dino de laurentis

I have always thought that John Carpenter directed Halloween II. Up until today, I would have told you that he didn’t want to direct it, but after the massive success of the first one, he was told by the studio, the producers, or some such higher-up that they were going to make a sequel with or without him, and he decided it would be best if it was with him.

Turns out I was wrong on the first part, and the second part I guess I just made up. It is true that Carpenter didn’t really want there to be a sequel, had no interest in making one, but was pressured into making it. But he was never given an ultimatum, and he never agreed to direct. That job fell to Rick Rosenthal. Carpenter did write the script, along with the original film’s co-writer Debra Hill. He was also a producer and, depending on who you believe, Carpenter either came in during the filming stage and directed a few scenes himself, or had a large hand in post-production, adding in some extra violence and gore.

It is easy to see why I believed this was a John Carpenter film. His name is featured prominently in the credits (I guess I always overlook the Directed By card), he did write and produce this one (he basically completely bowed out of all the other films featuring Michael Myers after this – he did produce Halloween III, but Myers isn’t in that one), and this looks and feels like a John Carpenter film. That feeling is helped by the plot of this one taking place immediately after the original one; it stars most of the same cast and utilizes the same cinematographer, and Rosenthal has stated he intentionally mimicked Carpenter’s style in the first film.

This one gets a lot of hate in certain corners of the internet (and I now wonder if that isn’t because it was helmed by Rosenthal and not Carpenter), but I unabashedly love it. True, it isn’t as good as the first one, but it looks fantastic, has some great deaths, and the hospital setting is terrific.

It really does begin just as the original ends. Actually, it begins a couple of minutes into the ending of the first one. We revisit Michael Myers getting “killed” by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), but from a slightly different perspective. Then we watch him walk away.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is taken to the hospital with some cuts and bruises and a pretty banged-up leg. Weirdly, Jamie Lee Curtis doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time in this film. She’ll spend the first half of it basically lying in a hospital bed. She gets plenty of action in the back half, though. But first, we’ll spend time with various nurses and staff members of the hospital. They will mostly become cannon fodder for Michael Myers.

Myers will spend that first half of the film wandering around the town of Haddonfield, randomly killing folks. Loomis and Sheriff Brackett (Charles Cyphers) will do a poor job of hunting him down. Eventually, Myers will hear someone say something about how Laurie was sent to the hospital, and he’ll head that way. It all leads to a long showdown between Laurie, Loomis, and Michael Myers.

The stuff in the town is fine. There are some good kills, and it helps build tension to the hospital showdown. Pleasence plays Loomis even more hysterically than he does in the first. Having shot the man multiple times at the end of the first film, he’s now more sure than ever that Michael Myers is not human but something like a demon.

The hospital stuff is well done, if a little silly at times. One of the nurses, after getting yelled at for being late, decides to slip off with a boy to the lower decks, where there is some kind of therapeutic hot tub where she gets sexy (and dead). It always drives me a little crazy when hospital lights are turned off or dimmed. Sure, you can turn your room lights off, but hospitals are notoriously bright. They have to be. Doctors, nurses, and staff can’t function if they can’t see. But yeah, it makes the movie a lot moodier.

Those long hallways are used effectively, and Michael Myers still has a way of popping into a scene seemingly out of nowhere. I’d argue that Halloween is not only one of the greatest horror movies, but is a great movie on its own merits. Halloween II is a great slasher, but not a particularly good movie.

Still, I love it so.

duen movie poster

I’ve had a copy of Dune, the Frank Herbert novel, on my bookshelves for years. I’ve never managed to read it. I’ve tried a couple of times but I can’t get past the first few paragraphs. It is so dense, so full of new words that I feel immediately lost and that it isn’t worth my time to dig in.

I’ve had a DVD copy of Dune, the movie directed by David Lynch on my shelves for years as well. Until recently I had never managed to watch it. I tried once, many months ago, but didn’t get past the first few minutes. It was so full of exposition and new ideas that I was almost immediately lost and it didn’t feel worth my time to try and dig in.

Last year I did watch Dune, the movie directed by Denis Villeneuve and quite liked it. I’m a big fan of his films in general, and he somehow made this dense world full of numerous people and clans and ideas seem understandable and manageable. So, I figured now was the time to give Lynch’s adaptation another shot.

It was a notoriously expensive bomb. Lynch’s original cut ran about four hours and the studio made him cut it down to just over two. Critics hated it, audiences mostly stayed away, and Lynch has since disavowed it and refuses to speak of it in interviews.

It continues to be reevaluated by new audiences, and the general consensus of it is an ambitious failure.

It was David Lych’s third film. His first was Eraserhead (1977), a really weird, surrealistic body horror flick that became a cult hit. Mel Brooks of all people loved it and hired Lynch to direct his next film, The Elephant Man. That was a much more straightforward film, and it became a big hit and an award-winner. This is how Lynch came to direct Dune, a big-budget sci-fi epic.

I love it. With caveats. The plot is near incomprehensible even with multiple characters explaining what they are doing and with our ability to hear their thoughts.

Most of it takes place on a desert planet, the only place where the people of this universe can get something called spice. Which is a mind-altering drug, it can extend a person’s life and it allows people to bend space so they can travel across the universe in seconds. Or something. There are various warring clans who all are fighting over this planet. But it all seems to be covert. Outwardly the Emperor of the Universe has given control of the planet to one family. Their son is named Paul (Kyle MacLachlan) and he’s apparently some kind of messiah figure.

Everyone has weird hairstyles, one guy can float, and Sting spends a lot of the time practicing fighting with his shirt off. There are cool electronic shields of some kind, people have to wear these weird nose pieces on the spice planet and, oh yea, the planet is full of giant sandworms.

There is so much going on in this film that it is impossible to explain and even more impossible to understand. But it looks really cool. And it is populated by loads of great actors including Patrick Stewart, Brad Dourif, Linda Hunt, José Ferrer, Dean Stockwell, Max Von Sydow, and Sean Young.

The style and look of the film are completely Lynchian. So even while I wasn’t always sure as to what was happening on screen, I sure enjoyed watching it.