*** Official HALLOWEEN II (2009) Review Thread

I basically agree with Michael's review. I thought it was better than the first Rob Zombie Halloween but I wasn't the biggest fan of that movie either. Although both RZ movies are still better than any of the Halloween sequels of the last 20 years. I liked that Zombie tried to do his own thing with this movie rather than just remaking the first one over and over (like all the sequels did).

While I enjoyed Malcolm McDowell as Loomis, I like that they reduced his role rather than having him running around and saying "He's out there, sheriff!" for most of the movie. I liked seeing Brad Douriff with a bigger role this time out. All the character actor cameos were fun (Daniel Roebuck and Dayton Callie) and some of the music choices were cool (you don't really hear The MC5 in movies very much).

I'm hoping that the inevitable director's cut adds more than just gore to the movie so the audience can get to know some of the other characters a little better before they get killed.

What's frustrating/sad about both of Zombie's Halloweens is that there's parts of both movies that I think are pretty good but they get wiped away by the parts that don't work. All this being said, it'll be a moot point because very few people are going to see this movie anyway.

This thread is now the Official Review Thread for "Halloween II (2009)". Please post all HTF member reviews in this thread.

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Crawdaddy

Turning Michael Myers into a real world serial killer was a stupid idea when Rob Zombie unleashed his tepid re-imagining on audiences in 2007 and, in 2009, it hasn't gotten any better.

Halloween II redux is an absolutely clueless sequel that takes everything wrong with the awful original and magnifies it.  Even worse characters?  Check.  A total lack of suspense?  Absolutely.  Bottom-of-the-barrel writing?  In spades.

In this sequel, Michael's psychology is explored, but it's superficial.  I still remember when people complained about the "Curse of Thorn" that hampered the sixth Halloween film back in 1995.  Well that motivation is no longer the silliest explanation for Big Mike's history because, frankly, the white horse angle is the most awesome "bad idea" I've seen realized on film.  It adds nothing to the story (Michael is after Laurie, same as in Zombieween ... you could drop the white horse junk without changing the story beat a wink) except for unintentional laughter.

And then there's Michael himself.  His look in this sequel is a mistake:  the tattered clothing and the rotted mask, but it's even worse that he often doesn't wear the mask.  The mask is intrinsic of the character.  Otherwise Myers is just some gigantic, smelly hobo wading his way through Haddonfield without any rhyme or reason - and that's exactly what happens in this dreck.  If Michael wants Laurie so badly, what's with all the pit stops?  Michael kills so many needless characters in this film that you get the sense that Zombie was fresh out of story ideas and needed the padding.

Sequels like Halloween 4 also offered body count padding, but they were at least incorporated into the story in a believable way (ie - Michael killing the guy at the power station so to plunge the town into darkness).  In this movie, we know that Michael's motivation is to find his sister.  This character does nothing strategic, so why does he even bother with anyone else?

And while he's bothering with everyone else, the movie is as tired and yawn-inducing as any slasher movie ever made.  Zombie cannot, for the life of him, stage a suspenseful scene.  So instead of playing with audience expectations, Michael thunders out of nowhere and beats the ever loving shit out of his victims.  This is repeated ad nausea.  Like the films themselves, Zombie's Michael is all fury, but there's no scares to go along with it. 

And there's the rest of the characters, too.  What an unpleasant bunch.  This film's Laurie Strode is understandably shaken over the events of the last film.  But because Rob Zombie cannot write any character that isn't a redneck caricature, all Laurie really does is run around whining and hurling expletives.  Again and again.  I liked some of her quieter scenes with another Zombieween survivor, but they're over far too quickly.  Laurie's new friends are as generic as they come:  they hurl a few expletives before Michael gets to them.  Yawn.  And when Michael finally gets to Laurie, the climax is as hokey and anti-climactic as they come.  You see, so much of the first half of the film is Michael WALKING through fields, approaching Haddonfield with one thing on his mind:  Laurie (and the murder of a half-dozen ancillary characters), that when he finally gets to her the movie ends with staggering weightlessness.

So what's good about it?  Two things.  Brad Douriff and Malcolm McDowell.  Douriff earns the distinction of being the closest thing to an honest and decent character that Zombie has ever written, but it's more a testament to Douriff's great performance than anything else.  McDowell, on the other hand, is so poorly written this time around that it's blasphemy to see the great character of Dr. Loomis utterly trashed like this.  But still, McDowell is clearly having a grand old time with the character and he's incredibly fun to watch.  It's a shame that Zombie didn't feel like doing much with the character this time around, but I liked his scenes very much.

That said, this is a horrible movie, through and through.  I know that Rob Zombie's Michael Myers is no longer "The Shape", and that's a damn shame.  There were plenty of ways to reinvent the series without mucking with the character and that's why I say these last two Halloween films are head and shoulders below even the worst film in the original series (yes, I would re-watch Resurrection before either of these pieces of shit).  With this film, every last bit of mystique has been stripped away from Michael Myers, leaving a smelly old hobo in the wake of the unstoppable Boogieman. 

I'm thrilled to see this pile of trash under performing at the box office.  After this truly miserable experience, Halloween and Michael Myers need to go away for a long while and let this failed experiment fade out of the public subconscious.  Only then will the time be right for a proper resurrection of the Boogieman.

