All Trick and No Treat

Back in 2007, director Rob Zombie [“House of a 1000 Corpses,” “The Devils Rejects”] created what he called a “re-visioning” of the horror flick, “Halloween.” With John Carpenter’s original 1978 version being a horror classic, Zombie failed to live up to the same expectations, but made a solid go of the reboot, which several fans of the franchise found acceptable. Two years later, Zombie is at it again with the sequel, “Halloween 2.” This time around, he wanted to make his own flick based on the “Halloween” franchise, without any Carpenteresque story lines involved from the first film. However, in doing so, Zombie fails to create a sequel that enlightens the audience; instead, he has massacred the franchise and leaves you agitated and disgusted.

Overall, “Halloween 2” is like a super-glued car in the fact that after some simple wear and tear, it can’t help but fall apart, ultimately becoming a disaster that crashes and bombs.

From the beginning of the film, it’s obvious right away that Zombie failed to craft a smart script, as the film feels like a rush job to make some quick dough [maybe he had a kitchen to remodel or something]. With the film starting out where the last one left off, Zombie had adequate room to develop, but instead slapped a few weak ideas here and there to create this less than mediocre horror offering.

With the exception of a few good acting performances by Scout Taylor Compton [“Halloween,” “Obsessed”] as Lauri Strode and Brad Dourif [“Childs Play,” “Halloween”] as Sheriff Lee Brackett, the characters are portrayed as white trash and are simply annoying. Even the main persona in this film and franchise is portrayed as nothing but a parasite – a person whose character has changed for the worse in being hated, instead of loved. Dr. Sam Loomis, played by Malcolm McDowell [“A Clockwork Orange,” “Caligula], is a character that Zombie took and destroyed. His purpose in the production meant nothing, which is a shame because Loomis’ character was a key one in the previous “Halloween” films.

The only good thing that “Halloween 2” had to offer was Michael Myers’ killings, as he seemed to stab and butcher everyone who got in his way with pure rage and insanity. In spite of that, Zombie did a bad job of creating a Myers that the audience was not used to seeing. In this film, his look is totally different with an uncharacteristic hoodie that isn’t nearly as menacing. Looking more like a tired hobo on his way to a trashy Haddonfield, Myers’ look is certainly unrealistic – not to mention his incredibly lame dead dog feast.

The story line involving Sherri Moon Zombie [“House of 1000 Corpses,” “The Devils Rejects”] is cheesy. She appears with young Myers as a ghost dressed in white with a white horse, as a hallucination to both Myers and Strode. This element alone is what destroyed what could have been a good film.

Seems like the biggest atrocity Zombie committed in this flick was nepotism.

The camera work is also lackluster. Like in the previous “Halloween” film, Zombie shoots scenes darkly, so it is hard to see what is going on. There were several scenes that seemed edited and freeze up. It could be that Zombie is playing camera tricks, or maybe he was just bored behind the camera, trying to create a new style of filming.
Sadly, like much of the other stylistic offerings Zombie tries to inject into the film, it fails miserably.

All these problems considered, even if you are a huge fan of this series,“Halloween” you’ll be immensely disappointed. With a franchise as popular as this one, it is a shame to see it end like this.

“Halloween 2” is everything short of spectacular, a complete dud and a waste of time.