HALLOWEEN II (2009)
Well, ”better late than never”, right? Isn´t that what they say? Tell that to the IRS and see if they buy that argument. But I´ve finally gotten around to watching Rob Zombie´s follow up to his remake/reboot/restarting of the “Halloween” franchise. I really liked the first one. I thought it was about as good as any “Halloween” movie will ever be, after John Carpenter´s original. I appreciated the fact that Zombie peppered the movie with his white thrash aesthetics and his obscene dialogue. Also, I didn´t think that it felt like a “remake” but a genuine “re-start”. Zombie wasn´t trying to create his version of John Carpenter´s “Halloween” and that´s what made it work. He simply made his version, like he would with any movie. But then a sequel were being made, pretty quickly after the first one was released and I´ve been putting off watching it until now. I can´t tell you why I´ve done this. I love Zombie´s movies but I guess I just had a bad feeling about this one. And in some ways they turned to be right, unfortunately…
This sequel basically picks up right where the first one ended and then we´re treated to one of those “One year later” cards. So now we get to see Laurie Strode (Taylor Scout-Compton) as she is today: punked out with something that resembles dreadlocks and black torn clothes. Basically, your average teenage clothes, if it weren´t for the fact that she has giant scars everywhere. It´s pretty much the same with Annie (Danielle Harris). The two of them are living together with Annie´s dad, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif). Laurie is trying to cope with the aftermath of the previous Halloween massacre by visiting a psychiatrist (Margot Kidder) and pumping herself full of various prescription drugs.
Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) has written a book chronicling the murders and Michael´s insanity and is doing a publicity tour, promoting it. Even his publicists thinks that the book is in particularly bad taste but that doesn´t stop Loomis from making a stop in Haddonfield for a photo shoot at Michael´s old house. Meanwhile, Michael Myers is making his way over the plains towards Haddonfield. He is guided by the specters of his younger self and his dead mother (Sheri Moon Zombie)…
I think that Zombie´s concept of actually watching how his characters deals with the aftermath of being part of a massacre like the girls were in the first movie, is a great one! But it doesn´t quite work… If it´s due to his lead actress, I´m not sure. Because the main problem with this movie is that in this movie, Laurie Strode is just an unsympathetic, crying, whining teenage girl. It doesn´t matter that she´s been to hell and back, it´s extremely hard to care for her in this incarnation. I had trouble caring about her in the first one because I thought that Scout-Compton was too bland an actress, which left me wishing that Zombie would´ve given the role of Laurie to Danielle Harris instead. The pattern repeats itself here, because if Scout-Compton was too bland in the first one, in this one she is downright annoying and flat out unsympathetic. I´m not sure that that was what Zombie was going for.
Which once again leaves me pining for Danielle Harris and wondering what she would´ve been able to make with the Laurie character? Unfortunately, in this one she´s sort of pushed aside and doesn´t get much to do. And that is what is wrong with this picture: she and Brad Dourif´s character are the only ones who come close to resembling anything sympathetic. Everyone else is a racist redneck, an opportunistic asshole or just stupid.
The other major mistake Zombie makes here is that he turns Dr. Loomis into this fame-hungry pop psychologist, which leaves the door open for Malcolm McDowell to start overacting like a madman. I had a real problem with this. Dr. Loomis is supposed to be the voice of reason, albeit a paranoid, insane voice of reason but still. He is not supposed to be someone who wants to take advantage of what Laurie and the others have been through but that´s unfortunately what happens here. I guess when you got McDowell playing a part it´s easy to take this route because there is something deeply unsympathetic about the guy but I could never ever see Donald Pleasence´s character behave this way.
I think it´s admirable that Zombie plays it straight here and that he actually treats death as something horrifying and scarring, because not many horror movies do that. It´s not like we get to see how the characters in the “Saw” movies cope with their day-to-day life after being trapped in one of Jigsaw´s sew-your-ass-to-your-mouth-traps, right? So kudos for that, Zombie! But this is the first time that a movie directed by Rob Zombie actually feels like it´s directed by someone who wants to be Rob Zombie.
