HALLOWEEN II (2009)

"Doctor! Doctor?! Is there a doctor in the house? We got one flatlining over here!" the pretty blonde girl screamed across the darkness of the movie theater at half-past midnight. Sitting next to her was a moss-mouthed Georgia cracker whose eyes had rolled back in his head, foaming spittle dotting the outer edges of his lips as a death rattle worked its way up his esophagus.

Scene from this new Rob Zombie flick? No, but it was almost a scene at the local mall's late-night showing of Halloween II as my pulse fell to dangerously low levels within the first fifteen minutes of this film. Sadly enough, nothing ever happened to bring the flow of blood back up to anywhere close to normal. Being a jobless fucktard, I've had time to sit through some damn unentertaining movies over the past couple of months; this one takes the cake. Not only was it unentertaining, it was uninspired, unimaginative, and, at times, unintentionally hilarious.

I've no hidden agenda here. I'm not a fanboy Rob Zombie basher; I loved his first two movies and took a bunch of flak from certain comrades for my unabashed admiration. I thought they were perfect smashups of every junk culture piece of trash trivia that I grew up loving. Halloween? Sure, it pretty much blew. When you get down to brass tacks, how could it not? And I'm not coming from some purist "don't-fuck-with-my-favorite-movie" point of view; there's nothing Zombie could have done to sully the franchise any more than it already had been. Which begs the question of why even try to reboot a series that's been dead in the water for such a long time, let alone go about it by remaking the only film in the series that was damn near perfect to begin with? All faults aside, I still thought that his first Halloween outing was visually appealing. Kind of like how when Tim Burton lets loose with a real turd of a movie (which happens more and more frequently as the years go by), it still maintains a visual integrity unique to Burton's style that will allow you to enjoy it on that superficial level. Halloween II? It just feels forced.

Oh sure, I guess it's been "re-imagined." The sad thing is, instead of adding tension, scares, or any worthwhile twists in plot development, all of the stuff that Zombie has added to the storyline is just superfluous and silly. We have a bearded Michael Myers that looks like Vince McMahon's latest steroid reject, a Dr. Loomis that is a twit of enormous magnitude, and a manic, highly-irritating Laurie Strode that I was ready to see butchered within ten minutes of the film's opening. And don't get me started on the ridiculous white horse/ghost of Deborah Myers subplot that was little more than an excuse to somehow work Sheri Moon into the movie. Jesus.

The genre cameos were a little more subdued this go 'round and didn't feel so much like you were walking around the floor at a horror convention. The interview segment with Chris Hardwick, Malcolm McDowell, and Weird Al Yankovic actually made me laugh out loud, but then again, so did the climactic scene where Laurie runs out of the shack wearing the ridiculously enormous Myers mask. Even all the teenage kids that seemed to be digging the movie (and were obviously planning on ditching school this morning) laughed jeeringly when that happened.

The missus dug the movie more than I did. She thought it "much better than a lot of the crap we've watched lately" (and, living with me, she does watch a lot of crap). I don't know, maybe it's just me. I am old and cranky, and I was out past my bedtime. Then again, I don't ask for much, as one can tell by my rather indiscriminate tastes. I thought the coolest thing about this flick was the Alice Cooper poster on the bathroom wall and the scariest thing was the way "Nights in White Satin" was constantly shown on the TVs in the opening sequence. I do hope Brad Dourif was duly compensated for pretty much being the sole bright spot in a sea of mediocrity. B-O-R-I-N-G.

I've heard Zombie is next set to direct a remake of The Blob. I hope it fares better than his two unsuccessful romps through Haddonfield. I still think the guy's got a lot of movie-making talent, but it seems to only shine through when he's dealing inside the realm of his own creation. If he keeps churning out shit remakes, he may lose the chance to get back to what put him on the cinematic map to begin with...

2 out of 5 stars
http://www.halloween2-movie.com/