Rob Zombie returns, once again, to the director’s chair for another stab at a horror film, a follow-up to his financially successful 2007 remake. This only goes to show that the quality of his films has never mattered in the least as all of his films (“House of 1000 Corpses,” “The Devil’s Rejects,” Halloween,” and now Halloween II”) have been terrible, but as long as they keep making money, he’ll probably keep getting the chance to make them.
This sequel picks up not long after the first film. Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) is believed to be dead and is on his way to the morgue in an ambulance. Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), one of the few survivors of that horrific night, is found wandering the streets, still holding a gun, and is rushed to the hospital. Of course, if you know anything about this franchise, Myers is, of course, not really dead, and after the ambulance has an accident, he simply hops out of the back and kills the only EMT left alive.
The story jumps to a year later. Laurie is now living with her friend Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris), and her father Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif). She is haunted by terrible dreams about Michael and is also concerned about the fact that his body was never found. Meanwhile, Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), Michael’s former psychiatrist, is on a publicity tour with his new book entitled “The Devil Walks Among Us,” all about Michael Myers.
Somebody really needs to tell Rob Zombie that he can’t make up for an incredibly weak story by upping the gore factor. The original “Halloween” and its sequel didn’t need much gore to get their points across, and yet they managed to be much more suspenseful than either of Zombie’s takes on the material. The original “Halloween” was so effective because John Carpenter was a master of mood, atmosphere and making do with the small budget he had, and what he ended up creating was the greatest horror film ever made.
In Zombie’s versions, the suspense is never given a chance to build. When Michael wants to kill someone, he slowly walks right up to them and kills them, end of story. No suspense or tension, just gore. Nor does he have much of a story to work with here. Zombie seems to have made this film as an exercise to see how many people he could kill off with as loose a story as possible.
This is very evident in the Dr. Loomis storyline. It has absolutely nothing to do with the main plot of the film and adds nothing to it whatsoever. The one thing Zombie had done right with his original film was casting Malcolm McDowell (of “A Clockwork Orange” fame) in the role made famous by Donald Pleasence, but he doesn’t give him a single important thing to do throughout the film.
Instead, he turns Loomis into a money-grubbing, self-important, pompous jerk who only cares about selling his book. The best thing his character is given to do is go on a talk show where he gets zinged by Weird Al Yankovich (?!). Loomis is brought into the actual story at the end, but for no real reason as he still isn’t given anything to do even after he decides he wants to help.
The screenplay by Zombie is very badly written. He tries to put an emphasis on dreams and visions throughout, but they never go anywhere. There is an overly-long dream sequence near the beginning that we know has to be a dream sequence because this action can’t possibly be happening yet. The visions include Michael seeing his mother and a younger version of himself that seemed like it was leading to a point, but again, Zombie never develops it.
The ending itself was also a huge disappointment because of these undeveloped points. Throughout the film, there is no character development, giving us no reason to care about what happens to them in the first place. Loomis’s new-found personality makes us care even less what happens to him, and the visions that we think will explain something are simply stopped because of what happens, which is very little.
Yesterday, I read a story telling of how the producers want to move ahead with a third installment without Zombie (the only plus of the situation), in 3D no less, despite the fact that these two installments have been bashed by just about every critic out there. But then again, it’s easy to figure when you remember that quality doesn’t matter to these people, so we will apparently be getting a third film in about a year. Great, now we can continue to watch the demise of this franchise in all three dimensions.
2/4 stars.