Halloween II


Starring Wierd Al Yankovick and Sheri Moon Zombie...
If that doesn't make you NOT want to see the movie, than by all means enjoy this horrible, silly, un-inspired mess. 

Well Matt pretty much summed up my feeling exactly

I was willing to give Zombie a mulligan and hope he learned from the error on the first one and could create a stronger film this time around. I griped about the first one, but I saw this anyway because I'm a Halloween junkie and the major papers I read today actually gave this moderately good reviews.

I thought there was potential in the first one but the flaws just outweighed the positives by too much. Well all the problems of the first were exponentially multiplied in this outing. At least the first one had a relatively simple concept, watching this one, I felt like this was meant to been seen while on acid, with all the mental imagery (which I agree was a total ploy just so Zombie's wife could have a part) Here's a hint, if you're an actress where the only stuff you get cast in are your husband's films, maybe it's not the right thing for you.

While I thought the first was flawed and weak, this was just confusing and made little sense. For example, if you're Laurie Stode, and so haunted by the experience of the first film, why the hell didn't you save a few bucks and high tail it to West Palm for the week of Halloween.

Once again, no characters who one could feel anything for. The Laurie Strode character was even more off putting than in the first film. I don't get why these horror filmmakers still don't understand that what makes good horror and suspense is not the monster, but offering characters that we want to see live.

The kills were boring, they were mostly just stabbings. Hell, I don't have a problem if you want to make an exploitave film, but at least offer some varietly of creative kills. Even the original Halloween II managed to do that.

As for the Loomis character, as much as I like Malcolm McDowell, his role in the film was virtually unnecessary. They should have dropped most of his role. It would have been more effective if the story had just acknowledged he wrote an exploitive book and then had him show up at the end. And speaking of which, how was it not discovered unitl this film that Laurie was Michael's sister, that should have came out almost immediately after the events of the first one.

The most significant of very few bright spots in the film was Brad Dourif, an actor who gives me the impression that he is a true professional. He was the only good character in the film. The only other good part was getting to listen to "Nights in White Satin" Which, even though I'm a big Moody Blues fan, did get what was up with how the song and the video (with a tv turning on by itself) kept repeating through the hospital parts.

The sad thing is that I do think Zombie actually does have some flair as a director. There were a few shots of Michael waking towards Haddonfield in the early evening that I liked. But the guy just does not understand what make a compelling story. It makes me think that "The Devil's Rejects" was just him getting lucky and making a decent exploitation film by accident.

What a load of garbage. We didn't need a remake of the 1978 HALLOWEEN, and we required another sequel remake entitled HALLOWEEN II even less. But here it is, with dark and hard-to-follow photography and characters you'd just love to shove a hot pitchfork through yourself, who you couldn't care less about. I will never speak out loud during a film at the theater, but when the foul-mouthed Laurie of this movie (Scout Taylor-Compton ???) kept babbling the "F" word over and over in between being a strung-out obnoxious junkie, at one point I couldn't resist the urge to yell out: "OH, WILL SOMEBODY KILL HER PLEASE???", while my wife hushed me with a sternly embarrassed "Shhhhhhhhh". I couldn't help it; this film and its characters were horrible.  Oh, and the little girl who was in HALLOWEEN's 4 and 5 has a sizeable part here too, like anyone cares.

What's there to say about the plot? Some oversized homeless person - who we'll call Michael Myers because that's what Zombie wants us to do - returns to seek out young Laurie Strode (I hate to even disgrace the original innocent and wholesome Jamie Lee Curtis character by calling this tramp by the same name), presumably egged on by the ghost of his mother. Once you're made aware that this mom is played by director Zombie's own wife again, you realize that her frequent re-appearance is only to somehow justify her getting another part. Then we have clueless Malcolm McDowell, once again defaming the good name of  "Dr. Loomis" from the original films by reducing the character to nothing more than a self-centered money grubbing opportunistic A-Hole (he even calls himself that at one point). His presence was so out of place in this picture that he could very well have been written out and nobody would have noticed. Poor, poor Donald Pleasence, R.I.P.    

The one reason I've given this dreck a star is because many of the killings by this Myers are brutal, and uncomfortably enhanced by him grunting savagely when destroying his prey -- very effective and unsettling. This is not your dad's Mike Myers -- though then again, this isn't really Michael Myers, period.   I actually liked Rob Zombie's THE DEVIL'S REJECTS a lot ... but who knew back then that this type of trailer trash stuff was the only thing he knew had to do?  Everyone and everything here is so dirty, depraved, and infested with grime that you'd applaud if Myers would just nuke the entire town. Even Brad Dourif as the town sheriff is portrayed as a slimey redneck.   

Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN made me appreciate John Carpenter's original more than I had previously. And now his HALLOWEEN II actually makes the 1981 sequel of the same name look like a classic. I guess behind every dark cloud there is a silver lining.

Well said, Joe.

One week later, I'm still thinking back to this colossal disaster and laughing about it.

In my eyes, there will not be a worse film this year.  H2 is simply awful.

This wasn't a movie...this was a mess. I won't waste anymore time or brain space talking about it.

I usually compose longer reviews with much more passion, even for films I dislike.

Not this time.

Hot shit on a stick this film was horrid! Just an unpleasant mess that wants to pummel you into submission.

Just for kicks I decided to try out the directors cut to see if it was in any way an improvement over the crap I saw theatrically.

It wasn't.

It, just...wasn't.