I’m one of the few (closeted) horror fanboys out there who didn’t hate Rob Zombie‘s gritty, grimy, foul mouthed remake of John Carpenter‘s classic “Halloween”. I didn’t love it, but I actually thought the first half of the movie, that showed Michael Myer’s messed up childhood, was pretty strong. However, in the second half, where it basically became a summarized version of Carpenter’s original, it just completely went down the shitter.
So, I approached Zombie’s sequel to his remake (which is not a remake of the original sequel), with an open mind. I thought now that Mr. Zombie had freed himself of the shackles of the original movie’s story, he could really go out there with this sequel and completely blow my mind, which he did unexpectedly with his awesomely intense “The Devil’s Rejects”. Sadly though, he didn’t. With the exception of a few scenes, “Halloween II” basically passed in front of me with little effect at all. I neither liked it nor disliked it. For the most part, it left me feeling indifferent.
Picking up right where the previous one ended, we find out that Michael Myers (the ever physically imposing Tyler Mane) somehow survived having a .357 unloaded into his face as he escapes from the ambulance taking him to the morgue. Cut to a year later, Michael’s little sister Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is on the verge of becoming a complete basket case. She’s adopted a sort of punk/emo/whatever-the-fuck-they-call-it-now look, complete with metal band t-shirts and tattoos. She works in an indie music store, swears like a sailor, and has recurring nightmares of Michael coming to get her.
Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), survived his injuries from the previous film (if you saw the Director’s Cut DVD), and is now on a tour promoting his new book about Myers. As for Michael himself, he moved into the nearby woods, laid low for the past year, grew himself a lumberjack beard, and now that it’s his favorite time of year again, he’s come back to pay his kid sister another visit. He also has strange visions of his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie), himself as a kid (Chase Vanek), and a white horse (I shit you not).
That leads me to something I truly disliked about this movie, the ghostly visions of Mom and the dream sequences. I know Zombie was trying to probe deeper into the psyches of Michael and Laurie, that he was trying to add another layer to it all by establishing some kind of psychic link between them. But for me, it didn’t work. The ghostly visions of Mom are contrived, silly, and only exist to give Rob Zombie’s wife a role in the movie (dude’s gotta get laid somehow, I guess). The dream sequences look as though they were shot and edited by a pretentious first year film student bucking to be the next David Lynch. They look like they belong in another movie, and they do.
I also didn’t like what Zombie did with the Dr. Loomis character. Not only is Loomis’s story thread, for the most part, completely detached from everything else that’s happening in the movie, but he’s also an arrogant, opportunistic prick in this one. In the original series, Loomis was the hero, albeit a slightly unhinged one. Here, he’s a complete asshole. Boo on that!
On the positive side of things, I found Taylor-Compton, as Laurie, to be far less annoying than she was in the previous film. Last time, I was actively rooting for her death. This time, I actually found myself at times compelled by her performance… although she does have some questionable moments, like where she tearfully proclaims “I miss my parents so much!” The couple sitting near me actually laughed out loud at that moment. There’s also a sequence where Michael goes on a rampage in a strip club (the one his Mom used to work at), that was bloody impressive. Much of the final third of the movie is actually intense and exciting, minus the Mom hallucinations. And the final scene I thought was pretty killer, and despite this being the “conclusion” of Zombie’s “Halloween” films, it does leave things open for a sequel… if the box office warrants it.
Overall, Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II” is a passable if pretty unspectacular slasher flick. There’s a ton of blood letting, some nicely brutal killings, and even some T&A… enough to keep gorehounds satisfied. But none of it is particularly memorable. Zombie keeps the same “white trash” aesthetic that he established in his remake; the photography is handheld and dirty, and most of the characters are unlikable and spout the F-word like it’s going out of style. Zombie also finds bit parts for old genre actors, and he even makes room for a gratuitous Weird Al Yankovich cameo.
Bottom line, if you liked Zombie’s “re-imagining of a horror classic” from 2007, then you might like his sequel to his re-imaging. But if you hated his remake (as many did), then you would be wise to avoid this one like the plague.
