A year after the town of Haddonfield was terrorized by the bloody rampage of escaped mental patient Michael Myers, survivors of that night are trying to put their lives back together.
Laurie Strode, Michael’s sister and the person who “killed” Michael and effectively put a stop to big brother’s killing spree, is now living with fellow survivor Annie and her dad Sheriff Lee Brackett.
Dr. Loomis, the man many feel is responsible for the events that happened the year before, angers even more after writing a sleazy book detailing his years treating Michael along with the events of that Halloween that left so many innocent people brutally slaughtered.
As for Michael, well, no one really knows as his body never made it to the morgue it was being transported to. But his whereabouts are about to be known as Halloween is quickly approaching, and Haddonfield’s prodigal son has some unfinished business to take care of.
In a recent interview, Rob Zombie was asked why he was doing a sequel to his 2007 re-imaging of the 1978 classic (a sequel he once stated he would have no part of) to which he responded, “because I can do whatever the fuck I want“. Joking or not, it seems what Rob wanted to do was:
1. Take an iconic horror character
2. Turn them into another iconic horror character
3. Profit?
In Halloween 2, Michael Myers is no longer Evil personified; a soulless, expressionless Great White shark in a sea of seals. Now he is just a pathetic puppet with a dead mother pulling the strings.
Like Norman Bates and Jason Vorhees, Michael Myers is now another of horror’s “Momma’s Boys” who just wants to make mommy proud. But since his mother is dead, and Sherri Moon has to be in the film somehow or Rob sleeps on the couch, Michael simply manifests her in his head.
He envisions her dressed in all white and occasionally accompanied by a large, white horse. Sadly, I am not making this shit up and yes it does look as ludicrous on film as it sounds. Many chuckles arose from the theater audience I was with whenever Sherri Moon showed up (which is quite a lot) and shown leading a white horse, or was joined by the younger version of Michael – still wearing his clown suit.
Halloween 2 is three separate story lines detailing the characters of Michael, Loomis and Laurie. Their individual stories do not converge until the last moments of the film, but because of Rob Zombie’s desire to fill his movies to the gills with people that are impossible to like, you wont give a fuck about any of them.
Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton being as annoying the second time around) is trying to get on with her life, now living with Annie (the still gorgeous Danielle Harris) and her father, Sheriff Lee Brackett (why, Brad Dourif, why?).
She is having re-occuring nightmares about Michael that are becoming more intense as the halloween approaches. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is no longer the caring Doc trying to stop the monster he could not contain, but rather a money-grubbing, insufferable prick who’s only looking to siphon blood money from the gore-thirsty fans of his new book that sensationalizes the tragic events of last Halloween.
Michael Myers still has he same mommy issues shown in the first film, but now he is an unshaven hobo giant living practically unnoticed in a shack. He lumbers around the countryside eating animals and is so desperate to please his dead mom that he would crack his spine to suck his dick if that’s what she told him to do.
When these three characters finally meet at the very end of the film, you will be delighted. Not because Rob Zombie does anything worthwile with it, but because you know the stupidity is almost over.
If it isn’t already obvious, in regards to story and characters, I thought the movie sucked balls. But there was still the remote possibility that some redeeming value can be found on the gore side of the coin. Sure, bloody violence doesn’t make a movie good, as the original had no gore at all, but when a movie is as shitty as this it surely couldn’t hurt, right?
Well don’t bother. Admittedly, there were a couple brutal kills in the beginning of the movie that had some neck-sawing action and a nurse turned into a knife holder. There’s even a nasty face stomping later in the film. But that’s about it. Aside from some murky quick-kills that mostly involved Michael doing repeated, overhead stabbings, the rest of the kills are either off screen or rather tame.
Carpenter’s legendary score was used sparingly in the film or, to be more specific, it was used once at the very end where Sherri Moon is once again leading a white horse towards the camera. You can play the original Halloween score while showing someone bake a cake, and it will still generate a since of foreboding. So that should tell you just how damn dumb scenes of Sherri walking a horse are, as even with the original Halloween score, those scenes are MST3K hilarious.
In place of the the Halloween theme, we are treated to a Tyler Bate’s score being played over-and-over again during the action scenes (and sounds almost identical to his work on the Dawn of the Dead remake). Other than that, it’s Zombie business as usual as he compiles an eclectic selection of tunes to scare you with. Songs like 10cc’s The Things We Do For Love, Foghat’s I Just Want To Make Love To You and Rod Stewart’s I Know I’m Losing You. Yeah, some spooky shit that should work well at your next Halloween party.
The only part about H2 I enjoyed was watching the myriad of Zombie’s annoying characters being murdered because it meant I wouldn’t have to hear them utter one more line of Rob Zombie’s awful dialog. Other than that, I could not list one thing I liked about this movie.
By time the retarded last act arrived, in which we see that Laurie and Michael share the exact same hallucinations at the exact same time – I began to physically hate it. Like it had offended me on a personal level.
You want to watch a spin on the Halloween movies? Go get Halloween 3 Season of the Witch. It may not be the best horror film ever made, or even have Michael Myers in it, but it has some innovative deaths, Tom Atkins, and is ultimately a hell of a lot more entertaining than this turd.
Rating: 
