Halloween 2 (2009)
Directed by Rob Zombie
Written by Rob Zombie
Starring Scout Taylor Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris
Release Date August 28th, 2009
Published August 27th, 2009
Rob Zombie just doesn't know when to quit. Thinking that he is pushing the envelope, Zombie adds one more swing of the knife, one more snap of the bone, one more stomp of a boot to a skull. He can't leave well enough alone and what should be an exercise in horror and fear becomes a twisted, sadistic and just plain sad insight into Zombie's own twisted psyche. This guy wasn't hugged enough as a kid.
Halloween 2 picks up the story of young Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton) who just survived being attacked by crazed killer Michael Myers. With her parents gone Laurie is staying with the sheriff (Brad Dourif) and his daughter. It is exactly one year later and Halloween is once again upon us.
We learn quickly that the body of Michael Myers was never recovered, though another survivor of Myers's attack Dr. Loomis (Malcom McDowell) assures those buying his new book that Michael is dead. He's not. As Halloween looms Michael Myers is seen walking the plains.
Like an evil Caine from Kung Fu, Myers has apparently been wandering the countryside for the past year waiting for Halloween to arrive. Why would a psycho killer wait a year? There is some gobbledygook about Michael's late mother and a deeply set psychosis but really, the only reason Michael has waited is because the movie is called Halloween.
That's about all the depth that writer-director Rob Zombie is capable of. Zombie is a hack who thinks gore is the end all be all of horror. Forget suspense. Forget characters you care about and invest in, the most important thing for Rob Zombie is getting just the right amount of entrails and just the right sound of a knife hitting skin and bone.
There is zero story, a nothing plot, the film is a series of gory set pieces in which a victim is chosen and that victim is dispatched in the loudest and most blood spattered, innards spilling fashion Zombie can dream up. For some, the lower brain oriented, this will be enough. For those with a brain, it will not.
Halloween 2 is as or maybe more brain dead than the 2007 film. Both are supremely inferior to John Carpenter's original which wastes no time with the vague notions of pop psychology that Rob Zombie uses to break up the monotony of blood and guts. Carpenter's killer was a force of nature and his unknown qualities were part of what made him fearsome.
Rob Zombie can't understand this and thinks that the demonstration of human evisceration was what made Halloween a cultural touchstone. He is, of course, wrong and his complete misunderstanding of his chosen genre is part of his overall hackery. Lame dream sequences, overwrought sound effects, overkill gore and awful acting, directing and editing make Halloween 2 one terrifically bad movie.
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