Customer Reviews

Halloween II: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

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For Halloween II the famous themes and cues were taken and given a grander treatment with some booming synthesizers and more instrumentation. The result might jar a few people at first, but give it a chance--this is a very rewarding, creepy horror film soundtrack.

The disc is short, and many of the themes are reused and somewhat recycled, not unlike the original soundtrack. All in all though you can listen to this disc beginning to end and get a great feeling for the film. Halloween II is a darker, more expressionistic film than the first while at the same time being more of a typical stalk-and-slash piece.

The real gem is the inclusion of Mr. Sandman by the Cordettes. I think it's the best use of this famous song in a film. Playing briefly before the prologue, the song plays in its entirety at the end of the film, extending into the credits. A cheery tune, it has forever been transformed into a somewhat sinister jingle for me after watching the film--and I love it. Definitely a nice stylistic choice by the filmmakers. The song's lyrics feature the female singers asking "Mr. Sandman" to bring them a dream--a dream man, in this case. The dream man in the film is, of course, the boogeyman in Michael Meyers. "Make him the cutest that I've ever seen" is juxtaposed with the plain, white-faced mask of the killer.

The best instrumental track here, to me, is "The Shape Stalks Again". It's the stalking music from the original film--the eerie, single-note piano bit--given a bolder treatment that is booming but still creepy. It leads into the operating room music, with its tense buildup to the climax.

Halloween II is a case where the filmmakers had more money, more time, and more resources, and they didn't squander it. Alan Howarth and Carpenter did justice to one of the most famous movie themes ever. It's not better or worse, it's different and very rewarding in its own right. This disc is a must for Halloween fans.

With the music of the original halloween getting an improvisation here in the sequel, the soundtrack stands as the best soundtrack of all the halloween movies. from the opnening theme, to the 1-minutes stalking music, to the bonus "mr. sandman," halloween II is definitely the soundtrack to get creepy with.

As a teen, i have always wanted to acquire this soundtrack way back in vinyl form in 1981. i got this cd in 1995, and never regretted from then on that i did purchase this soundtrack, if only to immortalize the alarm-clock, heartbeat, synthesized horror i was looking for!

If you liked the spare, repetitive score for the first film you may not like the sequel's sound. Director/composer John Carpenter leaves the piano behind and uses heavy synth to create a sense of doom and dread. I personally prefer this score to that of the first film because I think electronic music is often so much cooler and more interesting. The main theme is now a hard-driving techno-track that is much more fun to listen to than the original. The other tracks are more polished as well,(maybe with more $ to play with, Carpenter gave his score a face-lift). I recommended this c.d. to all Carpenter freaks, synth fans, and those who are both.

Much like the music from the original Halloween movie, the soundtrack to Halloween 2 encompasses the droning and eerie underscoring that made the original movie's soundtrack so infamous. The second film, which was produced with a much higher budget than the first, demonstrates that simplicity can still be as terrifying as complexity. The soundtrack for the second installment of Halloween does not rely on large orchestras, and heavy chords of a more involved musical score, but rather like the first, it consists of two or three simple instruments playing the tri=tonal music that was made famous in the 1978 film. One difference is the replacement of the piano with a more synthesized sound, which can be distracting at first, but as it entwines itself into the film, it becomes the pulsing, driving rythem that represents Michael Myers and the mayhem that accrued on "the night HE came home."

An added track is the contrasting "Mr. Sandman", added as a bonus track on the CD. John Carpenter put this to clever effect in the second film, and when listening to the soundtrack, the generally innocent song even conjures darker undertones as the rythmic beat of the song plays itself out. In all, the "Halloween 2" soundtrack is a worthy addition for anyone's soundtrack collection. It has excellent fidelity and maintains true to the soundtrack which was used in the film. Excellent.

For 'Halloween II' Carpenter reused all of his already famous score from the first film (the opening weekend audience I saw it with cheered when that staccato chase theme began pounding away again) and it plays wonderfully well in its new and beefed up electronic version. Notice however that I did not say improved.

