Halloween 2

It was quite the dilemma deciding whether Halloween II was a good film or a bad one. One thing is certain: it's a "weird" film, undoubtedly the most bizarre major studio release of the year. Rob Zombie's sequel or "vision" – as it's being touted – seems to have been envisioned with the aid of various hallucinogenics and mind-altering substances, withering away whatever was left of the original John Carpenter Halloween mythology after Rob Zombie's remake and leaving a nonsensical, uber-violent mess in its wake. This isn't a so-bad-it's-good movie, nor would I call it a just-plain-bad one; this is a so-weird-it's-good movie, a blood-drenched collage of absurdities and irrationality, which like a train wreck (a term some would use to refer to previous Zombie efforts), is hard to look away from. Little of the iconic original Halloween is left here – all that's left is Michael Meyer's mask, which itself is less recognizable beneath the grime and torn pieces – but perhaps it would be foolish to try to match the original masterpiece anyway. Zombie has crafted something entirely different; something quite frankly silly, dumb and, for lack of a more politically correct term, "retarded", but nonetheless entertaining, not in spite of, but because of this.

Picking up where the remake left off, Halloween II sees Laurie Strode recovering from her ordeal with psychopath Michael Meyers. Mentally-traumatized after both the Halloween day massacre of nearly everyone she knew and her own dispatching of Meyers – by way of shot to the head -, Laurie finds herself dreading the one-year anniversary of the serial killings, plagued with the irrational fear that the deceased Meyers will return to small-town Haddonfield to finish her off. Well, low-and-behold, Meyers is alive, and he makes it his mission to track down Laurie and finish what he started.

The general plot outline is as generic as can be, but it's hard to fathom or comprehend the insanity that occurs. Michael Meyers, the original mask-wearing soulless psychopath, the "pure evil" murderer, the "Big Cheese" of all horror movie villains, has now been transformed into a homeless vagrant who randomly eats dogs. Yep, that's right, he's a hobo that eats dogs now. When a film is remade, one expects some alterations, but this is akin to remaking Indiana Jones and turning him an extraterrestrial who molests children. There is practically no semblance of the original character...and the new ones just messed. As well, Meyer's is followed by his deceased mother, himself in child-form and a gigantic white horse, seemingly all figments of his imagination. Except they interact with Laurie as well...making them ghosts? Except Meyers isn't deceased, so it makes absolutely no sense for there to be a ghost version of him. Maybe Laurie is inexplicably psychic and seeing into Meyer's mind? Or maybe Zombie just ate a few too many shrooms. Either way, this mom-boy-horse trio follows Meyer's around as he kills various victims, instructing him on what to do next. It's as stupid as it sounds.

Dr. Loomis has also been changed significantly. The remake hinted at Loomis profiteering slightly off the Meyers incident, but here it has been taken to ridiculous proportions. He's now a prima donna celebrity who travels around in a jet black limo with his publicist, throws hissy fits at reporters and threatens to beat on woman. One sequence has Dr. Loomis appearing on a talk show alongside Weird Al Yankovic, with the famed disc-joker lampooning the doctor and Michael Meyers (making puns about whether this is the same guy who starred in Austin Powers) until Loomis finally explodes with anger on air at the hosts assertion that Meyers is a shark. If it sounds like this has nothing to do with the film, it's because it doesn't. This irrelevance not only pertains to the Weird Al scene, but all of Dr. Loomis's scenes. His entire role is a completely separate, unrelated tangent in which he gallivants around the country promoting his book. For that matter, even Laurie and Michael have about ten minutes in the way of plot. Laurie, up until the last fifteen minutes, never encounters Michael. The near entirety of Halloween II is Michael fighting random people – farmers, strippers, tough-guy scumbags – while Laurie lives her life as per usual.

The rest of the film is a compilation of pumpkin people, vans running into cows, "golden showers", discussions about fornicating with corpses, and sex with a guy in a wolf costume who sounded suspiciously like Michael Cera. It's weird, undoubtedly convoluted, but in the end it's pretty entertaining. It's punctuated with displays of head smashings, throat slittings, and other displays of excessively graphic violence. Nudity is slightly down from the first one, but there are still several scenes involving bared breasts. In the end, between all the nonsense, gore and nudity, Halloween II is a big-budgeted, toned-down Hollywood stab at a Troma movie. In other words, a pretty fun movie.

I'm one of the few who actually enjoyed Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween – a lot. For reasons I won't get into here I enjoyed it immensely, but at the same time I could completely understand why so many disliked it. It took some of the things that made the original Halloween so great in many people's eyes and switched them around completely. Those who despised the first Halloween for that reason will likely loathe this second installment with a passion. However, if one can go into Halloween II not expecting a Halloween movie – or even a reasonably scary horror – they might just have a good time. It's not "bad" per say – although it's hard to say what Zombie intended it to be – but it's enjoyable in its bizarreness. Worth checking out if you don't mind Carpenter's story being completely bastardized.

