Aug 30, 2009

Halloween 2 (2009)


Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2, the horror film I had been looking forward to forever. I was a huge fan of the first one (it tops the list of my favorite horror film actually), and figured this was going to be the movie to end all movies. You can understand my sadness when I saw it the other night and was severely disappointed.

First the good though. If you watched Halloween, then I think you’ll like this one. It offers the same Rob Zombie treatment of horror that we saw in the first one. Also, this one isn’t based off the original Halloween 2 really at all, which is amazing. I hated the original Halloween 2 so the fact this wasn’t a shot for shot remake was really good. Michael is a freaking badass in this film. Much like the new Friday the 13th made Jason into a psycho monster the likes of which we had never seen before, H2 makes Michael much the same way.

In the acting department, Scout Taylor-Compton pulls off a great Laurie (way better than Jamie Lee Curtis, but I really can’t stand her no matter how hard I try). Sadly, Sherri Moon makes an appearance in this movie…and honestly she sucks. She can’t pull of the character of Michael’s mom, but more on that a little later in the review.

Also, I loved the way this movie was shot. Not that it was done entirely in some new and exciting way or anything, but there just seemed to be times when I was awed at certain scenes and the way they were done. It maybe the fact I’m going to school for such things, but it was one of those things that just really struck me as awesome.

The fact that Michael is a badass just makes the movie better in my opinion. K-fleet went with me and at one point leans over and whispers, “Michael’s pissed off this time around.” It took me a second and then I registered what he meant, because Michael had just stabbed a nurse like 10 times or so and it was AWESOME. The sound effects and the brutality of the stabbings were sweet.

For all the good things though, this movie has quite a few things working against it, and the number one thing was the story. I don’t want to ruin anything, but there is a crazy paranormal thing going on that simply fails at being a good story.

Another thing was the characters in this film. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of people that come back for round 2, but there are also numerous new characters as well, and for the most part you don’t feel bad when they die. They don’t really have anything going for them as far as story is concerned, so they basically just act like fodder for Michael to tear through.

One of the things that K-fleet and I both agreed on was that the pacing just seemed funny in this film. I can’t really describe how, and maybe he can help me out with it, but it just feels off as you watch the movie. I don’t know if it was because more people died later in the movie rather than throughout the movie, but it’s just strange and you can really feel it as you watch.



ACTING --4-- HUMOR --2--
BLOOD/GORE --5-- NUDITY --3--
CINEMATOGRAPHY --5-- MICHAEL’S BAD ASSITUDE --5--
OVERALL RATING

--3.5--

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