Rob Zombie did a pretty good job with Halloween in 2007. I
didn’t really like his take, but it definitely had a hint of decent
filmmaking. He also got the mask right, which hadn’t happened since
John Carpenter’s 1978 original.

When it was announced that Zombie would continue his “vision” of
slasher Michael Myers, I thought it was an OK idea. Perhaps he would
remedy some of the shortcomings in his first attempt. Or perhaps he
would allow those shortcomings to become the predominant traits and
screw the sequel up, old-school.

Regrettably, Zombie has made the worst of his four films with
Halloween II. He gets ridiculous in his inexplicable need to
explore the psyche of Myers. Don’t get me wrong; I liked some of the
Myers backstory in Zombie’s first Halloween (like Michael eating
candy corn before offing his stepdad and sister). At that time, Zombie
took it to a level that was tolerable and made some sense.

This time out, Myers is driven to kill by visions starring the pale
ghost of his mom (Sheri Moon Zombie) riding a white horse, accompanied
by the younger version of himself. Yes, it appears that Myers’
subconscious is a goofy place that sort of looks like a low-grade
Stevie Nicks video. (Actually, come to think of it, some of those
videos were pretty bad, and could perhaps drive the more easily
influenced to kill. Speaking of bad, how about Nicks’ pitiful
participation on Fleetwood Mac’s Mirage album? That one didn’t
feature the band on its best day.)

But I digress. Halloween II looks promising for a few
minutes. It picks up directly after the previous film as Myers kicks
the crap out of those who dared drive the van containing his supposedly
dead corpse. Then he becomes some sort of psychotic version of Kung
Fu‘s Caine, wandering the country without his mask and donning a
huge beard and a hoodie. I noticed he also had a bed roll, and the idea
of Myers rolling out his little mat for a nap struck me as strange.

As Michael walks the Earth, killing time and dogs until the next
Halloween, his sister, Laurie Strode, played by the intolerably
annoying Scout Taylor-Compton, deals with
post-traumatic-my-brother-tried-to-kill-me syndrome. The key to
Laurie’s therapy is high-pitched whining. The caustic power of
Compton’s whiny voice was not on full display in the first film, but it
gets center stage this time out. I would rather listen to Fleetwood
Mac’s Mirage album 50 times than hear Compton whine, “I’m
Michael Myers’ sister!” one more time. She is one hard-to-take
actress.

So Michael comes home, kills Danielle Harris’ Annie for what seems
like the 12th time, and sets his sights on his sister again. His
motivation is that his ghost mom wants the family together again,
presumably because she’s made some ghost meatloaf or something.

What does Zombie do wrong this time? Pretty much everything. He goes
crazy with his stupid hillbilly shit, turning Myers into a hillbilly
who kills hillbillies while being pursued by hillbillies. He returns to
the same messy, sloppy kind of filmmaking that made House of 1000
Corpses such a task to watch.

He almost completely omits John Carpenter’s score, which doesn’t
appear until the final minutes. As for the infamous mask, it spends a
lot of the movie packed away in Michael’s backpack. When it comes out,
it gets torn and shredded, as does the legacy of Carpenter’s
masterpiece.

Next up for Zombie? A remake of The Blob, which will probably
feature hillbillies running from man-eating goo. Next up for Michael
Myers? Producers have announced that a 3-D sequel is on the
way—without Zombie’s participation. Why not pay Carpenter
millions to do it right? One can dream.

This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2009.