Haven't seen this in uncounted decades. Just found it -- beset by sleeplessness -- this morning on TCM. What a delight! 

Powerful story, great performances. 

I'd watched about half of Halloween 2 several years ago, but hadn't been able to get through the whole thing (for it is pretty dire), but I did manage the whole mess this time around. It's very one note and has no real ideas for where to go with the story other than just continue Michael's massacre in bog-standard sequel bigger, bigger, more, more fashion. Full of characters that are introduced for the sake of providing more victims, it gives zero to Jamie Leigh Curtis to do other than whimper and limp and intro's the ill-advised aspect of Michael and Laurie being siblings. Bad idea that adds nothing to the proceedings, but which knocked the series on to a different axis. Hey ho. Kind of amusing how Michael -- an individual with zero education beyond the age of six, remember -- is up to speed on various machines and complex pieces of infrastructure. You can rely on him to know how to successfully cut the power and telephone lines to a hospital and operate the controls of a hydrotherapy tube. Michael by this point is just so boring, the insane killing freak who won't die and just wants to hurt people. Get a life, Michael!

H20 I saw in the cinema (gawd, 20 years ago) and back then I thought it was an effective sequel. It does have an excellent, suspenseful opening sequence and the film has a nicely measured pace and actually tries to have proper characters that aren't just there to die. I was struck by just how short the film is. It builds up nicely to Michael's arrival, but when he does, it doesn't really have too much for him to do. He turns up, kills a couple of people and then we get a final resolution. In the minus column, the mask looks very odd at times, far less scary than in the first film.  Josh Hartnett has a very curious hairstyle here -- kind of like the full Spock cut for the front and sides, but with the fluffy back of a six-year-old's bedhead.

Just wasn't feelin' it this time around... the leads (charming Michael Redgrave and ravishing Margaret Lockwood) and ensemble are all pleasant enough, and there's some interesting (though dated) Hitchcock movie magic throughout, but the overall story and plot contrivances seemed mighty creaky.

Got 2/3rds in and realized, this time, I was bored just didn't care!