It feels like maybe he wasn´t as inspired this time around so he just figured “I´ll throw a bunch of characters in there who says some pretty nasty thing, have them played by old B-movie veterans who no one except the most hardcore fans will recognize, and have them killed off, while I film it all on a murky film stock”…
I mean, it´s worked the other times he´s directed so why wouldn´t it now? I´m not sure but it doesn´t. I´m not saying that the movie is a failure because as far as sequels go, it´s actually pretty good, but I guess that I was just expecting more. The last time Zombie did a sequel it was with one of the best movies of this decade, “The Devil´s Rejects” but with that one he managed to create something totally new and separate from the original. With this one he sort of rehashes his usual schtick, which is a crying shame.
I gotta say that I´m not too fond of the look of this film, either. In his previous films, Zombie has managed to create sort of a timeless quality but while shooting it pretty slick. This one is much murkier, grainier and it´s kind of hard to actually see what´s going on in some scenes. I guess that the reason for this is because this is a much more ambiguous film than the first one. The whole concept of Michael interacting with the specters of his younger self and his dead mother is an interesting one but unfortunately, Zombie fails somewhat in the execution of it.
I can understand why he wants his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, to be in all his movies and it hasn´t really bothered me in any of the previous films but in this one it felt really forced. And as much as I like her presence (I thought she did a surprisingly good job in the first “Halloween”), I´m afraid that she isn´t up to the task of playing what is essentially a ghost. Her scenes feel contrived and forced, although they possess a very haunting quality, graphically speaking. Her scenes could´ve easily have been ditched.
Also, I gotta say that I´ve enjoyed Zombie´s dialogue that seem designed to shock you (remember William Forsythe´s rants about skullfucking in the first one?) and there´s less of that in this one. However, when it does appear it kinda feels out of place. I´m talking about (SPOILER!!!) the scene at the beginning with the two coroners who talks about getting it on with one of the corpses they´re transporting. I don´t know, it just felt like it was out of place and that Zombie included it so that he could get some shock value in there.
I´m a little bit worried about Zombie´s career as a director after watching this one. He started out with “House of 1000 Corpses” which was a pretty entertaining throwback to 70´s Grindhouse cinema but he really knocked it out of the park with “The Devil´s Rejects”. When it came to remaking “Halloween”, I think he did a much better job than most directors would but it feels like he has stagnated a bit with this sequel. He´s working with the same tools as before but the movie gets pretty repetitive, after a while. We´re constantly presented to new characters who say nasty things to each other, only for Michael Myers to come barging in and break their neck or stab the hell out of them. I suspect that maybe Zombie didn´t have a shitload of ideas for this sequel.
One thing that is pretty spectacular about the film is Brad Dourif´s performance as Sheriff Garrett. Most of us are used to seeing him as the psychotic, weird character but he really is fantastic here and the scene (SPOILER!!!) where he finds Annie, is pretty painful to watch. Dourif´s sorrow and pain in this sequence is example of acting on a level that you just wouldn´t see in the latest “Final Destination” flick or the new “Saw” sequel.
Man, I can´t believe how mixed feelings I have about this movie. I think the reason why I was feeling sort of disappointed with it is because maybe I´m comparing it too much with “The Devil´s Rejects”, which I´ve come to realize that even if Zombie keeps making movies for another thirty years, he´ll never top that one and the faster I realize that, the sooner I will be able to enjoy his other films more. I guess this is an ok movie, after all. Hell, if you compare it to most of the other “Halloween” sequels, it´s a goddamn masterpiece, no doubt about that! I still like the first one better but I have this gnawing sensation that this one will grow on me. However, I will keep cursing Zombie´s name for not giving the part of Laurie Strode to Danielle Harris…
Until next time: take scare!
Thomas