You know, I could stand here and argue that Halloween II, a remake of a sequel (and to my knowledge, the tenth Halloween film) would have benefited from a more talented writer/director than Rob Zombie, but then I realized, only a B-grade director would benefit from resurrecting such a needless franchise. So, why not give Zombie a chance to show his chops? I didn’t ruthlessly despise his first Halloween remake, at least not nearly as much as Zombie’s ludicrously esteemed pinnacle epic, The Devil’s Rejects (2005) ---- I’m sorry, I just need to shout this out to all those hetero dude-men that always champion this film whilst I spout my necessary evils----Rob Zombie is NOT the first director whose film asks you to root for the bad guys. And the ridiculous, shopworn, shootout scene in slow motion to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Free Bird” made me cringe in disbelief not only in awe at the intensity of awful cheesiness, but also at this sequence’s celebrated status amongst young, straight males. And the Skynyrd tune is used about as effectively by Zombie as it was in Cameron Crowe’s absurd Elizabethtown (2005).
Moving along, Zombie takes the concept of John Carpenter’s original 1981 hospital bound sequel and morphs it into the first five-ten minutes of his newest abortion, turning all the hospital scenes into a slip-shod dream sequence and fast forwarding the narrative a year ahead of time. We now see Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton returning) as having turning into a dirty-hippy, her hair unkempt, unwashed, and looking eerily similar in color to a rusted, stainless steel sponge. She takes a lot of meds, has goth decorations all over her room, and lives with the Sheriff (Brad Dourif), and his daughter, Annie (Danielle Harris). And Annie is given little to do but stand around in a robe, making breakfast. In fact, I don’t think I recall her ever being out of a bathrobe, meaning her only narrative use seems to be more akin to a short order cook than a character. And yes, Laurie Strode goes to a therapist, a session of which we are treated to watch in one meaningless scene with Margot Kidder as her doctor----which is actually quite funny, at least to those of us that remember Margot Kidder’s little widely publicized nervous breakdown in the late 90’s.
Meanwhile, Malcolm McDowell also returns as Dr. Loomis. While Donald Pleasance was more of the altruistic doctor stereotype (appearing in five of the first six Halloween films), Zombie thinks he’s brilliant by turning Loomis into a opportunistic egomaniac, trying to make a quick buck while publishing a new tell-all tale about Michael Myers and co. Zombie has Loomis and his chirpy assistant actually do a book signing of his newest trash pulp in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Not surprisingly, relatives of butchered family members show up to the signing to make a scene, much to the chagrin of Loomis----maybe he should have picked a major city to promote his book. And what does the sheriff do on the actual day of Halloween as Laurie Strode’s new guardian? Do you think it would be wise to take her on a little trip out of town, maybe just for the first anniversary? No, let her wander around aimlessly and pick up a copy of the highly anticipated book about the man that tried to kill her, in which it documents that she is his sister, something no one bothered to tell her a year ago. Yes, that makes perfect, narrative sense. I’m with you, Rob. Excuse me, I mean Mr. Zombie. At the point where McDowell bitterly expresses how low he’s sunk “spoon feeding drivel to the masses,” I began to ponder if this was Zombie being tongue-in-cheek.
On top of that, as has been reported elsewhere, Zombie tries his hand at art house thematics, apparently thinking he could be Federico Fellini. The film opens with some psycho-babble definition of “white horse,” apparently signifying some sort of psychological turmoil, involving rage, etc, etc, to which we move to a scene with Sheri Moon Zombie visiting young Michael in the sanitarium, where we are treated to jilted dialogue explaining some hoodoo dream about a white horse and Sheri. Yes, he is also playing with a toy that happens to be a large, white horse in this scene. Yes, John Carpenter attempted to imbue the original Halloween II with a deeper meaning (remember the “Samhain” angle introduced ¾ through the film by Donald Pleasance?) but Zombie’s artistic touch looks more like a reimagining for a music video of Goldfrapp’s “Ride a White Horse.” Throughout the rest of the film, we’re treated to ghostly apparitions of Sheri Moon Zombie with a white horse, none of which fit nor make any sense. Apparently she is urging Michael to reunite the family by killing his younger sister. So why wouldn’t these dreams be present in the first one? I imagine Michael Myer’s explaining, “Oh, yeah, and I forgot---I see this horse a lot, since my murderous youth, actually, but that just wasn’t important to the narrative in Halloween, but this newest masterpiece is supposed to be giving you a glimpse of my mind, you know, my motivation. It’s really a brilliant character arc, executed with excellent precision, you know, to juxtapose me and my sister, you know?” Sheri Moon also shares a striking resemblance to Ann Coulter here---as much as I deride her odd pairing with Zombie (it’s like a lipstick lesbian dating Gertrude Stein), I do feel bad using this wicked comparison. I also couldn’t figure out why Zombie insists on portraying Michael Myers as coming from the dregs of white trash while the ghostly apparition of his stripper mother happens to wear a pristine white (or sometimes black) gown while drifting about like a jellyfish on the sea surface.
Michael doesn’t really seem all that bad in this installment---he only kills a bunch of white trash hicks---why not let him have some fun? A puffy Fergie lookalike, a dried out stripper looking like Helen Hunt----Haddonfield has become EBT central in the hands of Rob Zombie. Furthermore, I kept wanting someone, anyone really, to throw Laurie Strode into Michael Myer’s arms so he could have at her. I mean, it would solve everyone’s problems. Strode is portrayed here as a whiny, snivelly, idiot---why is her life so precious, and why is she so spectacularly lucky to have eluded her deadly brother? He would probably stop killing a needless amount of people in searching for her, and then we also wouldn’t be treated to any more sequels, prequels, geekuels or re-makes attempting to modernize the young Strode/Myers dichotomy for a new generation. She does nothing to help herself throughout Halloween II, except to become a vessel of evil to follow in her brother’s footsteps. Instead of helping himself a third installment of homicidal helper, perhaps Zombie should take a step back. After four features it’s about time for a director to branch out, avoid filming only subjects he’s familiar with (in Zombie’s case, white trash) and maybe direct a suburban angst drama. Or maybe a socio-political rom-com? Anything, please, except for something that looks like the drivel that’s come before.
