Halloween 2 – Review

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Rob Zombie’s opus is complete. Too bad it sucks.

h2
Image Courtesy of IMPawards.com

Director: Rob Zombie
Notable Cast:
Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Danielle Harris, Brad Dourif, Sheri Moon Zombie, Chase Wright Vanek, Bea Grant, “Weird” Al Yankovic

The original Halloween didn’t need, or warrant, a sequel. And yet, with enough sequels and remakes to hit double digits, there’s no good reason for Halloween 2 to exist other then because the series is still making money. Especially for what can be at best be called a terrible sequel to a lazy, unnecessary remake.

Picking up in the aftermath of where he left off in his remake of Halloween, we pick up with Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) battered and bloodied but still alive after putting six bullets in the seemingly invincible, gargantuan Michael Myers (Tyler Mane). But when he cheats death, and no one has his body, Laurie feels incomplete as well as having serious psychological issues dealing from seeing her friends dismembered (as well as having killed a man, or so she thinks). As he wanders through the world around him, killing people with the same brutality, the crash course of a year ago is amplified and leads to a startling conclusion.

It’s easy to see where Zombie is looking to go with the Halloween franchise with both of his films. This is about the exploration of the mythos of a monster, from beginning to what could be presumed to be an end based on the conclusion of the sequel. Zombie, who wrote the film as well, is using plenty of psychological and mythological bonafides to try and establish a larger story about Michael Myers. He’s trying to establish a bigger story then John Carpenter imagined about a creature that goes bump in the night.

The problem is that he does it in such a sloppy, haphazard manner that any of the good will he engenders is lost quickly in an avalanche of profanity and gratuitous blood and guts. While his calling card is the blood, guts and profanity that has made up his earlier work it’s unnecessary for the film in such mass quantities. Many times people are just cursing for its own sake, especially early one when an EMT after a car accident spends what seems like half an hour just repeating one swear like he was Albert Einstein inventing the theory of relativity. It’s like the blood and guts, which flow like wine at a meeting of alcoholics falling off the wagon. It’s excessive, even by the standards of the genre, because it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t add anything and is there just for its own sake; it takes away from what could be a solid horror film.

And it could be solid, as opposed to awful, if someone could reign in Rob Zombie and his proclivities. Zombie the writer is going for something Zombie the director isn’t; neither is on the same page for the entire film. Zombie the writer wants to explore the mythos and develop Myers as this creature of legend. Zombie the director wants as much splatter as possible and doesn’t care about the mythology trying to be developed. It makes for a film that tries to aim high but falls flat on its face.

FINAL RATING (ON A SCALE OF 1-5 BUCKETS):