Halloween II (2009)
AKA: H2 (Promotional Title)
(Release Date: August 28, 2009)

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J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic! Rob Zombie did not initially want to make Halloween II. Admittedly, I didn't want Rob Zombie to make Halloween II either, but you know what movie I wanted him to make even less? Halloween! To be fair, Halloween II is possibly Rob Zombie's best film... and that is a real shame because it sucks Toad Skin through a Broken Bong! And, yes, I am still a Rob Zombie fan. His music has been a part of my life since the early 1990s. His movies... can kiss my ass, man! Yeah, come on, Haters, send that "Fuck You" email. I'm always ready to explain just exactly why there are better ways to keep your ears warm than by keeping your head planted firmly in your ass! Part of the 2009 Summer of Horror! Shit Marble, how in the name of Timothy FUCK did Bob and Harvey Weinstein consent to having their names in the credits as executive producers? I'd've been like "Um, can't we both be, like, Alan Smithee or something? I'll be Bob Smithee, he can be Harvey Smithee?" Unfortunately, there is no why... just DO, RAY and ME! When John Carpenter's original Halloween became such a big commercial and critical success, it only made sense that the story would continue with the admittedly quite good sequel Halloween II! After a gaggle of goof-ball teeny-boppers and confused college drop-outs with meth habits helped to make the 2007 remake a financial success, the gang at Dimension said "Love That Green" and decided to franchise the fuck out of this series all over again. Unfortunately, this time the film is sinking like an anvil weighted down with bags of used Bengal Litter into obscurity. I'm going to go ahead and admit that this film has a few stabs (no pun intended) at quality and a serious desire to build something complex. However neither Rob the writer, nor Rob the director has quite the skills needed to make anything more than the naked women worth seeing in this movie (but, cousin? these ladies most assuredly ARE). Idiotically, while this film does pay service to the continuity of the first film, it shares virtually no consistency with the first film, thematically or tonally. The only thing similar is the relentless killing machine and the freaked out victims. Anything not 1000% cliche is completely unbelieveable and sophomoric. We start with one more flashback to when young and "humanized" Michael Myers (now played, in the youth mode, by Chase Wright Vanek) is being all cute and fun with his mom, relaying some douche-bag dream he had about her and a white horse which we eventually see, but Rob soon deletes from the film, either because Dimension wouldn't pay the Pony Wrangler, or, you know, "Just for the Fuck of it!" Soon, the consistency of the character of Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon-Zombie) is thrown into the old oscilating fan and we get Michael's dream version of her. I guess because in the last film she actually managed to give one of the more nuanced and likeable performances, Rob figured "Honey, let's screw this ALL up now, you weren't creepy enough in the last flick!" Anything to keep your wife working, I guess. After that headache-inducing opening, we pick up right where the last film left off, seeing Laurie Strode (again played by Scout Taylor-Compton), just after putting a few bullets into Michael's cracked shape. Yeah, because bullets have worked so well against the Mikenator before! Oops, I forgot. New continuity, no Supernatural crap in this one. So after that, Michael breaks out of his meat-wagon binds, breaks through the meat-wagon tailgate and kills the meat-wagon coroner dudes, walking off all happy, chasing after Ghost-Mommy and her erstwhile Horsey Companion... with bullets still in him. Great way to show how you're staying away from the Supernatural, there, Robby. Tell me, are there actually three of you who don't get along, maybe? How can one filmmaker be this inconsistent? Well, outside of Italy, I mean. Moving on. It's true that Halloween II is not a remake of... Halloween II, merely a film of the same name that serves as a sequel to the remake of Halloween. However, the first 20 minutes or so sure do deal a lot with a Hospital Rampage (yeah, if you see the flick, you'll actually get what he's going for here... not that you'll dig it). A year after the festivities of the first act of this flick (and much of the last one) we rocket almost a year forward in time to find Laurie still having horrible nightmares that the Boogie Man is going to get her no matter where she is. That's understandable, really, considering all she's been through. But it probably doesn't help that she sleeps under a gigantic framed photograph of Charles fucking Manson and has a huge pentagram with three sixes on her bathroom door. I might have a few nightmares, too, man. How about a little positivity, huh? Well, to be fair, her Therapist IS played by Margot Kidder, so maybe these items were just suggestions. Hell. Anyway, with her life in shatters, she now lives with smilin' Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) and fellow survivor (and daughter of the Sherrif) Annie Brackett (the always-welcome Danielle Harris)! Meanwhile, Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) has turned from caring, but fallen shrink to celebrity author of a book on Spikey Mike the Disliked, and he's developed a serious assholishness about the whole thing, too! Little does he realize that Myers with the Plyers is still alive out there, still huge and still played by Tyler Mane (now sporting a tattered-up wardrob, long, matted hair and a scraggly beard like... well, like Rob Zombie... go figure). Did I happen to mention that the aforementioned "almost a year foreward" plants us just before Halloween? Yeah, so need I even mention that we're about to experience one more of the old "Night HE came home!" scenario? Well, probably not! This is the essential issue with this movie... All that we get is a rehash of what we've seen before from Myers and company with Robo-Rob's idea of originality being adding graphic violence of the Grindhouse kind, along with a veritable candy fest of nudity. The nudity is among the only indulgences of Rob's that pays off (most of the time). It's hard to find too much fault in a beautiful breast, after all. The thing is, Rob Zombie packs his film (like his others) with motiveless motion as if he grabs any old idea in his head, says "That might be cool!" and puts it into the film without adding any support structure or rational continuity for said idea. He thinks it, he writes it, he directs it and it all gets blended together (though more often than not, it remains insoluble). Similarly, just as with his previous films he can't seem to decide who he's rooting for, so the audience stops giving much of a crap about anybody. Is Michael the misunderstood kid who grew into a sympathetic old Frankenstein or is he a devil in the flesh, born bad, dying worse, or is he the hero of the film that we're all supposed to get behind? Don't ask Rob, man! The remainder of the characters are just as inconsistent, regardless of the quality of the actors who play them (sometimes to the point of near self-parody). That cast, of course, contains cameos from just about anybody Rob could talk into doing a walk-on role from Howard Hesseman to Eric Ian to Weird Al Yankovic to Bill Fagerbakke to Richard Riehle to... hell, just watch for them. Sadly, all the tricks fail to become treats in this lame, by-the-numbers slasher trasher. The "unique" parts come off as trite, poorly imagined and out-of-place with the rest of the film in so many ways. Seriosly, folks, what the hell was he going for half the time? Ghosts, shared delusions, psychic bonds, telikinetic strengths, direct rip-offs from The Incredible Hulk and half of the Halloween sequels that sucked to begin with. He can't seem to decide what he's going for, so why should the audience care, man? There are great storytelling methods that allow for ambiguity and trusting the audience to make their own conclusions. This can be great and allows for a remarkable connection between the Audience and the creator. Unfortunately, that's not what we get in H2. Instead we get a big mess, almost worthy of a Dog rating, but somehow eking out Two Stars out of Five! Sigh. Rob, can we talk you into making La Sexorcisto Volume 2 instead of more films? I'll give you a whole dollar.