My morbid curiosity got the best of me and I checked out the sequel to Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween. I thought he did a decent job with the original, though a lot of "purists" didn't care for the story changes he made. Because Halloween II is so similar in tone and execution to the original (remake), my comments on this one could really apply to either.
I appreciate what they've done with Michael Meyers - for such an iconic character, his back story has always been sorely sparse. Unfortunately in this installment they've tried to lace the simple story of a troubled childhood with visual symbolism -- a woman on a white horse, of all things -- and it totally clashes with everything else in the film. Every time that horse shows up, I swear we're watching a Rob Zombie music video.
Zombie also penned the script, and it shows. I can't think of a line of dialogue that doesn't contain at least one instance of "fuck," and not in that chuckling Kevin Smith way. Every single character comes across as on edge; it's like everyone is either just about to have a complete mental breakdown, or rape a small animal. It might seem appropriate considering the genre, but what actually occurs is that the viewer is constantly uncomfortable, even (especially) in the non-horror scenes. It's the kind of stuff that makes you feel like the world is a worse place than it actually is. Makes me wonder what sort of a person Zombie is.
Another Zombie-ism is the excessive gore and violence. Being a horror buff, I'm usually immune to this stuff, but the cinematographer has a way of making it all seem too real. And does Meyers really need to stab every victim fourteen times? The sound effects have been over emphasized to an almost puke-inducing level: it's like having a microphone inside the throat of a victim as their head is very slowly removed. The thing is, I know that Zombie infuses all of his work with this crazy, adrenalin-drenched manic violence, and it always makes me feel slightly ill, but I just keep coming back! Makes me wonder what sort of person I am.
On a positive note, the suspense and cinematography are top notch. The "jump" moments were well placed; if only they didn't invariably end in a science class dissection I'd be a huge fan of this flick. The image itself has a grainy quality that is reminiscent of the original Halloween flicks, though is probably just a filter run over digital video, or maybe the gain feature on the cameras turned up for the dark scenes. Still, for someone with fond memories of 70's and 80's cinema, it's a nice touch. As far as Halloween sequels go, not a bad installment.
Z-Man sez: 5/10 (with a vomit advisory)
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