[Halloween 2]
Plot:It's that time of year again, and Michael Myers has returned home to sleepy Haddonfield, Illinois to take care of some unfinished family business. Unleashing a trail of terror that only horror master Rob Zombie can, Myers will stop at nothing to bring closure to the secrets of his twisted past. But the town's got an unlikely new hero, if they can only stay alive long enough to stop the unstoppable.

Cast:Tyler Mane, Scout-Taylor Compton, Sherri Moon Zombie, Ezra Buzzington, Jeff Daniel Phillips, Daniel Roebuck, Danielle Harris, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Chris Hardwick, Dayton Callie, Richard Brake, Matt Bush, Howard Hesseman, Bill Fagerbakke, Brea Grant, Caroline Williams, Malcolm McDowell, Jesse Dayton, Eileen Dietz, Chase Wright Vanek, Margot Kidder.

My Thoughts:Michael Myers shares silver screen with a horse.

Review:I wasn't going into Rob Zombie's "H2" with any big time expectations. The film is a sequel to a terrible remake for christ sake. But the remake, compared to it's sequel, well it's oscar-worthy material. This film picks up a few years after "Halloween 2007", where Michael Myers pursued Laurie Strode in an unforgettable night of bloodshed, death, and mayhem. He didn't get her, but almost did. Almost got Annie too. But now, Laurie is trying to put her life back together, and it's not easy because she is whacked out of her mind pretty much. She is having visions, dreams, and other crazy shit going on in that head of hers.

So how does she cope with all of this? By seeing the local shrink, and trying to concentrate on her super-important job at the local Starbucks, called "The Java Hole". The film starts off with a great opening scene, where Laurie is being taken to the hospital, and soon finds herself face-to-face with Michael again. But alas, it turns out to be one of those pesky dream sequences. Curse those clever devils. After this, the film is like a paper car on the expressway.

It slowly loses page, after page, wheel, after wheel, until eventually, it falls apart completely. This movie hits a downward spiral pretty quickly. Unlike the remake, which despite it's bad casting and poor dialogue, managed to atleast be watchable on a few basic levels. This movie though loses you within the first 20 minutes. And that is not good. Especially when after that, the film still has 76 more minutes to go. So you wanna know about Michael right? Well he manages to escape police custody when while en route to the local morgue, the van crashes. And a thought-to-be-dead Michael breaks free, makes quick work of the drivers who are already in a bad way because of their accident, and then stalks off to find Laurie.

Only this time, Michael is driven by the ghost of his mother, who appears before him with a white horse. She basically tells him she can never see him again, but after he finds Laurie, his mothers ghost or the illusion of said ghost, tells him to bring her home so they can be a family again. Basically, if he whacks Laurie, he, Laurie, and his mom can live happily ever after in the afterlife. Michael, with not much else to do considering some people think he's dead, and others are trying to track him down, decides what the hell, lets do it. The kills in "H2" are more brutal than the deaths in "Halloween 2007".

There's a lot more stabbing this time around. But for some reason, they've decided that Michael needs to let out some healthy, psychotic grunts while he's killing. So this time around, Michael grunts as he knifes-up his victims. Laurie meanwhile played very angstily by Scout Taylor Compton, is cracking more and more by the day mentally, especially after she finds out she's Michael Myers sister. She then begins to blame Annie for some reason, and decides that partying with her friends out in the open mind you, with booze and drugs is a good idea.

We don't get many interesting victims before Michael reaches Haddonfield though. Unlike in "Halloween 2007" where we got characters like Grizzly Joe. This time around, we get some rednecks and strip club patrons who Michael lays waste to before he reaches Haddonfield, and comes for Laurie. This makes the movie no fun. And Rob Zombie makes the end result so predictable for these people. They're all basically cliches of past horror film characters. Every horror film has some rednecks who piss off a Jason or a Michael Myers, and end up dead. No surprise there.

Then of course the boys who Laurie, Mya, and their friends meet at the Phantom Jam end up dead because they've gotta go take a leak or something. This film is just too contrived and predictable. It's too taught, and campy. Campy isn't supposed to exist when you're making a sequel to a remake which was supposed to reinvent the series in the first place. Don't expect too much from Dr. Loomis in this movie by the way. He doesn't get much screentime, and the screentime he does get, is just enough to let us know he's become a pretentious asshole who is more interested in selling books than anything else.

But there is a twist at the end involving the trifecta of Loomis, Myers, and Laurie which I won't give away or spoil here. But it does help what is certainly a weak finale to the movie. Rob Zombie does however manage to create a very haunting final scene, which is the only thing that works in this movie. Everything else is so boring and predictable that you get the feeling you're watching a typical "Halloween" sequel, not a sequel to a reimagining.

But then again, I remember all of the "Halloween" sequels, except part 3, and somewhat part 8, being atleast fun. "H2" is not fun. Nor is it scary. It's one of the worst "Halloween" films to date actually. And all because it doesn't bring anything new or fun to the table.

Positives:The final scene is creepy and haunting. Brutal kills.

Negatives:Cliche and one-dimensional characters. Laurie had such a better supporting cast in Carpenter's sequel. Brutal kills? Yes. Unique kills? No. The subplot with the ghost of Michael's mother egging him on was just ridiculous, and the horse was even more of a waste. No good chase scenes at all. Not a single chase scene in this film gets the adrenaline going.

Overall:One star out of four.





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