Halloween II

Halloween II 06/08/1

Writer/Director: Rob Zombie

2009

Although impressed by Rob Zombie’s first effort in the reanimated Halloween franchise (and by pretty much everything he has done (in film, music, animation...whatever) I was most apprehensive as his follow-up began. After getting a general consensus from critics (what do those losers know?) that it was mediocre, if not poor, and reading that Mr. Zombie only took the gig to stop anybody else defacing(masking?) his adopted child, it seemed that I would finally be disappointed by him. However I kept the faith and eventually got round to visiting Haddonfield once again.

            I had seen the first first first Halloween (1978) one lonely night in the dead of winter in an empty flat in deserted university halls. It was way cool. And it was a pretty scary film considering its age. Halloween (2007) managed to update and out-do its namesake in my opinion, purely due to Zombie’s way of bringing his killers to life, and motivating their slaughters in ways that are understandable while still completely deplorable. Perfect, we get to emotionally invest in the story, and we get to see icky bloody evilness. That’s what horror films are for.

            I knew that the follow up to that film would have to be more bloody just by the rules of horror. But for me it had to give us the same Michael Myers and not make the mistake of turning him into a machine. That’s about all I knew because I hadn’t watched the original Halloween II (1981) so I went in with few preconceptions, which is the way to watch a remake. From what I know now Zombie used very little from the original except for in a gross and well crafted first ten minutes which had the same thrills for me as most horror film climaxed do. Thanks to Zombie distancing himself from the original he opened up a world of freedom for character development of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Myers (Tyler Mane).

            He portrays the heroine as a sufferer of post traumatic stress realistically, interestingly and originally. A lovely change from many films. Yet again he takes Michael Myers and opens him up to the audience. I really didn’t expect him to give us much more of the character considering the time he spent on his journey before any serious slaughter happened in the first film, but in this one he puts us right inside of the killers mind. How many slasher films dare to do that? And it’s scary that there might be room for sympathy. Not for the killer of course, but for the child that he was.

            On a technical level I admired the eerie use of diegetic music which was probably more effective than a soundtrack would have been at key moments. Like all Zombie films the tone is not flashy and the violence not cartoonish, this is replaced by a quiet brutality that fits Myers well. At times I felt that the film was a little disjointed and slow, however the themes of family and psychological damage pull it through. Having viewed Scream 4 (2011) shortly before this film it was nice to see that horror film conventions can still be rewritten, and I hope that Rob Zombie continues to shake up Hollywood.