Classic Movie Review Halloween 2

Halloween 2 (1981) 

Directed by Rick Rosenthal 

Written by John Carpenter, Debra Hill 

Starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance, Dick Warlock 

Release Date October 30th, 1981 

Published October 13th, 2022 

So, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Michael Myers (Dick Warlock) are siblings. So now what? Apparently, the answer to so now what was let's do what we did the first time to ever diminishing returns. Halloween 2 is set on the same night as the original, October 31st, 1978. Michael Myers has been shot by Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), but has managed to escape. Laurie is hurt and deeply traumatized. She's taken to a hospital where they plan to treat her cuts and bruises and give her a good night's sleep with some good drugs. 

Unfortunately for everyone at the hospital, Michael Myers is not one to give up. Even with several bullet wounds, he plans on finding his heretofore unknown sister and killing her for some nebulous reason. But, before he can get to her, he needs to mess about killing randos. this means finding a couple having sex in the hospital therapy tub, ewwwwwww, and nearly melting their skin off before knifing them but good. Yes, sure, death to those who have sex in therapy pools, but this seems like an unnecessary detour for Michael Myers. 

If the end goal is killing Laurie Strode then why is Michael constantly achieving side quests like he's playing GTA? When he gets to the hospital Michael takes the time to sabotage every vehicle in the parking lot. And, in case someone tries to call the authorities whose bullets can't stop him, Michael rips out the phone line. Then he wastes time searching for Laurie Strode by murdering random hospital employees and posing them for best horror effect. This is a Michael Myers trope that always boggles my mind, why does Myers feel the need to pose his victims? 

When you think about it, for a guys whose aesthetic is stoic, stalking, methodical maniac, Michael is rather flamboyant in how he poses his kills. For instance, he murders a nurse by having all of her blood drain out of her in a perfect pool while she sleeps the sleep of death. He stabs another doctor in the eye with a needle and leaves him perfectly posed with the needle in his eye for best horror effect. If you want to have fun, just imagine the effort and time it must take Michael to take and crumple the bodies of victims he doesn't pose into the various hiding places he pushes them into. 

Click here for my full length review of Halloween 2 at Horror.Media. 

Movie Review Halloween 2 (Remake)

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.