Halloween 2 begins with a scene of exposition between Sheri Moon Zombie and Chase Wright Vanek (Daeg Faerch was said to be too tall and with a voice too deep to reprise his role, even for a mute killer whose adult size is 6’8”.) It is here that we are first given a tease of the tangled web of juxtaposition the film turns out to be. The audience is being asked by director Rob Zombie to subscribe to the Freudian psychoanalytic theory of Latent and Manifest Content. If you’re not open minded about the direction this is taking, abandon ship, because this is unlike anything we’ve previously seen in a Halloween movie.
The film’s hospital dream sequence is by far the best part of this film, but it’s also one of its most damning. Zombie remade Halloween, this is the sequel to that remake. What this isn’t, is a remake of Halloween 2. Scout Taylor-Compton returns as Laurie Strode, a year or two (depending on what version you watch) later. She’s living with Danielle Harris’ Annie and her father, Sheriff Brackett (played once again by Chucky voice actor, Brad Dourif.) The film feels more like an incredible drama rather than a slasher film as it deals with a lot of dark, psychological themes.
We see Laurie conversing with a therapist played by the late, great Margot Kidder. This scene once again brings up white horses and dreams. The one thing about Laurie’s PTSD that ruins her character’s arc is her unwillingness to help herself. She turns to drinking, she’s changed everything about herself. It’s almost as though Laurie Strode doesn’t exist in this film. This is now Angel Myers, or as Michael once called her, Boo.
For what’s written for Laurie to do, Scout plays the character well. Laurie keeps her distance from Annie, feeling as though she’s to blame for ruining her friend’s life. Unfortunately, Danielle Harris isn’t given anything to do. A lot of Danielle’s scenes were cut, but even in those scenes she was still in the house, totally out of the loop. Malcolm McDowell returns as Loomis. His character basically milks it on television interviews, as he’s about to release his second book on Michael Myers – this time focusing on recent events. He’s bitter, money-hungry and verbally abusive. Brad Dourif’s portrayal of Leigh Brackett is more dimensional than Charles Cyphers’ in many ways, especially in the unrated version. He has some strong scenes which Tyler Bates complements well with his score.
It’s a little strange Rob stuck with keeping Laurie as Michael’s sister, given the blame that plot twist has received for messing up the sequels. The way Laurie finds out about the sibling connection is overshadowed by how much swearing the actress has to do. A lot of this film is ruined by the swearing. Curse words in movies isn’t bothersome to me. If you utilize those kinds of words to emphasize how mad, sad or even glad your character is, that’s understandable – I swear a lot, myself. I just feel the rate of which they’re spat out, particularly in this film, takes whatever serious matter appears on screen and turns it into a parody of itself. The first amendment is great, but as Rob Zombie has easily proven, it’s a peculiar jurisprudence that is as damning as it is liberating.
Unable to shoot in California this time around, Zombie’s crew went to Georgia, which provided the studio with a decent tax break. At least the Myers’ house looked close to the one used in the 2007 film. Although both cuts of the film are criticized, the unrated cut is arguably better. Rob shot this movie in 16mm, which I think works for the tone of the film.
Just like the remake, the budget for this film was $15 million. It opened on August 28th, 2009 to over 3,000 theaters. The marketing for this follow-up wasn’t nearly as strong as the remake’s, but it still managed to rake in a total of $39.3 million. More gorier and brutal than its predecessor, Halloween II is a trashy, hillbilly mess. It’s mostly predictable and it lacks any kind of suspense. Haddonfield is no longer a likable town. It’s neither shocking nor sad that horrible things happen there. In fact, H2 makes acts of violence seem welcomed.
Virtually every character is perverted, drunk and/or gross in this picture. Michael’s even dirtier to the point of possibly having crotch rot. Tyler Bates borrowed Carpenter’s score for most of the remake, but in this movie there’s an entirely new score, save for the theme during the credits. There was far more pressure on Rob to deliver with the remake than with this sequel. Initially he had no interest in returning. By the time Rob decided to give it a second thought, the film was given an August release date, giving Zombie as little as six to seven months to get the final product finished.
The film’s running time isn’t so much the problem as the pacing is. There are characters that serve no purpose other than being sacrificial lambs, foolishly stumbling and staggering their own drunken way to the slaughter. The usage of more than one F word was enough to solidify an R rating for the film, and the overkill of several of the characters is presented in full-fledged gory glory. So why the extra kills? Simply because the filmmakers saw no other way of keeping Michael Myers in this film.
His relationship with his mother Debra is presented in a Friday the 13th sort of way. Michael is seeing her and imagines she’s telling him to bring Laurie and them back together. Hanna Hall’s Judith Myers isn’t present, simply because she was awful to Michael. Regardless of which version you watch, the ending nails down the casket lid on Rob Zombie’s tour in Haddonfield.
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