Not wanting to completely disregard the original’s heroine, but also not wanting to be bogged down by her storyline, Friday 2 wastes no time dispatching of Alice within the first few minutes. Just like that, the story resets and follows a new group of camp counselors lining up to be sliced and diced by Jason Voorhees, taking up the reins of his recently departed mother. At this early stage of the series, Jason wasn’t a hockey mask-clad zombie, he was just your average deformed killer living in the woods with a penchant for potato sacks. Since his mythology was still being molded, it helps punctuate the film with genuinely eerie moments. (“There’s someone else in the room!” immediately comes to mind.) With the addition of the sack over his head, Friday 2 was no longer confined exclusively to POV shots of the killer — a welcome change.

The scares rely heavily on loud music stings and very little on pacing and tension. The extremely clunky dialogue and the fact that none of these people really feel like camp counselors detract from the film (as much as poor character development can undermine a slasher film, that is). Even though this ending manages to top the original’s, it still feels like we’ve been here before. This sequel truly is the same thing, just different. Friday the 13th Part 2 knew what it was and brazenly gave the audience more of what made the first film a hit. However, the same unrestrained bloodlust that rocketed the series to success would also be its undoing.

Halloween 2 had all the elements to be a sequel worthy of its standard-setting predecessor. While not a completely novel concept, picking up directly after the original was, nevertheless, unorthodox. Sans John Carpenter directing, almost every member of the cast and crew of Halloween returned for this direct sequel three years later.

Throughout the series’ entirety, this is the lone sequel that manages to have the exact same tone and feel as the original. This is in no small part to Dean Cundey’s consistent and masterful cinematography. Lights and shadows fall on Haddonfield’s hospital exactly how they did on its suburban streets. Both Donald Pleasance (Dr. Loomis) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Laurie) reprise their iconic roles, but their talents are ultimately misused. Loomis’ diatribes about evil every twenty minutes feel more artificial than organic and Laurie is barely seen for the first two acts of the film. (The latter was an inevitable price to pay for the film’s very concept of taking place on the same night.)

As Friday the 13th Part 2 demonstrated, the landscape of the genre was consistently relying more and more on gore. Instead of recognizing the series’ other strengths, Halloween 2 (and John Carpenter himself) caved to the pressure. Whereas director Rick Rosenthal kept the violence very much confined to the shadows, Carpenter ordered reshoots to “intensify” the violent moments. The scares are indeed grislier (needles, anyone?) but since they occur more frequently to characters with which we spend little time, they’re far less effective.

The score was re-done by Carpenter and series newcomer (soon to be regular) Alan Howarth. At times, the theme is heavy handed and overly synthesized, but paired with The Chordettes’ “Mr. Sandman,” it saturates the film in a rich, dream-like haze. Laurie awakens for the third act only to face her living, ever-narrowing nightmare. The images of Michael crying blood, Loomis’ act of self-sacrifice and of Laurie staring into the foggy abyss make this one of the most satisfying and layered climaxes of any Halloween film. Unfortunately, the flimsy first two acts crumble under the weight of the third.