Halloween II
I watched the sequel to Rob Zombie's Halloween reboot this morning and was incredibly disappointed. I guess I appreciate that he tried to do something different with the Horror genre and fully believe that he brings an interesting style that can work really well. I liked his first Halloween movie, which is why I was very excited for this sequel. So now I'll talk about what's wrong.
And there's so much that's wrong. For starters, the pace of the movie is horrible. I clocked it as 45 minutes where nothing of substance happens. Yeah, there are murders in dream form. Laurie goes to the shrink. Laurie goes to work. We see Dr. Loomis again. But nothing actually happens. Then there's the symbolism. I like symbolism in my movies as much as the next guy, but Rob beats us over the fucking head with it at the outset. There is no subtlety at all. He gives us a statement about white horses. Then there's the horse statue/toy. Then Michael mentions the horse dream. Mom and the horse. The white horses in the ink blot in the psychiatrist's office. Yeah...thanks for that. But then the white horse never quite integrated into the plot. It was used to bludgeon the audience, but not to further the movie.
Now let's talk about the plot...or lack thereof. I guess there's a hint of a plot with Laurie. She tries to have a mundane life after her attack two years ago and fails. Then she gets hunted down again. I guess that's kind of like a plot. But Michael shows up two years after the fact and suddenly decides to go after his sister again. Right. So does Michael have a plan? Nope. Like any great horror villain, he just happens to be at the right place at the right time. He magically showed up at the hospital to go after Laurie, but I forgave that after I learned it was a dream sequence. But how did he and Laurie happen to be at the same place on Halloween night? Pure coincidence. It is my personal opinion [motherfuck...my laptop just deleted a paragraph and a half of what I typed. Here goes me trying to remember everything that's gone] that coincidence has no place in horror movies. Movie villains are scariest when they know who they want to kill at the outset and plan accordingly or when they kill anyone and everyone in their path. Hell, I'll even take a gimmick killer. If there's a villain that will only kill people participating in a certain behavior or sharing certain characteristics, I will much prefer them to a villain that just stumbles upon the right person to kill.
And the hallucinations...wtf? I'm okay with hallucinations, but to have both Michael and Laurie suffering from/guided by hallucinations is a little much. It didn't help that there were times when you couldn't tell who the hallucination belonged to. Then to have Laurie and Michael suddenly sharing a hallucination at the end of the movie is just out of left field. But I could have bought that. My biggest issue is when mom and little Michael randomly appeared before Michael attacked Annie. Neither Michael nor Laurie were in the room to be having the hallucination. It just wasn't helpful at all. It suddenly looked like either a third person was pulled into the hallucination, or that mom and little Michael were somehow real.
Plus...if Michael knew where Laurie was living, why did he not just go there before going to the party? There's just so much that could have been done so much better...or at least been made a little clearer..
And there's so much that's wrong. For starters, the pace of the movie is horrible. I clocked it as 45 minutes where nothing of substance happens. Yeah, there are murders in dream form. Laurie goes to the shrink. Laurie goes to work. We see Dr. Loomis again. But nothing actually happens. Then there's the symbolism. I like symbolism in my movies as much as the next guy, but Rob beats us over the fucking head with it at the outset. There is no subtlety at all. He gives us a statement about white horses. Then there's the horse statue/toy. Then Michael mentions the horse dream. Mom and the horse. The white horses in the ink blot in the psychiatrist's office. Yeah...thanks for that. But then the white horse never quite integrated into the plot. It was used to bludgeon the audience, but not to further the movie.
Now let's talk about the plot...or lack thereof. I guess there's a hint of a plot with Laurie. She tries to have a mundane life after her attack two years ago and fails. Then she gets hunted down again. I guess that's kind of like a plot. But Michael shows up two years after the fact and suddenly decides to go after his sister again. Right. So does Michael have a plan? Nope. Like any great horror villain, he just happens to be at the right place at the right time. He magically showed up at the hospital to go after Laurie, but I forgave that after I learned it was a dream sequence. But how did he and Laurie happen to be at the same place on Halloween night? Pure coincidence. It is my personal opinion [motherfuck...my laptop just deleted a paragraph and a half of what I typed. Here goes me trying to remember everything that's gone] that coincidence has no place in horror movies. Movie villains are scariest when they know who they want to kill at the outset and plan accordingly or when they kill anyone and everyone in their path. Hell, I'll even take a gimmick killer. If there's a villain that will only kill people participating in a certain behavior or sharing certain characteristics, I will much prefer them to a villain that just stumbles upon the right person to kill.
And the hallucinations...wtf? I'm okay with hallucinations, but to have both Michael and Laurie suffering from/guided by hallucinations is a little much. It didn't help that there were times when you couldn't tell who the hallucination belonged to. Then to have Laurie and Michael suddenly sharing a hallucination at the end of the movie is just out of left field. But I could have bought that. My biggest issue is when mom and little Michael randomly appeared before Michael attacked Annie. Neither Michael nor Laurie were in the room to be having the hallucination. It just wasn't helpful at all. It suddenly looked like either a third person was pulled into the hallucination, or that mom and little Michael were somehow real.
Plus...if Michael knew where Laurie was living, why did he not just go there before going to the party? There's just so much that could have been done so much better...or at least been made a little clearer..