Halloween II is set right after the end of the first movie, but had John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s ideas for the sequel been made, the second Halloween movie could have been very different and potentially better. In 1978, Carpenter changed the horror genre with the slasher movie Halloween, which introduced the audience to a new villain in Michael Myers and a new final girl in Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis). Although Halloween wasn’t well-received during its original release, it’s now considered one of the best and most influential horror movies ever, and it made way for a franchise with 13 movies (including two remakes), various comic books, and more.
Halloween tells the story of Michael Myers, who after killing his sister on Halloween night when he was six years old, was sent to Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. Fifteen years later, in 1978, Michael escaped and returned to his hometown Haddonfield, Illinois, where he stalked Laurie Strode and her friends, with Laurie being the only survivor. Halloween ended on a mysterious note as Michael was shot multiple times by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) and fell off a balcony, yet when Loomis and Laurie went to take a look, Michael was nowhere to be found. The sequel, simply titled Halloween II, arrived in 1981 and was set on that same Halloween night in 1978, minutes after the end of the original movie, but the initial plan for the sequel was very different.
The plan Carpenter and Hill had for Halloween wasn’t for it to become a franchise that told the story of Michael Myers, instead being an anthology series of movies set on Halloween. However, the success of the first movie changed those plans, and according to some, there wasn’t real interest and excitement from the crew on making a sequel, but the project was greenlit anyway. Now with Halloween II in development, Carpenter and Hill considered having the sequel set a few years after the events of the first movie, with Michael tracking Laurie to her new home in a high-rise apartment building. This idea was completely changed during script meetings, with the story set minutes after Michael was shot and escaped, and set in Haddonfield Hospital.
Halloween II wasn’t well-received, with many critics pointing out its graphic violence, lazy plot, and underdeveloped characters as its weakest points, and while it was planned to mark the end of the “Michael and Laurie” storyline, the franchise ended up going back to Michael Myers after Halloween III: Season of the Witch – and it’s exactly because Halloween II was planned to be the end that subsequent movies struggled to move forward. Simple changes like setting Halloween II years later and in an apartment building would have made the story more interesting, engaging, and believable. Halloween II arrived a bit too late for a sequel’s standards and it was hard to believe that these were Laurie and Michael minutes after Halloween as they looked very different. This would have also made Michael a much more menacing character, showing how relentless he is and quite possibly how his murders were mostly random, in case he continued killing before finding Laurie.
Part of this idea was picked up (intentionally or not) in the 2018 reboot simply titled Halloween, which serves as a direct sequel to the original movie and thus sees Michael going after Laurie many, many years after his initial killing spree. Whether the original idea for Halloween II would have included the “siblings twist” or not is unknown, but it would have improved the story and its main characters in ways that the final product couldn't.
