Halloween II (2009)

Michael Myers wears his very bloody mask in Halloween II (2009)

by Gary Sundt

My girlfriend doesn’t much care for scary movies. By that, I mean that she (expletive) hates them. Therefore, when the time came to review writer/director Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, she made sure I covered her eyes whenever something violent happened. Interestingly enough, there wasn’t a single scare, kill, loud noise, etc. that I didn’t have my hand readied for eye coverage.

I mention these details because of one simple fact: Halloween II is very predictable, very gory, very loud, but unfortunately isn’t very scary, interesting or remotely fun to watch.

The movie takes place one year after the events of the first film, where Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is an emotional wreck trying to deal with the events of last Halloween. Meanwhile, the mindless serial killer Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), presumed dead, has been biding his time in the woods until this Halloween, living off raw animal meat and images of his dead mother (Sheri Moon-Zombie) leading a white horse and insisting he goes and kills again.

Yes, all the psychological wackiness, all the issues of child abuse and a bad home life, have been left behind for a shiny horse and a rip-off of Friday the 13th. And that stallion looks just as silly as it sounds.

Anyway, as the night of Halloween approaches, the mask-clad-but-hobo-garbed Myers makes his way back home, carving up seemingly unnecessary stereotypes of classic horror movie victims as he goes. This path is countered by the story of Laurie, who finds out about her sibling relationship to the killer when she snags a copy of the new book by Myer’s old psychologist, the money grubbing Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). She goes psycho, Michael makes it back home, and the body count rises.

The resulting murderous rampage is indeed as grotesque as a Rob Zombie film promises to be, but curiously, few of the sequences leave a lasting impression beyond “gross.” Halloween II’s most frightening (and therefore most successful) sequence is its opening, which is simply a throwback to the original. This means that nothing Zombie brings to the table manages to have any lasting response beyond disgust, which is a shame considering he proved with 2005’s The Devil’s Rejects and the his original Halloween remake that he could do better.

Zombie never intended to make a sequel to Halloween, and this film stands rather unfortunately as proof of that. The humorous redneck undertones that worked in the first film are all but absent, and whatever legitimate scares the original had are replaced by scenes of repeated stabbings by Mr. Myers. Several sequences (but two in particular) exist only to raise the body count, and have no bearing on the film’s central plot whatsoever. Just because something is as revolting as it can be doesn’t mean it’s scary. Neither does sitting uncomfortably on a dead body 10 seconds longer than you need to. Neither does Momma Myers leading a white horse down a hallway.

When I reviewed Zombie’s Halloween remake, I praised his ability to put some fear back into that old Bill Shatner mask. With Halloween II, a noticeable step has been taken in the opposite direction. For those readers who are familiar with the old franchise, Rob Zombie’s Halloween II has all the visceral gore of the 2007 remake, but with the penchant for ridiculousness that plagued Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and the lack of fun that made films like Halloween 4 and 5 miserable films to watch.

For those uninitiated with the franchise, Halloween II pretty much sucks.