Moving along, Zombie takes the concept of John Carpenter’s original 1981 hospital bound sequel and morphs it into the first five-ten minutes of his newest abortion, turning all the hospital scenes into a slip-shod dream sequence and fast forwarding the narrative a year ahead of time. We now see Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton returning) as having turning into a dirty-hippy, her hair unkempt, unwashed, and looking eerily similar in color to a rusted, stainless steel sponge. She takes a lot of meds, has goth decorations all over her room, and lives with the Sheriff (Brad Dourif), and his daughter, Annie (Danielle Harris). And Annie is given little to do but stand around in a robe, making breakfast. In fact, I don’t think I recall her ever being out of a bathrobe, meaning her only narrative use seems to be more akin to a short order cook than a character. And yes, Laurie Strode goes to a therapist, a session of which we are treated to watch in one meaningless scene with Margot Kidder as her doctor----which is actually quite funny, at least to those of us that remember Margot Kidder’s little widely publicized nervous breakdown in the late 90’s.
Meanwhile, Malcolm McDowell also returns as Dr. Loomis. While Donald Pleasance was more of the altruistic doctor stereotype (appearing in five of the first six Halloween films), Zombie thinks he’s brilliant by turning Loomis into a opportunistic egomaniac, trying to make a quick buck while publishing a new tell-all tale about Michael Myers and co. Zombie has Loomis and his chirpy assistant actually do a book signing of his newest trash pulp in the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois. Not surprisingly, relatives of butchered family members show up to the signing to make a scene, much to the chagrin of Loomis----maybe he should have picked a major city to promote his book. And what does the sheriff do on the actual day of Halloween as Laurie Strode’s new guardian? Do you think it would be wise to take her on a little trip out of town, maybe just for the first anniversary? No, let her wander around aimlessly and pick up a copy of the highly anticipated book about the man that tried to kill her, in which it documents that she is his sister, something no one bothered to tell her a year ago. Yes, that makes perfect, narrative sense. I’m with you, Rob. Excuse me, I mean Mr. Zombie. At the point where McDowell bitterly expresses how low he’s sunk “spoon feeding drivel to the masses,” I began to ponder if this was Zombie being tongue-in-cheek.
On top of that, as has been reported elsewhere, Zombie tries his hand at art house thematics, apparently thinking he could be Federico Fellini. The film opens with some psycho-babble definition of “white horse,” apparently signifying some sort of psychological turmoil, involving rage, etc, etc, to which we move to a scene with Sheri Moon Zombie visiting young Michael in the sanitarium, where we are treated to jilted dialogue explaining some hoodoo dream about a white horse and Sheri. Yes, he is also playing with a toy that happens to be a large, white horse in this scene. Yes, John Carpenter attempted to imbue the original Halloween II with a deeper meaning (remember the “Samhain” angle introduced ¾ through the film by Donald Pleasance?) but Zombie’s artistic touch looks more like a reimagining for a music video of Goldfrapp’s “Ride a White Horse.” Throughout the rest of the film, we’re treated to ghostly apparitions of Sheri Moon Zombie with a white horse, none of which fit nor make any sense. Apparently she is urging Michael to reunite the family by killing his younger sister. So why wouldn’t these dreams be present in the first one? I imagine Michael Myer’s explaining, “Oh, yeah, and I forgot---I see this horse a lot, since my murderous youth, actually, but that just wasn’t important to the narrative in Halloween, but this newest masterpiece is supposed to be giving you a glimpse of my mind, you know, my motivation. It’s really a brilliant character arc, executed with excellent precision, you know, to juxtapose me and my sister, you know?” Sheri Moon also shares a striking resemblance to Ann Coulter here---as much as I deride her odd pairing with Zombie (it’s like a lipstick lesbian dating Gertrude Stein), I do feel bad using this wicked comparison. I also couldn’t figure out why Zombie insists on portraying Michael Myers as coming from the dregs of white trash while the ghostly apparition of his stripper mother happens to wear a pristine white (or sometimes black) gown while drifting about like a jellyfish on the sea surface.
Michael doesn’t really seem all that bad in this installment---he only kills a bunch of white trash hicks---why not let him have some fun? A puffy Fergie lookalike, a dried out stripper looking like Helen Hunt----Haddonfield has become EBT central in the hands of Rob Zombie. Furthermore, I kept wanting someone, anyone really, to throw Laurie Strode into Michael Myer’s arms so he could have at her. I mean, it would solve everyone’s problems. Strode is portrayed here as a whiny, snivelly, idiot---why is her life so precious, and why is she so spectacularly lucky to have eluded her deadly brother? He would probably stop killing a needless amount of people in searching for her, and then we also wouldn’t be treated to any more sequels, prequels, geekuels or re-makes attempting to modernize the young Strode/Myers dichotomy for a new generation. She does nothing to help herself throughout Halloween II, except to become a vessel of evil to follow in her brother’s footsteps. Instead of helping himself a third installment of homicidal helper, perhaps Zombie should take a step back. After four features it’s about time for a director to branch out, avoid filming only subjects he’s familiar with (in Zombie’s case, white trash) and maybe direct a suburban angst drama. Or maybe a socio-political rom-com? Anything, please, except for something that looks like the drivel that’s come before.
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