After my disappointment with Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween I vowed never to spend hard earned cash on any follow up unless it amounted to maybe 2 euro. I stuck with this and eventually got to watch this on Sky.
Before I start the rant I have to say I am a huge fan of Zombies first two movies, House of a 1000 corpses and the sequel, The Devil's rejects. For me they embodied everything Rob Zombie is about. What came across in them most is that this guy is a true horror film fan. He know's what's gonna get gorehounds excited. With Captain Spaulding and the rest of the family he created characters that will grace t-shirts for many years to come.
So why was his Halloween so bad(In my opinion, of course). He took a classic and diluted it into an MTV style slasher.
My main problem with it was the whole back story of how Michael turned into the killer.
That, my friends, is what made the original scary.
In Carpenter's movie Michael is just a kid who snaps and kills his sister, doesn't speak a word for years and then goes on a murderous rampage. No motivation, nothing, just that he is the embodiment of pure evil.
Showing this 'poor white trash' background, drunk abusive stepdad and various bullying being the springboard for Michael's bloodlust is taking all mystery out of the equation.
My other gripe was the mask. The original features a ghostly white, expressionless face. We have one quick glimpse of adult Michael's face in one scene so to the audience Michael is the little kid at the start. It's a scary thought.
Zombie, to be fair tried to be accurate with Michael hiding his mask under the floor hence the 'beat up' look. But it doesn't give the creeps like the originals.
Enough about that, onto the sequel..
So the day before Halloween I sat down and watched it, forgetting the bad reviews I read about this follow up.
This movie is basically a direct follow on to the first movie, set a year after the event it follows Laurie Strode(Scout Taylor Compton) who is Michael's sister. She is living with Sheriff Lee Bracket(Brad Dourif) and his daughter Annie(Dannielle Harris) who was brutally attacked in the first movie. Michael is skulking around like a hobo waiting for the word from his dead mom and her horse.
Yes, his dead mom(Sheri Moon Zombie) and a white horse are guiding Michael in his latest quest for blood. Ridiculous as it may sound it is a mystery why we need to be subjected to this. Zombie is basically spelling it out to us why Michael wants his sister dead(so they can be a family again!). Come on for fuck sake lads! Also if that wasn't bad enough, his mom and horse are joined by young Michael. Adult Michael is being guided by(and in one scene helped by) the ghost of himself when he was younger.
There is also a hilarious scene when Laurie(who is constantly having visions of killings and other horrible things) sees her shrink(Superman's Margot Kidder) who attempts to give her patient more sleepless nights. Laurie explains the visions and states that she knows Michael Myers is dead but Kidder puts a seed of doubt in her head by saying he might still be out there coz they didn't find the body!!! Who needs enemies!
Also, Michael spend half of the movie without his mask and then gets half of the mask ripped off so the image of Myers is not really gonna give you sleepless nights.
Gripes aside Halloween 2 could have been a pretty decent horror movie as there are plenty of good things.
Firstly the gore is fantastic and very graphic. There are multiple stabbings that seem to go on a little too far, which adds to the brutality of the act. There are some really graphic murders and scenes that will get the gorehounds salivating.
Secondly Zombie has a gift when it comes to filmmaking. This movie is no exception in that it is looks fantastic.
There are some great performances in it. Brad Dourif is excellent as the sheriff and both Taylor-Compton and Harris(who is a surviver from the original series) are pretty good as hysterical teenagers! Even Malcom McDowell is very believable as the horrible character of Sam Loomis.
So after seeing it would I be tempted to spend money on it? Maybe! If the director's cut omitted all the 'dead mom' footage this would be a pretty decent and violent movie worthy to sit along side Zombie's first two films but somehow I doubt the director's cut is like this.
In conclusion I enjoyed this movie much more than it's predecessor but it has quite a few flaws that bugged the hell out of me.
Score:
Gore 8/10
Scares 2/10
Nastiness 7/10
Overall 5/10 Without the 'mom & horse' 8/10
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