Rocker turned writer-director Rob Zombie returns to the horror field with this visually ambitious and aggressively brutal follow-up to his 2007 reinvention of John Carpenter’s seminal slasher Halloween. The 1981 sequel to the Carpenter film is completely ignored here (and for good reason) in favor of an extension of the central focus of Zombie’s Halloween, and all of his films, for that matter: the corruption at the heart of the nuclear family. Here, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor Compton) is attempting to heal the psychic wounds from her previous encounter with brother Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) by bonding with Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif, a pleasure to watch as always) and his daughter Anne (Danielle Harris, herself a vet from the original run of Halloween sequels). Her previous surrogate father, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) has forsaken his connection to Laurie by exploiting his connection to Michael with a tell-all book; meanwhile, Michael himself roams the lonely outskirts of Haddonfield, driven by visions of his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) and a single-minded urge to bond with his sister at any cost.
Aesthetically, H2 is striking, thanks largely to the ashen color scheme by cinematographer Brandon Trost (Crank 2: High Voltage), which underscores the doom-laded spiral track each of the main characters seem to travel in the film. And Zombie is to be commended for venturing outside of his comfort zone–the grimy, pop-culture ironic, white trash environment his characters frequently inhabit–with the scenes between Michael and his mother. But again, his ambitions don’t meet with his abilities–Moon looks impressive, but her apocalyptic mutterings ring more silly than spectral, especially when she’s forced to play opposite an enormous pale horse (insert heavy-handed Biblical imagery here). Most fans will find these moments more tedious than inspired, and a distraction from the murders, which retain Zombie’s preference for mayhem. He succeeds in this department, but if the end result is a menu of ugly killings, the point of revamping the Halloween franchise is somewhat moot, since the threadbare follow-ups to the Carpenter original already achieved that goal. Zombie’s knack for offbeat casting remains his most inspired talent: Haddonfield is filled with cult icons like Caroline Williams (Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), Margot Kidder, and Daniel Roebuck, who jostle for space with rough-hewn character players like Duane Whitaker, Mark Boone Junior, and Dayton Callie (Deadwood) and left-field cameos by Howard Hesseman and “Weird Al” Yankovic. –Paul Gaita
Rating: 
(out of 224 reviews)
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October 6, 2010
#1
Review by Jose M. Amezquita
Rating:
Going against what my gut instinct was telling me about the current crop of “remakes” that keep springing up, I went ahead and got a copy of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2, which after viewing is the equivalent of Vince McMahon’s (Brainstorm!) XFL, meant to improve on the traditional NFL. Like Vince, Zombie falls flat on his face!
What a total waste of effort(??)! Forget the obviously lame storyline! Zombie has taken the BEST parts of what I & others loved of John Carpenter’s masterpiece and has profoundly spat on them, transforming & transposing them away from what made them appealing- Laurie Strode from a straight-lanced, innocently appealing & ultimately doomed heroine who we ended up rooting for to a foul-mouthed, UN-likeable blithering mess. Sam Loomis has been remade from a truly concerned savior, determined to stop his quarry (while being believably terrified of him at the same time)from spreading death & destruction into a greedy, uncaring opportunist. And what a howler THIS Michael Myers is……! Where-as he was a terrifying, shadowy form of living darkness in total control of his actions without expression or remorse in the original, Zombie’s version is laughably inept, just another thuggish brute without the cunning or resilience of a true screen villian, led only by his childhood/”inner-self” visions/images to explain his actions (oh, so T-H-A-T’s why he does & is what he is!!!!! I d-i-d-n-’t k-n-o-w THAT!). I’m not sure how much effort was made by Tyler Mane to “get into character” but you never really truly believe he’s Michael Myers, or at least I didn’t. Dick Warlock (‘the Shape’ in 1981′s H2) was more convincing, emerging out of a dark corner with the occasional creepy head tilt while remaining stoic was all that was really needed.
