John Carpenter Almost Refused To Shoot Halloween II 1981

Fact: John Carpenter refused to direct Halloween II 1981 but couldn’t keep his hands off the final print.

John Carpenter has never believed in filming sequels but was asked to produce and supervise Halloween II. Agreeing, he watched as Rick Rosenthal created a well-crafted horror film, but it didn’t have the gore that film audiences were seeking out in the horror films during the early 1980s. Rosenthal objected to re-filming any of the death scenes and claimed he wanted to emulate the feeling of the classic film. Carpenter then took to the camera and added explicit blood and gore in new takes of several scenes and added in nudity to ensure an R rating and another hit film in the franchise.   

The original script also had to be rewritten from what was presented. In the sequel, the killings were set to take place in a high rise apartment building in the small Midwestern town. Since it didn’t make sense, many of the location shots were transferred to work in a hospital setting and the film became a continuation of the first film. To the point where all the original actors were fitted with wigs and other elements to ensure they looked the same as they did three years earlier.