Halloween II Novelization Horror Book Review
It is Halloween night in Haddonfield, Illinois. Six gunshots pierce the silence of this normally quiet town. Neighborhood kids trick-or-treating on the street stare as a man plunges off a balcony. A doctor from the county mental hospital rushes from the house. He has followed his patient, who escaped from the institution, back to Haddonfield, where fifteen years earlier he brutally murdered his own sister. The demented young man has already killed three teenagers this evening. Tonight’s massacre has only begun!
Horror Book Review: Halloween II
Reading Curtis Richards’ adaptation of Halloween left me very impressed and yearning for more. And so, I brought out the Halloween II novelization by Jack Martin, the O.G. Halloween movie in my case, being that this was the first film in the series that I saw as a kid. This film set the bar and put a stamp on my horror fandom. That is, of course, until I saw Halloween. Still, Halloween II will forever hold a special place in my heart and I thoroughly enjoy the film to this day. After reading Curtis Richards’ novelization of the original Halloween, I wanted to dig deeper and get more background and lore on Michael Myers. I was itching to read the sequel to see if any other hidden gems in the narrative give more depth to the characters that shed new light or a different perspective.
Unlike the previous entry, the novelization of Halloween II picks up right after the events of Halloween, like in the movie. However, instead of picking up with Laurie and the kids inside the Doyle house, Michael “unconscious” on the floor as Laurie gives instructions to the kids to get help, we go back a little further to Lonnie and his friends. This is the scene where they dare Lonnie to go into the Myers house only to be frightened away by Dr. Loomis, who hides in a nearby brush. Why the decision to go back this far in the recap is beyond me, but that is beside the point. We get a lot more of Dr. Loomis and his inner thoughts more so than the previous book. To be completely frank, I found Dr. Loomis to be a bit more of a nuisance and overly dramatic in this novel. I understood the frustration coming from Sherriff Bracket towards Dr. Loomis because I too felt the same. I understood and sympathized with the Sheriff when the discovery of Annie’s body, his daughter, was made. Loomis, instead of expressing remorse or sympathy to the Sheriff, he kept defending his actions and denied responsibility.
We also get more of Laurie’s inner thoughts and feelings. As we all know, one thing Halloween II is known for is its setting within the hospital. Laurie is under sedation for a good portion of this story. She is weak and borderline incomprehensive, having been transported to Haddonfield Memorial Hospital after being stabbed and traumatized by Michael Myers. Although she is the protagonist and lead of the story, she takes a backseat to the action while still being the focus of attention; the driving force behind Michael Myers. Of course, not knowing anything about the Halloween franchise, one is not privy to the relationship between the two. When I first saw Halloween II, there was not much of an impact with the news. It was nowhere close to the revelation of Darth Vader being a Skywalker. No, I was yet to be invested in the characters when I saw the film in my adolescence, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. But, I can imagine the impact it had on audiences at the time of its release.
The reveal is handled the same way as it was in the film, where nurse Marion tells Dr. Loomis about a secret file that reveals Michael’s relationship to Laurie. This is all exposed to the good doctor when they are in a vehicle in the presence of a Federal Marshall. This forced Loomis’ hand to hold them all hostage and have the car re-routed to the hospital. There, while heavily drugged, a series of memories flood Laurie in her near-catatonic state that allows her to remember her past, a past with different parents–a past with a brother. The scenes in the book play out like in the television cut, where Laurie has visions of visiting Michael at the sanitorium with his empty gaze into the void, then the cold look he gives her. Martin handled this scene particularly well, as I felt the emotions Laurie was feeling, including confusion and sympathy for Michael. This is told to us in the narrative and it paints a different of the Laurie we got in the film because we are reading what she is thinking and feeling and not just fending for her life. You can see some of this in the movie when Michael approaches her, and she points a gun at him and calls out to him, “Michael!” It was her attempt at connecting with her older brother, hoping that there was some humanity left in him. Alas, there was not.
While I enjoyed the book, reading Martin’s adaptation was lackluster in that there was not a lot that expanded on the mythos. There were a few scenes in the book that were not in the theatrical cut but on the television edit of the film, so if you are already a fan of the series and the alternate cuts, then you are not getting anything new with this book. Again, what I enjoyed about Richards’ Halloween novelization was that we got some of Myers’ inner thoughts and emotions and new interactions with characters that helped to understand Michael’s motivations that paved the way for the Michael Myers we all know. In the Halloween II novelization, there was not a lot of Michael’s inner dialogue. That could have been a creative choice to keep the character’s mystique. It was as if they did not like the explanation of his darkness in the first novel and tried to steer clear of divulging too much.
There was not a lot happening in the novel and while I loved both Halloween and its novelization, I can’t say the same for Jack Martin’s Halloween II novelization. There was little to remember about it and it felt like it was all over the place. While I enjoyed the read, I don’t think it can compare to Richard’s Halloween novelization as that one felt a little more grounded. Halloween II further embraced the supernatural element of Michael Myers but failed to acknowledge much of it. Other than the mention of Samhain and Myers’ unearthly abilities, it let the actions he took play out and we, as the audience, were left just accepting his superhuman strength and inability to die or feel pain. Being that a backstory, a reason, and motivation were given in the first novel, it would have been a little nice for that to be explored further, if only for one chapter. Heck, I would’ve been content with a few paragraphs. Halloween II by Jack Martin is a decent read but having come off the high that it’s predecessor, Halloween, left me on, this sequel was a bit of a downer. I did like the novel, however; I wanted to love it.