Halloween II (2009)
…………………………………………………
Halloween II Movie Review
Halloween II is a 2009 slasher film directed by Rob Zombie and starring Malcolm McDowell. It’s such a weird, crazy movie.
………………………………………………….
“Let me make things clear,
Michael Myers is Dead“
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
I honestly did not know what to think of this one. It’s such a wildly different entry from all the others in the franchise and that I did respect. But the movie is a mess and obviously weakly executed so most of its fresh ideas did not get a proper treatment. I still found it entertaining and intriguing though so I ultimately give it a passing grade.
First off, Dr. Loomis is ridiculous here. Malcolm McDowell does the best he can with the role, but he’s turned into a caricature of himself here and that theme of arrogance and capitalizing on bad events isn’t well handled at all. Laurie herself is solid and very well acted by Scott Taylor-Compton. But that white horse hallucination/metaphor was crazy. It was intriguing, yes. But oh boy was it pretentious and on-the-nose.
As for Michael Myers, he’s also different here. The entire movie is different and atypical for better and for worse and in Michael’s regard, he’s mostly not done well at all. So basically he’s shown here in his face for a lot of screen time which was odd, but again interesting. I did like the cape quite a bit, but I wanted him to retain his mask as that is his trademark.
Halloween II does benefit from a lot of dramatic elements to it which I liked as I prefer horror movies with a story and more dialogue. And no matter how pretentious the movie can be, it still tried to be something different and something sophisticated and I dug that.
…………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………..
What I did not like though at all was the violence which was way over-the-top and ridiculously brutal to the point of it being not scary at all and unnecessary. But that one scene at the police station was chilling and perfectly set up and I wish the rest of the movie were as clever. Overall, it’s somewhat on par with the original ‘Halloween II’, but it’s definitely weaker than its 2007 predecessor. Also, the ending was too silly for me.
Halloween II is a weird, crazy movie. It’s by far the most atypical entry in the entire series and I did respect that the director took risks, even if many did not pay off at all. Some scenes here are very memorable and well done, but most are pretentious and the violence is over-the-top. Its dramatic elements are intriguing albeit flawed, but the horror elements did not work at all.