• Dylan, allhorrorfilms.com

Too bad that Zombie can't make a film without using his wife in the film! Let's face it. After all these years she still can't act! It's most definitely a distraction. I understand the husband and wife togetherness thing but when your film making career is on the line he should think about a different way to have his wife around. I mean Rob has used her in every film but she still can't act. Is she going to school or anything? Man I wish I could see a Zombie film without having to watch his Zombie wife. A different woman who can really act would make a world of a difference. Please Rob....just think about it will you?

Halloween II (2009)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Sequel to Zombie's 2007 remake starts off shortly after the events in that film as Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) has a hard time getting over the fact that all of her friends are dead. She doesn't have too long to sit around as brother Michael Myers is back, killing and slaughtering by the orders of the ghost of his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) but Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is back as well to try and make up for a damning book he wrote on the earlier events. There's no secret that I didn't care for anything in Zombie's remake and this film here proves that he needs to quit writing screenplays. I think this film, as well as his previous ones, have shown that he can handle the director's chair but as far as writing goes he's starting to become very boring as he doesn't know how to write a story, characters or dialogue. What does someone do when they get scared? Say the "F" word countless times. What does someone do when they're having fun? Say the "F" word countless times. What does someone do when they're sad? Why, of course, say the "F" word countless times. Zombie's screenplays come off like they're written by little children because he can't write dialogue that has anything more than cuss words being thrown around. It's hard to find a single line that doesn't feature some fifth-grade level cussing. Not only that but other logical problems come up like how Michael is able to be deep in the woods on scene but then back in town the next only to appear back in the woods for the next scene. How on Earth does Loomis see the end events on television and yet a second later he's right there? Not to mention a stupid flashback scene where we learn that Michael is going to be seeing his mother's ghost throughout the rest of the movie, which basically is just a stupid way for Zombie to give his wife a part. Even if you take away all the dumb logic you are then treated to countless, graphic and at time vile violence. It's clear Zombie believes that no one should be given pity because even characters we care for get slaughtered. Bad characters die brutal deaths just like the nice people. Taylor-Compton isn't too bad in her role even though it's not written too well. McDowell is one hand to cash a paycheck but Zombie's screenplay mostly has him doing talk shows including one with Weird Al. Brad Dourif comes off the best as Sheriff Brackett and Danielle Harris also gets to come back. As with the first film, this one here features cameos by various people including Caroline Williams (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2). Now, I would probably say this movie is better than the first due to some nice sequences including one early on where Zombie has a nice scene where a nurse is about to be stabbed but before getting it, we see a close up of her face as it prepares for the blow. This was an effective scene as was one a few minutes later when Laurie is trapped inside a small shack with Myers trying to break through. Once again Zombie's vision is perfectly clear and he moves the film along just fine but with a screenplay so bad there's really no winning in the end. It's clear Zombie has a very good movie in his but it's not going to happen when the only thing he can write is dialogue for white trash, which appears to be the only thing he knows.

Halloween II picks up where the last film left off with Laurie Strode a complete and utter basket case. She lashes out at her friends, her psychiatrist, and anyone else in her way. To make matters worse, Dr. Loomis has just released a new tell-all book about the events of the last film, revealing that Laurie is actually Michael Myers' sister which sends her into an even deeper depression as the anniversary rolls around and Michael returns to carve up a new batch of victims.

Writer/director Rob Zombie deserves a massive amount of credit for doing his own thing here. Whereas his first film felt like a less effective paint by numbers remake of John Carpenter's film with just a few of his own flourishes poking through, his sequel is one of the more interesting installments in the series.

There's a lot in this film that feels forced or out of place like most scenes with Michael Myers visiting with visions of his mother, his younger self, and a random white horse, but the dramatic moments between survivors Laurie, Annie, and Annie's father are heartbreaking and played with an unbearable amount of realism.

Zombie's first remake was a little different by having a background story of a young Michael Myers and how he turned into a killer. This movie was just your typical slasher film; plus it was annoying as to how many dream sequences there were. The film picks up were the last one left off. Somehow a dead Michael Myers escapes a crashed coroner van and brutally kills the van's passenger. A year later and it's almost Halloween again. Michael has visions of his mother, a white horse, and his younger self telling him to bring them all home, including his sister. So, we are too believe Michael has been living for a year in hiding and not killing and all of a sudden knows it's Halloween so returns to his hometown. We have some kills at a strip club and some rednecks. And before long he's chasing Laurie.

FINAL VERDICT: There are a few good scenes for the gore fans and that's the best thing I can say about the movie. I wouldn't pay to see it, but if you catch it on cable, it's good for a bad horror movie.