Article By: Ryker XL

While John may prefer the hockey clad Jason as his unstoppable killing machine of choice, my heart has always belonged to Michael Meyers. Maybe it was all the buzz about the film when it was released and how my Dad wouldn’t let me watch it because I was only 10. C’mon Dad I’m old enough! Or maybe it was because when I finally could watch “Halloween” it scared the living crap out of me. Or maybe it was that he wore a painted William Shatner mask, Michael Meyers was bad ass!

As far as film making goes, the first “Halloween” is a masterpiece, beautifully crafted on a shoe string budget. Michael was one of the first bad guys who didn’t die at the end of the film. You were left with a sense of dread…he’s still out there! Since then I have watched every sequel (yes even “Halloween III”) in hopes that I might find that same sense creepiness, and something that might truly scare me. Sadly each sequel never lived up to the hype. And yet, like some old Star Wars fan boy hoping that the new series will be as good as the original, I continue to go.

Then two years ago, aged metal head a horror film director Rob Zombie rebooted the franchise. Zombie explored Michael’s childhood and put some human perspective on this killing machine. The film was dirty and raw and the end of the film was one of the more disturbing things I had ever seen. I didn’t leave the theater scared, I left with a new sense of dread, one that tied directly to Michael’s sister as she laid covered in blood having just killed her brother. It was different, and I for one enjoyed it. So when Halloween II came out, I eagerly went to my local theater to see how events would unfold.

The movie starts off back where we left off. Laurie is walking down the road, cut, bruised, lost, and somewhat lost. She is rescued by the local Sheriff and taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, two rubes take Michael to a morgue in a van and get in an accident along the way. Since when could cops drink and drive. Michael awakes from the back, and disposes the guards in gruesome awesomeness! Laurie wakes up in the hospital and finds that her brother is still alive and a fantastic homage to the 1981 film commences. Soon after this short scene Rob Zombie leaves the world of Halloween canon behind and begins to tell his own story.

It’s one year later and Laurie has become a lost punk kid. This is quite the contrast from the preppy girl next door she was in the first film. The Sheriff who rescued her that night a year ago has taken her into his home. Laurie see’s a shrink and cries as she talks about the events a year ago and how she misses her parents. Dr. Loomis has written a book and hopes to cash in on the pain of others, including revealing to the world that Laurie and Michael are related. And yes, we see a dark hooded figure walking through the corn. It’s Michael heading home to back to Haddenfield to find his sister once again.

I wanted to like this film, I mean I REALLY really did. There are some great shocker moments littered throughout, but far too little for me or any other fan of the series. There is an air of creepiness that surrounds the holiday we call Halloween, and the successful films of the series use that to their advantage. Zombie tosses this out the window and uses brutality to to shock and scare us. Folks this Michael Meyers is brutal, even more so than in the first film. He doesn’t just stab someone, he pounds the knife into his victims several times with a force that shakes the room. It’s disturbing, and for me…unnecessary.

There are also several missed opportunities in the film. Laurie and her punk friends go to a rave on Halloween night. There are tons of drunk costumed teenagers raising hell at this party when Michael shows up looking for his sister. Here we go, this should be fun, thinking of course that Michael would but in and raise his own hell. Instead, Michael nabs two kids doing it in a van outside. Not only are we getting ripped off on potential death scenes, but the trademark music and mask are almost completely gone from this film. Michael does wear the mask, but it got ripped and you can see who he is through it. There are even a few scenes where he kills without the mask at all.

What was also annoying was Zombie’s choice of cinematic style. The occasional shot through a dirty window or from behind an object is a nice shot now and then, but too much of that style disrupts the flow of the story. When you can’t see what is going on, then dialogue gets tossed out the window. And finally ,Rob uses some visionary metaphor for what is going on in Michael’s head. He kinda explains what that is, but for the most part, it’s completely distracting. Ok here comes the woman with the white horse again, oh yeah that’s his wife getting screen time. Um, could you gimme something scary please!

The end of the film was however quite well done and Zombie again leaves us in a very cool place for his version of the Halloween mythology. It’s a really cool ending that could either end right there, or go in a completely different direction. I just didn’t like the route we took to get there…

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Tags: halloween, michael meyers, Rob Zombie

This entry was posted on Friday, September 4th, 2009 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Film/Television, Theatrical. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.