Halloween II (2009)

Is there a reason to remaking “Halloween?” For the first half of Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake, the answer looked like it was yet, within limits, as Zombie went deep into killer Michael Myers’s origins. Tom Russo said in his review, “The material wasn’t so much jolting as absorbingly weird, full of the low-res ’70s horror vibe on which the rocker-turned-filmmaker has built his screen (and music) career. Then the full-grown Myers returned home, and the homage turned slavish.”

With his 2009 sequel, “Halloween II,” Zombie spends less time paying tribute and more time being new, with mixed results. The story starts exactly where the first one left, with blood-covered, traumatized Laurie Strode sent off to the ER, and her murdering brother, the giant Michael, assumed dead. After a tribute to 1981’s original, hospital-set “Halloween II” (the only sequel where original director John Carpenter had worked on), the events goes ahead one year, with Laurie now a tattooed, rock-star piece of work haunted by nightmares that Myers is still after her.

Michael does come back, obviously, his head constantly having weird visions. Russo mentioned, “There’s Freudian stuff about white horses as symbols of chaos, and whispery exhortations from his dead mother - Sheri Moon Zombie, the director’s wife - to get the family back together.” Would you say that this is silly? Sometimes, but the dream sequences help to add something new to the standard slasher genre, and at their best have a sideshow spark that feels like Tim Burton doing straight horror.

Russo mentioned, “Other effective touches include a costume party scene that later supplies the excuse for a fetishy climax featuring Taylor-Compton in a “Rocky Horror’’ maid’s outfit. Meanwhile, Malcolm McDowell reinvents Myers’s shrink, Dr. Loomis, as a shallow true-crime author who hounddogs women at book signings.”

The abundant violence, as always, is an attack – even auditory, as every slashing knife strike is made to sound like something huge was dropped somewhere. The ads all say this is the franchise’s “final chapter,” but despite Zombie trying – or because of them – only the most die-hard fans will have a hard time succumbing to that.

Oh boy, what a movie. You have to go into this one thinking that you’re watching garbage, weird garbage with weird sick freaks talking about making out with dead corpses, weird Michael doppelgangers, weird White Horse subplot, weird dream sequences, and even a cameo by parody singer “Weird” Al Yankovic. This is probably the most bizarre sequel ever to be released by a mainstream studio. Also, the Halloween theme music is sorely missed in this movie.

I had seen the theatrical version and that had Michael going around with the traditional mask, but when I saw the extended and deleted scenes on the Special Features, he doesn’t have the mask on and instead goes around like a hooded hobo. All of that must have been in the Producer’s Cut, which also has a different ending than the theatrical version, and the Producer’s Cut ending actually looks like the definitive cap, although I did hear they were planning on releasing a new movie this year, but that didn’t happen. Maybe next year, but we’ll see.

Well, that concludes my “Halloween-a-thon.” I have finally reviewed this franchise, and I think you should watch it, even though certain sequels, if not all of them, did get progressively worse, but there are ones that are better. Stay tuned later today when I review another movie for “Halloween Month.”