Let me preface this with two things: Rob Zombie was clearly on something while writing Halloween II, and I wish I had been while watching it. Seriously. Weed would have made this a lot less painful, and the five bucks of someone else’s money spent may not have felt entirely ripped off. With my love of and dedication to the series (which is the only reason I saw this movie to begin with), I was beyond compelled to write this. I wanted my thoughts and feelings to be heard (read: I’m pissed and I need to bitch).
Now… I don’t know where to begin. Watching this makes me feel like I just dropped acid. I’m not enjoying the trip. Alas.
I guess another preface: don’t read this unless you’re okay with spoilers. Long spoilers. Tedious spoilers! Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers.
The beginning of the movie (the two minute introduction), and then the first fifteen or so odd minutes all start out quite promising—or at least as promising as a Rob Zombie film could be. All super gory, all super tense; the markings of a solid, run-of-the-mill Halloween film. Even when we hone in on the now-trappings of Laurie Strode’s life, I’m engaged. She’s turned into a tool, but I’m engaged. A lot of my liking of Laurie’s life is due to the awesome that is Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie, also from the first movie. Keep this in mind—it’s going to be a running theme throughout this bitch-fest.
So Laurie is, quite obviously, in extensive therapy. Sounds about right. Running parallel to her story is that of Dr Loomis, who has for some reason, turned into the most epic douchebag. Granted, Loomis was always supposed to be kind of a haughty douchebag, but he was never a greedy tool hell bent on fame and fortune. What?! This is Michael Myers’ nemesis? And by the way, considering these two and their struggle against one another is the fucking pivot of the original series, wouldn’t you have liked to have seen them in more than one scene with each other? Wouldn’t that have seemed as poignant as Michael Myers trying to track down his sister? Which, by the way, poor Scout Taylor Compton. Zombie gave her two modes for this movie: scream and cry like a banshee, and act like a dumbass teenager.
Oh. Let’s take a minute here to talk about Michael Myers. He’s the star of the piece after all, isn’t he? This isn’t going to be entirely a negative here. Zombie gets a couple of things right. Myers is as stark a figure as ever, which is great, because that’s how he should be. Tyler Mane is also the best actor (or pro wrestler, whatever) cast as Michael Myers. Guy is fucking huge. His physicality is pretty cool because Myers is supposed to be this impossible-to-stop, impossible-to-kill monster. He looks like it. This brings me to my biggest problem: when looking at Michael Myers, I should never see his fucking face. Um, hello? Rob Zombie? Hi! Big fan, but you need to be punched in the balls for this one. Michael Myers is iconic because of that kick ass mask. Remember? You gave it an origin story in your first Halloween remake? Beautiful. And now it’s torn, and sometimes, he’s not even wearing it? The fuck? Are you on crack?
Oh, right, I forgot, you were high while you were writing this.
Anyway.
What I can give the guy props for is this: he tries to draw some—I know, stay with me here—reality into this mess. In all the others Michael Myers just kind of pops up every now and then, does his murdering thing, and then he supposedly dies before popping up again next Halloween. But what about the in between time? Well, apparently he walks around like a hobo, and some times kills people if they mess with him. Reasonable. This is all well and good, and I could totally be on board with this creative decision if it didn’t totally veer into another direction all together when…
My biggest, biggest issue with the movie, and I’m guessing everyone else’s. Rob Zombie cannot make a goddamn movie without sticking his albeit talented wife in it. She was in the first one and she croaked. This should not be an invitation to use her as a ghostly figure that haunts her on-film son while walking around with a white horse (Jesus Christ, I wish I were joking) telling him to kill people. And the dream sequences, oh god, don’t even get me started. You can literally tell the few times in the script where Zombie was totally off his nut because they a) make no sense, b) offer nothing to the story and c) are an excuse to try and push the envelope in an utterly useless failure. I get trying to be original and inventive, but fuck, there’s a limit. I got the feeling towards the end of the movie Rob Zombie realized, “Oh shit, I put his ghost mother in this at the beginning, and since she hasn’t shown up again, it makes no sense. Well. I guess I better stick with the theme.”
You know, as opposed to just opting out of it completely.
It’s terrible and it makes a mess of the whole thing.
Now let’s get back to something that doesn’t make me rage. How about a few of the things I actually liked? There are a fair few scenes in this movie that are really well done. For all my gripping on the man, Zombie has flair with visuals. One of the best bits of the whole thing is showing a parallel between what Laurie is doing in her “normal” life and what Michael is doing in his… er, hobo life, which is kind of nifty.
The parts of this movie that are good are really good. There are scenes that are tight, tense, scary and well-acted. Most of this credit goes to Danielle Harris and Brad Dourif (am I spelling that right?), playing father and daughter, who are the real emotional core to me. I’m more interested in them than anything else going on that’s too jumbled or cracked out to make sense or have some semblance of sentimental value. When they’re at the dinner table having a pseudo-comical fight, you’re giggling. When Sheriff Brackett is sending a cop over to his house to watch over her even though it’ll piss her off, you’re agreeing with his decision though you know it’s in vain. When Annie gets attacked, she is the only person you’re rooting for to survive.
This movie could have been better. Like, obviously. Rob Zombie made an interesting remake with the original and he really had nowhere to go but down. It hurt that there were these really cool, scary and well-done moments that were soon interrupted by the ludicrous break in logic that dealt with the stupid, stupid supernatural element of the ghost mother and her stupid, stupid white horse.
So when he makes his inevitable third one, here are my top pointers: ditch the Laurie Strode plot point in order to get something fresh (we can only take so many allusions to the is-she-turning-out-like-her-brother storyline), give Michael Myers his fucking mask back, stay far, far away from his ghostly mother, and attempt to give us more characters we actually give a shit about.
And leave the white-trash, hill-billy stuff out of one of your movies. Please.