History Trivia / HalloweenII1981

** Creator/JohnCarpenter feels that this was an inferior script and says that the only thing that got him through the writing process was a six-pack of Budweiser every morning. He later called the plot twist of [[spoiler: Laurie being Michael's sister]] "silly" and "foolish."

* OldShame: Carpenter has disowned the plot contrivance of Laurie and Michael being related, calling it stupid and ridiculous. It resulted in a slew of subpar sequels all centering around Michael's obsession with killing his relatives, and Carpenter didn't return to the series until ''Film/Halloween2018'' partially because it wrote all the sequels out of the official canon, including this film.

* RealLifeRelative: Both of Dick Warlock's (Michael Myers) sons played small roles: his older son Billy plays a teenager named Craig who asks Deputy Hunt about Ben Tramer, while his younger son Lance is a boy wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a large boombox who Michael bumps into while walking around on the streets of Haddonfield.

* ScullyBox: Dick Warlock is the shortest Michael Myers in the entire series. In fact, he wore lifts in order to appear taller.

** Charles Cyphers is billed third, but his character (Sheriff Brackett) disappears about a third of the way into the film, never to appear in the franchise again.
* BTeamSequel: Creator/JohnCarpenter left the directing reins to Rick Rosenthal, though he did co-write and score the film, as well as directing particular scenes.

** Creator/JohnCarpenter feels that this was an inferior script and says that the only thing that got him through the writing process was a six-pack of Budweiser every morning. He later called the plot twist of [[spoiler: Laurie being Michael's sister]] "silly" and "foolish".

** Mildly with Jamie Lee Curtis, who only did the film because she felt the fans deserved it. She also was a little annoyed at the sequence where Laurie suddenly becomes unable to call out to the police when they arrived. But she has however said that it works as a film and is "scary".

* MoneyDearBoy: One of the only reasons Creator/JohnCarpenter and Debra Hill made a sequel, originally feeling that the first was a standalone story. Jamie Lee Curtis even describes the set as having less passion than the first one, and that it was "just a payday".

** Mrs Alves says "time's up, Jimmy" when she walks in on him flirting with Laurie. In a deleted scene she told him he could have two minutes with her.
** Jimmy flirts with Laurie, asking if she wants a Coke, before Mrs Alves orders him out of the room. A deleted scene (that's restored in the TV recut) has him actually bringing a Coke for her and telling her it was Michael Myers stalking her.

** Creator/CharlesNapier was originally cast as Marshall Gummell, but had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts.

* PropRecycling: The mask Michael wears is the exact same mask (a repainted and modified [[Franchise/StarTrek Captain Kirk]] mask) worn in the original film. It looks different in the sequel because the paint had faded due to a few reasons, first because Nick Castle, the original Michael, kept it in his back pocket during shoots. Also, Debra Hill kept the mask under her bed for several years until the filming, causing it to collect dust and yellow because Hill was a heavy smoker. Also, the mask appears wider because Dick Warlock is shorter and stockier than Nick Castle, so the mask fit his head differently. As the producers thought it would be the final sequel in the series, they let Warlock keep the mask, scalpel, boots, jumpsuit, and knife used in filming. When they decided to revive Michael in ''Film/Halloween4TheReturnOfMichaelMyers'', the producers realized they had made a mistake and never again gave props out to the cast and crew, therefore subsequent sequels used different masks that looked rather different.
* RealLifeRelative: Both of Dick Warlock (Michael Myers)'s sons played small roles; his older son Billy plays a teenager named Craig who asks Deputy Hunt about Ben Tramer, while his younger son Lance is a boy wearing a cowboy hat and carrying a large boombox who Michael bumps into while walking around on the streets of Haddonfield.

* SparedByTheCut: The TV ReCut does this to a couple of characters. Jill is definitely killed in the theatrical cut, but her stabbing is softened in the TV version - with a few groans dubbed over the shot where she falls to the floor (implying she survives). The girl Alice that Michael kills in the opening is seemingly spared by re-editing the scene where Mrs Elrod discovers the bloody knife in her kitchen (implying she dies instead of Alice). Janet's death is removed, and replaced with a scene where she says she's leaving the hospital. Jimmy's fate is left open in the theatrical version - he passes out from a concussion in the parking lot - but the TV cut confirms he survives.

** Debra Hill claimed that they toyed with the idea of shooting for 3-D. But as the film would take place mainly at night, that idea was abandoned.

** According to the original script there was a scene depicting the blonde reporter's death, her car breaks down on the side of the road with her getting assistance from a guy who hits on her, with her responding in disgust, the truck driver then leaves her, after the tire is replaced she opens the trunk to Myers who then kills her and takes the car, as a nod to what he did in the first film.
** One idea that was considered that the film would take place a couple of years after the first one, and that Laurie would be attending college when Michael turns back up.
* WriteWhatYouKnow: One common criticism is that the hospital is too conveniently dead, even for a night shift, for Michael to be able to walk around unnoticed and kill the hospital staff. Rick Rosenthal said he based this off a personal experience he had with his wife where they once attended a hospital late at night and it was completely deserted, save for a few doctors and nurses and the patients. Additionally early dialogue and the script refers to it as "Haddonfield clinic" not a fully staffed hospital.

* BTeamSequel: Creator/JohnCarpenter left the directing reins to Rick Rosenthal, though he did co-write and score the film, as well as directing additional scenes.

* BTeamSequel: Creator/JohnCarpenter left the directing reigns to Rick Rosenthal, though he did co-write and score the film, as well as directing additional scenes.

** Creator/JamieLeeCurtis has only twenty five minutes of screentime in the final film, despite getting top billing. But in the TV cut, she has a few extra scenes.
** Charles Cyphers is billed third, but his character (Sheriff Brackett) disappears less than halfway into the film, never to appear in the franchise again.

** Nancy Loomis reappears both to play Annie's corpse, and to supply the voice of Sally - the girl Alice is talking to on the phone before she gets killed.