Halloween II (2009) - 1/5

I'm tired of giving Rob Zombie the benefit of the doubt. His first two films were nice little homages to his influences and as an upcoming film maker I forgave many of their flaws and odd moments. Even his remake of "Halloween" I was able to let some things slide...that's what you get when you remake a classic. But "Halloween II" is unforgivable. Your time is up Mr. Zombie. No more free passes. No get out of jail free cards. You have been in the business long enough you should know better. And yet, "Halloween II" is perhaps one of the most horrifying movies I have seen in a long time. And I'm using the term horrifying in all the worst senses of the the word.

Where do I begin? I guess with some of the good things.

One half star goes to Brad Dourif whom has always been a badass (and underrated actor) and will remain a badass even with this film on his resume. He is the only actor in this film that I actually enjoyed and felt ANYTHING for.

One half star goes to Zombie uses the original "Halloween" theme at the end of the film.

That's all I can pretty much say about the good things of "Halloween II". Yipes. Let's hit up the 'issues' that I had with it. I'll try to surmise it down into nice little quick blurbs.

Firstly, this film didn't make a lick of fucking sense. Nope.

I appreciate that he tried to throw in some nice symbolism here and there but most of it ends up being lost in the shit storm of a script. It tries so very hard to make sense, but it fails on most levels. I'm not even sure who was actually seeing Myers mom by the end and if or if not she was actually a ghost that lead her children to insanity (which doesn't at all link up with how she was in the first one) and I felt a little betrayed that Zombie felt the need to actually spell out the white horse symbolism for the audience. Really? Living Dead Girl video shoot was over a long time ago. Nice try though. Not to mention that character arcs (what little there were) didn't actually arch as much as jump through the film, particularly with Lorie and her final moment when she leaves the shack - which honest to God - had the audience laughing at this final symbolic and powerful scene. IT CAME OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE!!!

Not only did none of that make sense, but I was never sure where the story was even going. The ending seemed plausible but how they got there was a fucking train wreck plodding script. Zombie might have actually got worse at writing since his last film. It was juvenile at how many times the word "Fuck" was dropped and most of the characters were pointless and poorly developed. Did we really need a murder scene at a strip club when the characters where essentially completely from left field and had no relevance to the story or the audience? Nope. Hell, Zombie even managed to take Dr. Loomis (McDowell) and make him a pointless character, whose subplot not only has no affect on the main part of the film, except his book, but also has one of the worst redemption changes in the history of film. Christ, I'm getting worked up just thinking about all of this!

I'm done rambling for now. Rob Zombie took a major dump on film for all of us and decided to call it "Halloween II". And the worst part of all of this is...he even tried. There are so many moments where he tried to make it all work out. He tried to make a sensible plot. He tried to make Myers scary again. He tried to make us feel for Lorrie. He tried and he tried and he tried. And failed every time.

"Halloween II" = Epic Failure.

No more benefit of the doubt Zombie. You need redemption now.

Written By Matt Reifschneider