Stupid Movies I've Seen...
HALLOWEEN 2 - I know, I know. My only excuse is that I was on allergy medicine and wanted to die - which, as it turns out, is the best time to watch a Rob Zombie movie. Since my expectations are less than nil where his films are concerned, I was free of any lingering hope that it might be good and just settled in for a long bout of suck. And he did not disappoint, because 'Halloween 2' is horrible. It's actually beyond horrible. It's horrible-horrible.
It's a year later and Laurie Strode is now living with her one surviving friend from the first movie, Annie, and Annie's sheriff father - who seems to be a-okay with the girls writing 'In Charlie We Trust' over a giant poster of Charles Manson on their bedroom wall, and painting pentagrams in the bathroom. Sure! Because parents are always cool with that kind of thing, especially when they're employed in law enforcement. But you've got to let those crazy kids express themselves, right?
I must have missed the all-murderer issue of Teen Beat! when I was growing up. The one with a shirtless Ted Bundy on the cover and articles like 'Richard Ramirez Tells Us His Favorite Things! ["Summer... and unlocked windows."] Because I can't say that I've ever felt the need to put pictures of murderers up on my wall. And I'm not sure why Laurie is such a fan, considering one of them killed all her friends and family a year ago, but I'll just assume she's an idiot. Because, really - 'In Charlie We Trust'? Shut up forever, Laurie Strode.
Anyway, Laurie finds out that she's Michael Myers' sister, which I was pretty sure she knew about in the first movie, but whatever. She flips the fuck out. Like, a lot. Like, too much. Like, enough with the high-pitched siren screams already. She also keeps daydreaming about murdering her friends, which I guess is IN HER BLOOD because apparently everyone in the Myers clan just carries a 'crazy murderer gene' now - like red hair or small boobs - and Laurie has just inherited the occasional need to get stabby.
(Jamie Lee Curtis is rolling over in her sleep number bed right now.)
Also, please note that all the Rob Zombie constants are present - set dressing that seems to imply everyone does massive amounts of drugs and/or voo doo in their free time, dialogue that Kevin Smith would reject as too simplistic, and the fact that no one seems to have bathed anytime recently. He always has the dirtiest characters imaginable in his films - they're one step above Mole People, really. Even better, whenever someone in this movie attempts to bathe, some form of murder or horror befalls them so they never get around to actually washing themselves. Because I'm pretty sure Rob Zombie hates clean people.
Everyone thinks Michael is dead at this point, even though his body disappeared and no one knows where it is. Because it's really easy to misplace the body of a nine foot tall maniac killer that probably weighs about four hundred pounds (because evil is notoriously heavier than muscle) - and I'm sure he's just stashed in a broom closet somewhere. I hate that Zombie made him so huge and grunty in the remakes, he just changed him completely - like making Freddy Krueger an Asian midget with a club foot who kills people with forks. Respect the iconic character, man. Michael Myers in the original films was normal sized - a bit tall, maybe - but physically normal in every way except that he had no emotions and refused to die. He was more of a psychotic Ted Bundy than a "me need skin'" Leatherface clone. But instead of keeping anything normal or realistic about him, Zombie just made him into the human version of this:
And thus, hilarious and not scary at all.
Anyway, OF COURSE Michael isn't dead. He's just Forrest Gump-ing his way across country to get back to Haddonfield in time for Halloween. In the original movies Michael learned to drive, but I guess Quazimoto Myers never got his learner's permit because he just hoofs it all the way home. There's endless long shots of him walking through fields and down highways - it's all very On The Road and I hope he brought lots of sandwiches.
He's also being driven by visions of his dead mother - who was so devastated by his killings in the first film that she committed suicide, but has somehow turned pure evil in the afterlife. She's all aboard the murder train now. For some reason she's always with the child version of Michael, who seems to be some kind of ghost too, which makes ZERO sense, since he's actually still alive. This mini Michael doesn't represent his innocent side that's gone now or anything deep like that - in fact, he doesn't seem to represent anything except how fucking stupid this movie is. Then Laurie starts seeing the dead mother/mini Michael visions too, because of the crazy murderer gene, and this makes her siren scream again, which sucks.
At this point I was sure Rob Zombie got confused during filming and thought he was remaking 'Friday The 13th'. Which is still a hundred times better than trying to remake 'Halloween'. The only time I want to see ghosts haunting a killer is if it's people he's killed who are really pissed at him, like 'An American Werewolf In London' - because that was awesome, and this was just pointless and terrible.
Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis is on a famewhore publicity tour for his book about Michael. There's a scene of him on a talk show with Weird Al Yankovic that might be the dumbest thing I have ever watched in my life, and I watched three full seasons of 'BJ & The Bear' as a child. ('BJ & The Bear' was a TV show about a long haul trucker and his pet monkey who solved crime. Enough said.) The whole thing was like a bad episode of 'Entourage' and Loomis was Johnny Drama. It is by far the worst plot thread, and with this movie, that's saying something.
Michael finally reaches town in the last forty minutes, and seems to know exactly where Laurie is at all times, like the Myer crazy murderer gene is also some kind of homing device. The problem is that she's on the move, so he has to keep resetting his gene GPS. First he shows up in town, then makes an appearance at a rave-type Halloween party out in the sticks, then heads back to town again. This seemed like poor time management to me. Didn't he plan any of this during his cross-country walk about? Eventually though, he does find Laurie, and it's all really boring.
Honestly, do I have to finish this review? Because I'm bored just writing it. NOTHING HAPPENS in this movie. Sure, Michael kills people, Laurie goes crazy, and the whole thing sucks really bad - but NONE of it is even slightly interesting. It just made me sleepy. I mostly hung in to see how stupid it could get. The answer? Very.
The only way I could like this movie is if it were a parody. Because as a parody, it's hilarious. Let's make the killer nine feet tall and grunty. Let's make the survivor girl get some ridiculous 'murder gene' so she goes nuts and becomes the next killer. Make sure everyone overacts, never washes, and has a penchant for decorating their homes with old Christmas lights. All the murders must be as overblown and gratuitous as possible, because it's just no fun unless the woman is naked and vulnerable when she's getting her face smashed in. Oh, and don't forget the ghost people that make no sense hanging around. If I looked at it that way - like the whole thing was just some big in-joke and not expected to be taken seriously for a second - I might actually like this mess of a movie.
But it wasn't, so I didn't.
.