Bound Horror! – JACK MARTIN: “Halloween II” (1981)

It’s almost September, so you know what that means…it’s time to start bustin’ out the Halloween stuff!

Dennis Etchison is a fine horror and fantasy writer in and of himself, but strangely enough he’s possibly best remembered for the film novelizations he wrote under the pseudonym of “Jack Martin” back in the early 1980s. The core of these releases were adaptations of the first three HALLOWEEN films, and I was lucky enough to find this copy of “Halloween II” in a second-hand shop back around 1986.

The use of John Carpenter and Debra Hill’s screenplay as a template for this Zebra Movie Tie-In is all too obvious. Etchison takes small liberties in a few places, but overall this is nearly a word-for-word recitation of the film. The good news is that our plucky author gives extra flair to the descriptions of Michael Myers’s bloody attacks, which is the talent this kind of work lives and dies by, no pun intended. Remember that first victim in the film–the girl on the phone? What’s reduced to a mere one second in the film is given a descriptive flourish by Etchison: “The cut came swiftly from behind, clean and deep and straight across, so that the blood shot out in all directions from the extra mouth that now opened below her chin, spattering her face and eyelashes and hair as well as her white shirt with a hissing, pumping spray that covered several feet of carpet and furniture before the shape released her and let her sink down to the floor.” Goddamn, that’s gotta be the longest sentence I’ve read this week, but you gotta admit it certainly livens up the proceedings, whether you’re a fan of the film or not.

Like most of these rare, old movie tie-in novelizations, this one, is going to for a pretty penny these days, too. Unless you’re a Haddonfield die-hard, it’s not worth the coinage (I’m seeing prices averaging between $50 and $100), but if you can luck into a sensibly-priced copy like I did years ago, snatch it up and relish in an ‘extended remix’ of More of the Night He Came Home.

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