Horror Movie Review: Rob Zombie’s Halloween II (2009)

Rob Zombie’s Halloween is a remake or reboot or reimagining (whatever you want to call it) of the 1978 slasher classic. The original movie is well loved on this website. We gave it 10/10 in our review which you can read here & it has topped The Disc’s personal top 10 horror movies of all time which you can read here.

By the time Rob Zombie’s Halloween came about the franchise was a mess filled with terrible sequels & boringly repetitive ideas. The last film in the series before Rob Zombie’s go was Halloween Resurrection, a film that is hated by almost everyone who bothered to see it. It pretty much killed all hope of any further sequels.

Then along came Rob Zombie. Having amassed a decent sized horror fanbase thanks to his earlier efforts of House of 1000 Corpses & The Devil’s Rejects, both great films. Fans believed that he could bring something fresh to Halloween & would respect the source material.

Unfortunately, this would also be the point where many realised that Zombie only had a handful of tricks & had deployed them several times already. Tricks that would mean his version of Halloween is remembered for a lot of the wrong reasons. Is it terrible? Absolutely not but it’s far from the great horror that hardcore Rob Zombie fans would have you believe. You can read our review here.

Halloween II opens with a bang. Repeating the hospital scene from the 1981 sequel. It’s fast-paced, extremely violent & quite a lot of fun to watch. It turns out to just be a dream though.

A year after the events of the first film, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is trying to pick up the pieces of her life. She is still haunted by the events that took place a year before, not helped that Michael’s body was never found.

Unfortunately for her that’s because he is still alive & has been recuperating. He begins to have visions of his mother’s ghost and a younger version of himself telling him to bring Laurie home. So off he goes to Haddonfield to finish what he started.

Laurie begins having hallucinations that mirror Michael’s & it becomes clear that they share some sort of link. Eventually she learns that the masked killer is her brother but by then Michael has arrived & started the killing.

The most hilarious thing about this sequel is that Zombie himself describes it as “ultra-gritty, ultra-intense and very real” yet it turns out to be none of those things barring the opening hospital sequence.

Let’s talk about the biggest issue with this sequel…the white horse & Michael’s visions of his mother. In a film that claims to be gritty & real, these visions come across so stupid & at odds with the overall tone of the film. They are cringe-worthy to watch & Sherri Moon Zombie looks to have checked out of the role already.

They serve as little more than a reason for Michael to go back to Haddonfield.

Rob Zombie’s style of uber-violence is extremely tiresome here particularly as it is so similar to what we saw in the first film. It lacks intensity & impact because it’s non-stop leaving you feelING desensitised to everything you see. It starts to feel less real & a bit silly.

Being let off the leash, story-wise seems to have caused some problems as they’re really isn’t anything that memorable about the plot. The development of Laurie & how she has been affected by the events is the only worthwhile thing & that can be put down to Taylor-Compton’s acting abilities mostly.

The less said about Malcolm McDowell’s Dr Loomis the better. Utterly pointless.

Halloween II is likely to only please Rob Zombie fans. This sequel proves that there is very little need for anymore re-tellings of the Michael Myers story.

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