The way I see it, the only real excuse for these re-makes (or are they re-boots???)is a set-up for a future “Michael vs Jason” clash!
October 6, 2010
#2
Review by R. J. Werner
Rating:
I totally loved what Rob Zombie did with the Halloween subject the first time out, especially being a massive fan of the original film itself. But this sequel just plain sucked. I found myself laughing out loud at the pitiful acting (“Breathing excercises? BREATHING EXERCISES?!?”), and the needless, excessive gore was just – well – just that: needless and excessive. Was there even a plot to this flick? In the end it just seemed like a back-and-forth marathon of over-acted crying scenes with the girl playing Laurie Strode, then a ridiculously gory murder, then the crying, then a murder, and so on. Skip this. Seriously. “Saw VI” was Gone With the Wind compared to this crap.
October 6, 2010
#3
Review by Jeffrey P. Falcon
Rating:
The worst movie i have ever seen in my entire life. Laurie and Dr. Loomis have now become mean. The personalities are completely different from the original. I was wishing Michael would kill them so this nightmare of a movie would end. Recommend this one to all your enemies
October 6, 2010
#4
Review by N. Nichole
Rating:
With a slew of horror movie remakes lately, this one has to be the worst. First, let me say that I wasn’t a fan of the first one, but this one was about 10 times worse. It has to be the most disgusting, vile movie I have ever seen. I am never watching another RZ movie again, I wish filmmakers would leave the classics along, Friday the 13th, My Bloody Valentine, Halloween and now they are remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street. Will it never end? None of them can hold a candle to the original, the three mentioned above were all horrible. The killings in this movie were just way over the top in being violent and sick. Please RZ do not remake The Blob ( as I have read he will) and ruin that movie as well. Laurie annoyed the heck out of me as did the Dr. Loomis character, the only thing interesting about the movie was Danielle Harris (Jamie from Halloween 4&5) being in the movie. Please don’t waste your money or time on this movie.
October 6, 2010
#5
Review by Sky
Rating:
I finally watched Halloween, Rob Zombie’s attempt to re-invent the Michael Myers character in his version of what was already done masterfully with John Carpenter’s original. As it turned out I gave Zombie props for providing everyone with a “re-make” instead of a “re-do”. A re-make is when a director takes an old film, sometimes even a classic, and makes it different, and ideally, *better*. A re-do is when a director takes a film and adds nothing to the original. Zombie may not have made a *better* movie than the original, but he sure did give the movie a unique spin.
The first half of Zombie’s 2007 Halloween was devoted to telling the Michael Myers story. The movie started by showing Myers’ at age 10. It’s during this time that Zombie chronicles how Myers went from troubled to tormented to demented to completely psychopathic. The kid that played Myers at age 10 was outstanding. In fact, the first half of Zombie’s first Halloween movie was so well done that I was saying to myself as I was watching that “this is a great movie.” But then the second half just collapsed with too many cliché horror movie “oh that would never really happen” moments. The whole point of the first half of Zombie’s first Halloween movie seemed to attempt to show that Myers was human and just a psychopath, but that starts to go out the window in the second half as Myers starts showing a few immortal traits.
And Zombie’s 2009 Halloween II pick’s up right where the first one left off, and it takes the unbelievable and the supernatural aspects of the first movie and expands on them resulting in kind of a mess of a movie. And speaking of mess, the Myers murders in Halloween II are brutal. Not so much gory as plain outright savagely brutal. So if that’s your bag, then at least you get that with Halloween II. Halloween II has some flashbacks to Halloween I, but it’s not even the same kid playing young Michael Myers; in H2 it’s some look-alike kid that’s unremarkable at best.
If you’re a preservationist that doesn’t want his classics messed with, then Zombie’s adaptations of Carpenter’s Halloween franchise will probably leave you angry and unsatisfied. I, on the other hand, was entertained by Zombie’s Halloween, but the second one, the one that this review is attached to, left me feeling that maybe Zombie gave us one Halloween too many.