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Halloween II

Buzz says:   MPAA Rating: R
Current Showtimes: No showtimes available

Another year, another horror movie sequel. Despite the creator’s best efforts, Michael Myers continues to live on and terrorize the youth of Haddonfield. However, this latest installment in the Halloween franchise might be one of Michael’s worst outings yet. Alfred Hitchcock once said, “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” Apparently, writer director Rob Zombie never learned that lesson, as Halloween 2 is a gore filled, unintentionally funny mess.

After surviving the Halloween massacre, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is having problems coping with what happened. She still believes Michael Myers is dead, but she is told that a body was never found. But Michael still haunts her in dreams, causing her to wake up screaming. Unfortunately for her, Michael is alive and well, and on his way back to Laurie, leaving behind a load of bodies along the way.

In his efforts to expand the franchise and make it more dignified, Zombie tries to add psychological depth to the characters, mainly Michael and Laurie. There are constantly scenes in which Michael hallucinates that his mother is dressed in white and speaks to him while standing next to a child version of Michael. Chief among the problems with these scenes is that there is no reason to care about these dream sequences. Most of them are laughable and really don’t add much to the story. Perhaps a director capable of more depth could’ve made them interesting, but Zombie swings and misses. The other problem with these scenes is that I don’t care about why Michael is the way he is; I just want to see him terrorize teenagers and kill them in creative ways.

As if the dream scenes weren’t enough of a hindrance, Zombie is also incapable of shooting a murder scene properly so that it is actually suspenseful. Zombie instead relies on shaky cam and quick cuts for his murder scenes, of which there are many. It’s hard to be scared when you can’t tell what you’re watching.

The main problem with the film is the pacing. With the original John Carpenter Halloween, the killing doesn’t start until halfway through the movie; up until then, it’s about developing the characters so we care about them and giving teases of what Michael is capable of. Halloween 2, on the other hand, is pretty much kill scene after kill scene, with many of the victims being people who are on screen for no more than five minutes. It is this impatience that destroys any potential the film had, as if Zombie is worried the audience will get bored so he throws in murders every ten minutes.

After The Devil’s Rejects, it looked like Zombie had potential as a director. However, both of his Halloween films have been so awful that it makes me wonder if The Devil’s Rejects wasn’t a fluke. Apparently, Zombie’s next movie is going to be a remake of The Blob, which will hopefully get him out of this dank pit of terrible horror movies. Until then, avoid this film at all costs.