Carpenter and Howarth make no real modifications whatsoever to the original themes, they are simply played in different synthesizer tones that make them sound somehow larger than before. In fact the Halloween Theme sounds terrific when blasted from a set of stereo speakers, it's obvious that this new version was meant to sonically pummel a sizable theater audience instead of merely jangling its nerves. The minimal amount of original music the team did compose for the film foreshadows the turn to the "sound of the mood" style their work took in their scores for 'Christine' and 'Prince of Darkness'.

If I have any complaints (and I am allowed to have some) it's that the score is a tad too skimpy, consisting of the recycled themes, about two to three minutes of new stuff, and a montage of the countless 'cattle prod' stingers Carpenter is so fond of. The whole album, including the classic song Mr. Sandman (why did they use this in the film, it had no real connection with the story that I could tell) and an unused remix of the Halloween Theme with prod accompaniments, is a short thirty-one minutes. Then again, just about every piece of music used in the film is on the disc. Perhaps Carpenter and Howarth had little time to work with, devoting more to their score for Escape from New York, which had come out earlier that year (1981).

But despite being a skimpy retread the music still thrills and chills, making it a nice addition to a soundtrack fans collection of horror scores. Recommended.

While Halloween II was an 'ok' movie, (much gorier than the first one) the music is what i was most interested in. The facsinating chase sequence music (listen to the sample under: the shapes stalks again) has a new bass and tone to it that makes it much creepier and andvanced from the original film. Not that the original soundtrack is bad, but this is far superior to it and the better buy. If you are planning to buy the original soundtrack, buy the new 20th anniversary addition with all the screaming and sound clips...

Halloween 2 has sounds that you can't really compare to any other, making it truly its own. For those who view the movie and are haunted by the electric organ of the theme song and chooses to have it for their own, they may be jarred like me to notice the track on this album is differently arranged. Where the song moves unchangedly into the organ in the movie, the track crescendoes to the organ part with different thumping and rhythms for 5 seconds before sounding like it is remembered. This is also an element that is probably not favored if one desires the original Halloween theme, because that also appears there as well.

The sounds that occur in the movie where Michael Myers rises to stalk an unknowing Laurie and Dr. Loomis watches Tommy & Lindsay run out of the house opens this track, which was pleasantly surprising to me. The other track I like is the "Still He Kills" murder montage, all of the small and chilling sounds played as Michael seeks out the halls of Haddonfield Hospital in the movie. Overall, I say the soundtrack is highly recommendable!

This has to be one of the best scores in the Halloween series. It has a synthesized-type sound in the opening Michael Myers' theme that sounded better than the original (Halloween 1) piano track. The synthesized/electronically altered score throughout actually works well, especially track 5 "Murder Montage" which is a collection of several cues showing Myers' homicidal violence, including the hydrotherapy tub-scalding-murder. In his demented mission of murder, Michael Myers had some assistance from Carpenter & Howarth in creating a score that's as creepy as the movie it's written for.

HALLOWEEN II OST IS ONE EERIE SOUNDTRACK! HALLOWEEN II STANDS TO ME AS ONE OF, IF NOT THE CREEPIEST HALLOWEEN SOUNDTRACK. HERE'S WHY: 1. HALLOWEEN II MAINTAINS THE "ORIGINAL THEMES" ALONG WITH SOME NEW IDEAS. 2. JOHN CARPENTER'S ASSOCIATION WITH ALAN HOWARTH BRINGS TOGETHER TWO GENIUS FORMS OF TALENT. WHILE THE ORIGINAL HALLOWEEN SOUNDTRACK IS A MASTERPIECE, HALLOWEEN II'S FEATURED ELECTRONIC ORGAN BUILDS VOLUME TO THE ORIGINAL THEMES WHILE STILL KEEPING SOME PIANO-BASED TRACKS, SUCH AS "HE KNOWS WHERE SHE IS!" OVERALL, HALLOWEEN II'S ENHANCED SOUNDTRACK IS A HALLOWEEN "CLASSIC."

The Halloween II soundtrack is an 80's version of the 1st. The main theme sounds way different is less scary but still pretty good. The songs I recommend are Halloween Theme, Lauries Theme, The Shape Stalks Again, and Mr. Sandman. Again in many of the tracks there are random sound effects. Mr. Sandman would go better if put with the Nightmare soundtrack. A good piece to the Halloween collection.