Well, Rob Zombie's at it again.
After the tragic runaway box office success(budget: $15 million. Worldwide take: $80 million) of Zombie's 2007 mutilation of John Carpenter's seminal horror film, the rancid rocker returns to the butcher table to further carve up the long-standing legacy of the father of all cinematic slashers.
Bullshit 2--I'm sorry, I mean, Halloween 2--is a sad, murky mess of a movie, which once again is more concerned with permitting "writer/director" Zombie(The Devil's Rejects, the upcoming Tyrannosaurus Rex) to sit in the editing room and jack off to his torture porn than even attempt to tell a reasonably coherent story. The film is a disturbingly rambling shambles which also could stand up in a court of law as evidence that Zombie is in serious need of psychotherapy. The man doesn't just have issues...he has the whole subscription.
Unlike the 1981 original, Zombie's film doesn't pick up immediately after the end of his first film. Instead, we are given a brief definition on the psychological symbolism of a white horse in dreams, which is supposed to represent power awaiting to be unleashed. This is as close to meaningful depth as Zombie gets in the entire movie, as the rest of his symbolism throughout the film--represented as the ghost of Michael's mother Deborah(Sheri Moon Zombie) and the personification of a young Michael(Chase Vanek, taking over the role from Daeg Faerch) guiding present Michael(Tyler Mane) from victim to victim--is almost mind-numbingly heavy handed.
Once the primer on white horses is over, we have a flashback to Deborah visiting young Michael in the sanitarium, where he's been since murdering the entire family. Here, Michael is a still somewhat happy and talkative child, who doesn't become truly brooding until his mother dies sometime later. This of course contrasts with how Michael was portrayed in the original series--as a silent, creepy child who was simply evil--and is the beginning of Zombie's ongoing attempt to distance his remake from any true resemblance to Carpenter's films while simultaneously planting little "homages" here and there. In effect, attempting to have his cake and eat it too. Nothing personifies Zombie's attempt to carve his own bloody initials over Carpenter's more than when at a signing for his new book, the newly vainglorious Dr. Loomis(Malcolm McDowell) looks disapprovingly at a display picture of himself in the trench-coat of the original Loomis, Donald Pleasance, and angrily yells at his manager, "That's old Loomis! I'm the new Loomis!"
Meanwhile, it's one year later and Laurie Strode(Scout Taylor-Compton) still suffers from nightmares about that fateful night. She's now living with her best friend and fellow survivor Annie(Danielle Harris), who happens to be the daughter of the town of Haddonfield's Sheriff Brackett(Brad Dourif). Although the character of Laurie is still painted somewhat sketchily--we sort of see her working at a local store, although she mostly lounges about with a new group of gal-pals who'll obviously serve as little more than cannon fodder for Michael Myers--to her credit, Scout Taylor-Compton's(Bones, Obsessed) acting has improved slightly from abominable to moderately tolerable. Sadly, once again Danielle Harris(Prank, the upcoming Fear Clinic) proves the superior actress, and if Zombie had either a moderate eye for true talent, he would have made her the lead.
The acting in the film is uneven throughout. Dourif(Star Trek: Voyager, Junkyard Dog) gives one of the strongest performances in the film, while McDowell(Heroes, Bolt), an actor I once greatly respected, plays Dr. Loomis as a sold-out douchebag more concerned with trying to get into the skirts of girls young enough to be his granddaughters than helping patients. Meanwhile, Mane(X-Men, Red Serpent) continues to display all the acting skill of a wooden plank, and as little or less understanding of how the character Michael Myers operates than does Zombie. There are also depressing cameos by former luminaries Margot Kidder(Superman: The Movie, Chicks With Sticks) and Howard Hesseman(WKRP in Cincinnati, Silence of the Heart).
Of course, all of the bad acting on display is more Zombie's fault than any of the participants, as the "director" is more concerned with how many stab wounds he can inflict upon each victim, than going to any lengths to actually develop characters as opposed to caricatures. It's impossible to care about any of the cardboard cutouts on display as people, since we know that 98% of them will end up as nothing more than feast for the beast...and it's a sallow feast at that, since Zombie can barely frame any of his shots properly so as to make any onscreen action clearly visible. When the gore does appear, the violence veers wildly between being so vile and unnecessary as to physically repulse, or just being so inadvertantly over the top so as to be completely laughable.
The film makes no sense from beginning to end; whether it has to do with the fact that the body of Michael Myers--the most notorious killer in Haddonfield's history--disappears from the back of a crashed coroner's van and everyone just assumes he's dead and there's nothing to worry about, to a point later on when Laurie comes across a mortally wounded friend in her house and refuses to leave her side, even though she knows Michael did it and must be nearby. With logic like that, is it any wonder the townsfolk are so easily led like lambs to the slaughter?
Rob Zombie's managed to do it again...unless something worse comes out in the next four months, Halloween 2 will make it onto my 5 Worst Films list. For now though, save your money and avoid this dreck at all costs.
REPEAT OFFENDER
With Halloween 2, Rob Zombie takes another dump on a cinematic legend...
"Family is forever". Unfortunately, crappy movies sometimes stay in the mind just as long.
Scout Taylor-Compton wakes up to a living nightmare...she's stuck in another Rob Zombie film.
Tears of a clown: Tyler Mane returns to do another hack job on the legendary personage of Michael Myers.
Tiny terror: Chase Vanek plays a young Michael Myers. If Zombie helms another one of these, hopefully the kid will be wise and play hooky from that one.
