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Let me get this out of the way first. I hate Rob Zombie. Hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. His first two films, House Of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, were an exercise in unpleasantness and patience. I’d rather watch Uwe Boll’s entire library than sit through those films again. At least I’d have a little bit of fun goofing on those movies. When I heard that he was directing a remake of Halloween, I practically lost it. I felt he was going to wreck it, plain and simple. If Busta Rhymes doing karate on Meyers wasn’t enough to kill the franchise, Rob Zombie doing a remake will. So I saw the remake, and surprisingly, it was actually halfway decent. Zombie did his own thing, but also following traditional Halloween lore at the same time. The back story for Michael, though I agree it diminished the mysteriousness of the character, was done in not a bad way. So I walked out of the theater sort of pleased. This is only for the theatrical cut, by the way. The horrid “Let’s include a rape scene for fun” Director’s Cut gets no respect from me. So, after the Weinstiens decided to do a DTV sequel, Zombie stepped in and decided to direct it in order for the film to be theatrical. Despite on numerous occasions saying he wasn’t going back for a sequel, he does it anyway. So the Weinstiens gave Zombie the keys to the franchise, and told him to do whatever they wanted.

I hope they’re kicking themselves about now.

Halloween II (or H2) takes place one year after the first film. Well after the first 20 minutes anyway. Laurie Strode is now a grunge girl living with Annie and her father Brackett. She’s been having rather messed up dreams involving a young Meyers and his mother, but her friend and father don’t seem to mind, as it’s only brought up after the first dream and never again. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis has written yet another book about Meyers escape and slaughter in the first film, and it has turned him into a egotistical prick. As for Michael? Yeah, he took that bullet to the face like a champ and is now walking the world as a killer Grizzly Adams Hobo Santa Claus, while also seeing visions of his mom, his younger self, and a white horse. Now Michael decides to go on yet another rampage for kicks and get his Sister back to be a family again.

Before I say anything else, let me say this. I really liked the first 20 minutes of this movie. It grabbed me as soon as it started, it was full of tension and suspense, though there were a couple things I didn’t like, I felt that this will be a superior film to his original.

But, like an atomic bomb, it went straight down and blew up in my face. That’s what I get for having expectations for a Rob Zombie film. After the first reel, the film took a left turn into “WTFville”, creating one of the most brutal, unpleasant, misogynistic, and just overall terrible horror films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. I gave the first remake a little credit, because while Zombie did most of his own thing, it at least has some of the spirit of a Halloween film. Here, nothing, and I mean NOTHING here even remotely resembles a Halloween film. It’s a soulless, hallow film that will make even the most basic Halloween fan rage with anger.

The character of Loomis in the original series was, as Behind The Mask put it so brilliantly, an “Ahab”. Someone who knows everything about the killer, and will do anything to hunt him down and stop him before he kills again. The Loomis in the remake did an alright job supporting that. In the sequel….well…you saw my synopsis at the top. This guy is no longer Loomis, he’s a jerk-off named Loomis. There’s a scene where Loomis looks at a picture of himself in his outfit from the first movie and goes “What is this? That’s the old Loomis! THIS *Points to himself* is the new Loomis!”. The scene played out like a huge middle finger to the fans, much like the whole movie did. Loomis has become a useless character whose only purpose in Zombie’s “brilliant” vision, was to be a dumbass, arc-less, prick.

Laurie fares only slightly better, if only because instead of running around being dumb, she just runs around being whiny. The actress does a fairly decent job, but her overall arc one will see coming like a mile away, and not the good kind of arc either. Annie was utterly useless. I could go into more detail about that, but that would just be spoiling all the fun for you guys/girls. Nevertheless, watch the trailer, and you should know what I am talking about.

Brackett, played by Brad Douriff, gives the strongest performance, delivering the only character I cared about in this entire affair. I felt that the film should have just focused on him going after Meyers with shotguns and blowing him away, at least it would have been at least decent.

Every problem I have with the film rests solely on Rob Zombie. I mentioned before that the film is misogynistic, and believe me, it is. Every male kill, aside from two, play out like a blink and you’ll miss it kill. When a woman dies, Zombie liked to play it out as long as humanly possible, even using slow motion just to keep it going longer than it needs to be. For example, a nurse at the beginning gets stabbed possibly more 20 times, it just goes on forever. I don’t know what the character’s feeling is on women, but as far as I was concerned, in the first movie, the males were the ones giving him crap, and all females he knew were an annoying sister and a loving mom. So I’ll chalk this up to being Zombie’s random fetish for killing women slowly.

The next problem is Michael’s visions of his mom and younger self. There is no reason for this. Zombie attempted to make this believable by having a little bit at the beginning foreshadowing it, but it failed miserably. Sheri doesn’t belong in the film, and should have stayed that way. Also, the re-casted young Meyers was TERRIBLE. The first film’s Meyers was at least tolerable, here his delivery was like reading cue cards. Ugh. Oh, the ending. I won’t spoil it (unless you want me to. Just PM me I suppose), but it’s bad. How bad? Like kill the franchise bad. Its obvious Zombie hates this franchise, so he made DAMN sure to massacre it at the end of the movie.

I think I’ve rambled on long enough. So in closing….yeah…f*** this movie.

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