(2009) ***1/2It's kind of a bummer -- I have all of these compliments to pay Rob Zombie's take on the Halloween franchise. But I feel like I want to hold onto them until I review his first installment, because it's a way better movie than this one. It's easy to see how that happened: when he made the first one, he wasn't expecting to make a sequel. He only assembled a sequel because the studio was going to make one anyway and he didn't want someone wrecking his idea.
I'm not going to say he should have let someone else have a pass, because who knows? Halloween II isn't a bad movie by any means, but it has a lot of holes that weren't there in the first one, and it goes off in a lot of questionable directions. Maybe it's only deserving of three stars, but I consider it at the very least, as I do anything Rob Zombie has made, "worth watching."
Zombie's Halloween examined in great detail the young Michael Myers. He expands on this in the sequel by examining in great detail the survivors of his last rampage -- Laurie Strode, Annie Brackett, and Dr. Sam Loomis. Of these three, only Annie seems to have successfully wandered onto the path of real recovery. Laurie, who has moved in with Annie and her dad, Sheriff Lee Brackett, is barely holding it together. Laurie's on meds (and taking too much of them), she drinks, and she succumbs easily to her agony. Annie snaps at one point, "You act like you're the only one whose life got fucking trashed." When the movie is in exposition mode, its best moments are with these two. The essence of this movie is the sad decline of Laurie Strode.
Loomis is another story. He delivers arrogant lectures on his most famous case, and he's completely blind to the fact that just about everyone sees right through him. His jokes get polite laughter, his critics consider him to be partly to blame for the 13 people killed in the Myers rampage. Hell, even Weird Al Yankovic (who's the other guest on a talk show with Loomis) asks, "Are we talking about the "Austin Powers" Mike Myers or is this someone else?"
Zombie stated that he wanted Loomis to be more "ridiculous" in this installment, and I say, what's the point? Can we think of nothing better to do with someone of Malcom McDowell's talents than to have him annoy us for two hours?
I gripe about this kind exposition, but exposition is something I consider to be a strength of the Rob Zombie Halloweens. That, coupled with the violence is really where this movie is clocking all of its stars. And the violence is pretty delicious. Zombie's Michael Myers isn't the dispassionate, curious sort that John Carpenter's was. He stabs and hacks and stabs some more, and he bellows while he does so -- he's putting his fury into it. The deaths are far more carnal than in the earlier films, and that's a major plus.
But there's a major minus going on here, and I don't want to go into too much detail, but let me just say that the original Halloween, the sequel, and Rob Zombie's first all manage to be strong films without delving for even a second into the supernatural. Halloween II's best moments are its most realistic. Zombie should have stuck to the form that made his first outing work so well.
