Description:
Michael Myers is still at large and no less dangerous than ever. After a failed reunion to reach his baby sister at their old home, Laurie Strode is immediately taken to a hospital to be treated by the wounds that had been afflicted by her brother a few hours ago. However, Michael isn't too far off and will continue his murdering 'Halloween' rampage until he gets his sister all to himself.
Review:
This is the sequel that Rob Zombie promised he would have no part of. Unfortunately, he lied to us. He wrote and directed this one as well. Once again, he is promising that he will have no involvement with another sequel to Halloween, but how can we believe him? He's already broken one promise so it would not surprise me if he did it again. All I can say is that we better hope that he stays true to his promise. I will try my best not to spoil anything for any of you. Now, let's get on with my review of Rob Zombie's Halloween II (2009).
I really wanted this movie to be good, but with some of the things I had seen in the multiple trailers and TV spots were very discouraging. Rob Zombie said that he wanted to make Michael Myers more realistic, more of a human. However, in the trailer I clearly saw Michael Myers lifting up a car on one side and pushing it over. That's not very realistic to me. I guess when Rob Zombie said he wanted Michael Myers to be more realistic he just figured he would have Michael grunt from time-to-time when he was killing someone. Despite being discouraged by the trailers and TV spots, I still wanted this movie to be good. I still held out some hope for it. Also, let it be known, I didn't think Rob Zombie's first attempt at a Halloween remake was anything better than decent.
Also, I'm sure all of you know that Sherri Moon Zombie (Deborah Myers, Rob Zombie's Wife) is in this one as well, despite the fact that she had committed suicide in the previous film. When I heard about her being in this one I could not help but roll my eyes. Of course I knew it was coming, I just hated to accept it. No, she's not just in flashback scenes as I had hoped. That's just simply not enough screen time for Rob Zombie's wife. Unfortunately, she's a ghost-like figure that manifests in the mind of her son, Michael Myers. If you think that's bad, she gets more screen time than I ever thought she would have as a fucking ghost. Yes, it's true. Also, her acting seems to be particularly bad in this one. It just shows that Rob Zombie will do anything to include his wife in anything he does.
You know, I was talking about this with one of my friends when Halloween II was in early stages of production and Sherri Moon Zombie was part of the confirmed cast list. He said: "Man, Rob Zombie would put her in his movies even if it completely fucking ruined the whole movie". I hate to say it, but he was right. She didn't ruin the movie herself, but she played a part in its downfall.
The characters were also a big problem with this one. Laurie has changed a decent bit and Loomis has changed quite a bit. He gets a decent bit of screen time, but it doesn't really matter. I couldn't really find a point to him being in the movie at all. Well, besides the fact that he played a major role in the first one. Some things were just silly, and Uncle Coffin (or whatever his name was) didn't have as big of a role as I had thought. With those viral videos that were released I figured he would have a bigger role in the movie, but he didn't. On a good note, I did enjoy Brad Douriff's in this movie. In my opinion, his acting was better than anyone else in the movie.
The first few minutes of the movie started off strong, but after the hospital scenes the movie went downhill instantly. People were actually talking trash in the theaters as soon as the hospital stuff was over. Yes, only a few minutes of the movie actually takes place in the hospital. I thought they would have spent more time in the hospital, as that's what the trailers seemed to insinuate.
I know everyone is waiting to hear about the death scenes in the movie. Well, there were some good ones. Unfortunately, the directing was particularly poor in some of these scenes. The camera shook so much at times that you really couldn't tell what was going on. Yes, in most of the death scenes the camera would shake. I guess Rob Zombie wanted things to look more forceful and brutal. Unfortunately, by doing this, you couldn't see the brutality that was apparently going on, thus the shaking of the camera was in-effective.
There is so much more I could say about this movie, but I do not want to spoil it for anyone that hasn't seen it yet. Maybe one day I'll write a review that does contain spoilers and my opinions on them, but not at this time. I wanted this movie to be good, but, in my opinion, it wasn't. The movie just seemed to drag on and on. I also see that Rob Zombie still lacks writing skills, especially in the dialogue department. The dialogue made the acting awkward at times. Oh, before I forget, the ending was terrible and anti-climactic. I walked out of the theaters horribly disappointed after it was all over. I know I wasn't the only one disappointed in the audience as well. I heard people talking trash while the movie was on and when we were all getting up to leave.
That's two Halloween movies you've ruined so far, Rob Zombie. Yes, maybe the first one was decent but a remake of the classic Halloween could have been so much better. You had a great opportunity handed to you. You had the chance to remake a classic and you completely fucked it up. I hope you stay true to your promise and you don't make a third one. I know one will be coming, because of the money these movies pull in, but you have absolutely no business writing another one.
I rate Halloween II (2009) a 4 out of 10.