Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 was to me the best of the series after the original '78 and '81 sequel.
What Zombie has created here is a clever character study. Zombie could easily have taken the formulaic root, phoned this one in and dealt us a sequel that mirrors the original series. Instead he takes us into his world. This is His Haddonfield and His Halloween. A movie seeped in dreaded atmosphere and menace where the charming, wood framed shops and houses, the cutesy but creepy decorations of Halloween old sparsely hide the grim reality of what could actually happen when a violent, deeply disturbed killer targets an unprepared town.
He reveals to us a universe where nothing and no one is pretty. His characters muddling through disaster and loss are portrayed with such ultra realism and powerful emotion we care about them deeply so that by the time Myers returns to Haddonfield to kill again the tension is incredibly high while rooting for them to survive. Each character is dealing with the aftermath of last years massacre in varying self-destructive ways. Physically and emotionally scarred Annie has become a recluse and won’t leave the farmhouse. Sheriff Brackett has become a neurotic, thinly masking his anxiety for his daughter by playing happy families. Dr Loomis is wallowing in the escapism of fame from his best selling book and Laurie has become a functioning bi-polar individual who from frequent visits to her counselor (Played by the excellent Margot Kidder) we learn her troubled and disturbing nightmares are challenging her sanity.
This movie is a work of art, especially compared to most of the “Halloween” sequels and most other horror movies of late. It’s intelligent, it challenges you to ask questions, doesn’t spoon-feed the viewer and has four main characters (Laurie, Annie, Brackett, Loomis) that are so realistically developed and driven by such diverse psychological responses to the same problem it almost feels like you’re watching a documentary on their lives.
The spectre of Myers mother could very well be the spectre of death. We are dealing with folklore here also. Halloween is a time when traditionally the veil between this world and the so called supernatural world is meant to be so thin beings can pass from one to the other. It’s true she is meant to be one of Myers multiple personalities, his justification or rationalization for slaughtering those around him. This is what Zombie intended. Or is it? What if she is “pure evil” taking on the guise of someone Myers trusted the most. A demon manipulating him into believing that “Only a river of blood can bring us together”… This opens the movie up into a whole other world. After all, Laurie as she slips further and further into insanity starts to see her as well. Could Zombie be saying that the insane are closer to evil than we could have believed. This is a movie that leaves you unsettled long after the credits have rolled.
interesting review. i cant say i read into to that depth but i too enjoyed the film.
while some of the mentioned elements i didnt care for, it was still a very good installment for me. i would say its my fourth favorite.
The remake of Halloween and H2 are the best Halloween films made. My only problem is that daeg faerch wasent in the second film. I hear people saying it was to brutal of a movie. WHAT? am i hearing correctly? Fans of slasher films are complaning because myers is back and on the level of jason again. You mean to tell me people want Halloween to be pg-13? Because from some of the stuff im reading thats what it sounds like to me. A lot of you are going soft. I just want to say THANK YOU ROB ZOMBIE! Thank you for making me happy again. Thank you for bringing Halloween back to the promise land. Myers is once again on top and is actually scary again. 1st the Halloween remake and now H2 are both my favorite Halloween films ever made.
Glad it got you excited Daveberg. I got to see a press screening of it over the weekend here in Ireland. Most of the press guys I spoke with liked it because it was different. This got better feedback than the press screening I went to for Zombie’s remake. Maybe this will do better across Europe. Different tastes etc.
The release date however was still to be decided and it still didn’t have a rating. But neither did the screening of the remake I went to 2 years ago so my guess is around September 25th or so.
yee man great review i finally saw it today
was pretty scared to watch it after the reviews id heard
only 2 things which kinda anoyed me . . loomis’s personality and the new actor playing young michael
apart from tht it loved it
Hell yeah! I REALLY hope they release like a limited special edition dvd of H2 when it hits the shelves…something like a real grim and lavish digipak with a booklet. Especially if it is Rob’s last stab with Myers.
One thing that annoyed me was that upon seeing the film there were SO many killer and beautiful shots that could have made for VERY cool posters. Better that the ones we have offered to us thus far.
