providing Michael with more inventive weapons such as syringes and intravenous drips. Aside from Laurie, the only other patient we see is a young trick-or- treater in the Emergency Room. He has a razor blade lodged in his mouth, an early excuse for some wince-inducing gore which reminds us that it’s still Halloween night and plays on the unsettling urban legend of dangerous objects hidden in Halloween confectionery. The ludicrously small night staff number just one doctor, one security guard, two paramedics, and three nurses. This cast become the new set of victims for Michael. Unlike many slasher films, they are not hedonistic teenagers, and based on their jobs, they should be intelligent and responsible members of the community.

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They do demonstrate typical horror movie naivety: the security guard is bumbling, and the doctor is a drunk. Some of their behavior; a nurse and a paramedic slacking off and having sex in a therapeutic hot tub for example, is exactly the kind of reckless teenage abandonment which draws a serial killer in this kind of film. Sure enough, Michael is right around the corner to deliver some post-coital homicide.

Even though Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasence are back, their characters don’t have a huge amount to do. This is a shame as their characters and performances are among the best in the series. While all the above has been happening, Laurie’s been lying helplessly under sedation, and Dr. Loomis has been running around town with the sheriff following red herrings.

TICKETS ARE $7 AND YOU CAN BUY THEM ONLINE VIA MOOLAH’S WEBSITE.

THE PSYCHOTRONIC PRE-SHOW STARTS AROUND 11:30P WITH THE FILM STARTING AT MIDNIGHT.

A Facebook invite for Friday’s show can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1641667752798799/

A Facebook invite for Saturday’s show can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/1010991412343254/