Halloween II (2009)

I was surprised to learn that Rob Zombie has already created a sequel to the Halloween remake. Though it's possible that I heard about it, and then promptly forgot. But since I just watched Halloween, I figured it's a good time to catch the sequel, too. Especially considering that, at least with the originals, the second movie picks up immediately after the first, which kind of ends on a cliffhanger. Well, Rob Zombie's Halloween II does that, but there's a twist, and it's kind of a red herring. He eventually goes off into his own territory, and unlike the back story in the first one, this material is much less effective. I was really impressed with Rob Zombie's Halloween - really impressed - but his Halloween II is a near unwatchable abomination.

It's a shame, because after being so impressed with the first, I had high hopes for the sequel. And the cinematography is frequently beautiful. The hospital chase scene is very tense and chilling, but it suffers from gratuitous gore (and if you know me, I rarely fault things for being gratuitous), and the fact that a lot of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Although that's kind of explained away, you're left feeling cheated. But the entire film suffers from this strange white horse symbolism, which manifests as some kind of hallucination by our killer, Michael Myers (now a bearded, hooded drifter). The result, which could have been interesting, is some bizarre music video-esque aesthetic that confuses and distracts from the fact that this is a Halloween film, and not an unrelated Rob Zombie horror movie.

Now let's talk about characters for a moment. There is an early scene with young Michael, but the actor from the first film, who was a convincing psychotic, is replaced by some charming boy who is a lot prettier and a lot happier, and that just completely ruins Michael's believability as a mentally disturbed sadist. Completely ruins it. In the first movie, I was concerned that having Scout Taylor-Compton in the role of lead protagonist Laurie Strode would cause me to think of Lita Ford (the annoying role she played in The Runaways movie) every time I looked at her, but she was wearing glasses and acting cheerful and it wasn't a problem at all. But in this movie, she's lost the glasses, and the traumatic experiences from the first have turned her into a whiny bitch. In other words, Lita Fucking Ford is back... One other character I'll mention is Sam Loomis, who was good in the first, but in this one, he's incredibly arrogant and obnoxious - more concerned with his own career than Michael's killer rampages - and it ruins what is supposed to be a likable character. In general, everybody in this movie overacts to a frequently annoying degree.

The film is not complete rubbish, and a person with different tastes might find more in it to love, but while it does have a few redeeming qualities, I had a hard time staying interested, and am going to have to rate it a waste of time. You'll be better suited just watching Zombie's first Halloween and skipping the sequel.