Halloween Marathon: 2009

I’m doing this because I haven’t seen them all and have a lot of work to do and need something to watch. It’s been about 20 odd years since I watched this original, so let’s delve back in…

Previously: 1978 – 1981 – 1982 – 1988 – 1989 – 1995 – 1998 – 2002 – 2007

Movie: Halloween II

Released: 2009

Director: Rob Zombie

Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie, Danielle Harris, Brea Grant,

Plot: With Michael Myers presumed dead, Laurie has tried to rebuild her life with the Brackett family. They all struggle with the trauma of Michael’s previous attack as the murderer draws ever closer.

Review: What the actual fuck is going on with these two movies. This is an entirely unnecessary sequel to the grotesque original. The biggest take-over from this movies is Rob Zombie’s fixation of watching vulnerable women being tortured and murdered while they whimper in fear. Every death and unnecessary rape scene is drawn on and on and on, whilst every character is some kind of racist, sexist or abuser. I hate watching them. Whenever Michael attacks another woman it’s time for another cup and tea because the movie is going to spend the next ten minutes holding a close-up on her pained expression as she begs for mercy. Once again I got stuck with the directors cut, meaning the characters are especially foul and the deaths especially gratitious.

Anyway, this movie immediately begins by retconning the previous movie in order to add new and pointless plot threads that only exist for weird spooky imagery to be included. It’s not surprising that they recast the young Michael Myers, but this kid doesn’t share the mannerisms or appearance of the original kid, and it’s very jarring that his performance is so different. He only appears in the movie for the purpose of retcons and symbolism, so it’s entirely unnecessary. It would seem that Michael’s mother (Moon Zombie) brought him a white horse thing once and this is very important because he had a dream, and now we’re going to see kid Michael, his dead mother and a horse turning up all over the movie. What does it symbolise? It doesn’t matter. It’s symbolic.

Back in the present, Laurie (Taylor-Compton) is being pursued through the hospital by Michael (Mane), with Octavia Spencer being caught in the crossfire. After a solid 15 minutes of this sequence it’s revealed to be a dream, and it’s never clear how much of it was a dream. There’s only one clue that something is amiss, a huge dumpster of dead bodies for Laurie to crawl over, and some basic narrative rules are being broken within the supposed dream. We often switch to the perspective of characters other than Laurie, which doesn’t follow dream logic. Between this and the awkwardly crowbarred in symbolism about horses it all feels like an amateur production.

Now that the story is actually happening, Laurie, Sheriff Brackett (Dourif) and Annie (Harris) scream and swear at each other in a way that makes me question why they’re living together. I don’t think Zombie knows how to write characters who don’t communicate by screaming abuse at each other. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (McDowell) is on a book tour trying to milk fame and money out of the tragedy. He is also a hugely abusive garbage character who casually tells a woman “when I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you”. I really do hate watching these people. I know the argument that having shitheel characters makes it more enjoyable when they get killed off, but we have to spend the rest of the movie listening to them scream slurs at everyone. We are only SEVEN MINUTES into this movie before a character gets an extended dialogue telling jokes about having sex with a dead body.

This edgelord nonsense does not hide that this is a badly written movie. There’s a Rorschach print of what is obviously a horse just to try and make the horse stuff more symbolic. John Carpenter included on off-screen death of a dog to emphasise of a horrific monster Michael Myers is, Zombie gives us an extended sequence of Michael ripping a dog to pieces and eating it cut into a family dinner scene.It doesn’t improve or add to the idea, it just rubs it in our faces. When we get to Brad Dourif weeping over the death of his daughter while he (obviously) bloodied nude corpse is in the middle of the shot, I’ve just about had enough. I like horror movies and I especially love horror movies that challenge us with new ideas and terrifying scenarios, but I hate this.

Rating: ONE out of TEN