In 2007 Rob Zombie took it upon himself to remake the classic slasher movie Halloween, for a new generation of viewers. Well this past weekend, he continued the story with Halloween 2. In this one as you might guess Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) is still very much alive, and is still on the hunt for his younger sister. If you saw the original movies then this pattern is not new to you. Michael chased his sister through most of the original movies, so that part of the story has not changed. What I liked about Zombie’s first remake of the first movie, was that he showed how this kid just snapped one day and killed everyone in his family except his mother and young baby sister. It finally gave a back story to Michael’s character and why he turned out to be the brutal killer of so many people. This next chapter in the story takes place a year after the events of the first one and Michael is back out on Halloween night killing more innocent victims while searching for his younger sister, Angel.
After Rob Zombie’s first rendition of the story, I thought that this one would be just as good as or even better than the first. Boy was I ever so wrong. Obviously he let the success of the first film go to his head, and had no room up there to write another good story. This movie was absolutely, positively, without a doubt the worst movie I’ve seen all year. After the first 30 minutes I was seriously considering just leaving the theater, but I had an obligation to my readers to watch it through, if only for the reason of making sure no one else spends they’re hard earned cash on this disaster of a film. From beginning to end, this movie disgraced the legacy that is the Halloween franchise. Not since The original Halloween 3 movie have I seen a sequel or continued part of a franchise go so horribly wrong. I don’t know if Rob Zombie was pressed for time to release this, or if he just didn’t know what to do next. All I know was that this story he gave us was just plain stupid. First of all when has Michael Myers or any other killer in a slasher movie ever grunted when killing his victims? That bothered me a lot. Was he trying to somehow let us hear the intensity of each deadly blow Michael was giving his victims? I don’t know. All it seemed like to me was that maybe Michael had asthma and each swing of his arm took a lot out of him. Then it was the premonitions Michael had of his dead mother (Sheri Moon Zombie). What was that all about? Michael’s mother in the first film wasn’t mean. She was a decent enough mother who although her young son had butchered all but one other member of the family, she still came to visit him. In this movie he made it seem like she was telling him to kill people. Hey Rob, you have your slasher movies mixed up, that’s Jason Voorhees, who has the sadistic mother. While we’ll on the topic of his mother, what was up with the white horse? I saw no reason for a horse to be rented, just to be filmed in a scene that made no sense anyway. Were you trying to fill up the budget?
I did notice one smart move in this movie which I wish I would have thought of. Most of the original cast did not come back to be in this sequel, that is except for Malcolm McDowell and a couple of insignificant characters. Then there was the lack of gore in this one. Most of the time you just see Michael’s arm going up and down stabbing people, but that’s it. There was one scene where Michael is seen eating a dog. Now I know your saying to yourself, why is Michael eating? In one of the original movies, they hinted that Michael had eaten a dog. I couldn’t figure out then, and I still can’t figure out now, why he would need too. He basically can’t die, that is unless you cut off his head, as done by Jamie Lee Curtis in the last film of the original series of movies, so why would he need nourishment? I guess this was another way of making Michael seem like a real human. Guess what Rob! If he was just a deranged human he would have died from the gunshots wounds, he inflicted at the end of the first movie. This movie was just bad on all possible levels. I have no choice but to let this be the very first movie that I give no stars to at all. The only horror in this movie was the script and the only thing that should have been slashed was the film itself. Also now I hear they are planning to do a Halloween 3 in 3D scheduled for release in the summer of 2010. So I guess movie viewers will see another quickly made disaster that will jump out of the screen at you. I for one won’t be there to catch it. The movie runs 1 hour and 41 minutes. It was rated R for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, terror, disturbing graphic images, language, and some crude sexual content and nudity. It was written and directed by Rob Zombie. It was produced by Trancas International Films, Inc. It was distributed by The Weinstein Company
Reviewed by Eric Williams
Sometimes you have to leave well enough alone, and move on. Ezo
Next week’s review: The Final Destination
