‘Evil walks among us.’
Halloween II is a 2009 American horror film written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. The film is a sequel to Zombie’s 2007 reboot of the Halloween film series, and the tenth instalment of the franchise. Also known as Halloween: H2 and H2: Halloween.
The film sees the return of lead cast members Malcolm McDowell, Scout Taylor-Compton, and Tyler Mane, who portrays Doctor Loomis, Laurie Strode, and Michael Myers in the 2007 film, respectively.
The movie also stars Sheri Moon Zombie (surprise!), Chase Vanek, Brad Dourif, Caroline Williams, Dayton Callie, Richard Brake, Octavia Spencer, Danielle Harris, Richard Riehle, Margot Kidder, Mary Birdsong and Brea Grant.
Plot:
In a flashback, Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) visits her son, a young Michael Myers (Chase Wright Vanek), at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. She gives him a white horse statuette as a gift, which Michael says reminds him of a dream he had of Deborah’s ghost, telling him she was going to bring him home.
One year after the events of the first film, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is now living with the Bracketts. Michael has been missing since last Halloween and is presumed dead, while Laurie has been having recurring nightmares about the event.
Meanwhile, Michael’s psychiatrist Dr Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) has chosen to turn the event into an opportunity to write another book. Elsewhere, Michael, who is still alive, has been having visions of Deborah’s ghost and a younger version of himself, who instructs him that it is time to bring Laurie home, so he sets off for Haddonfield…
John Carpenter was offered a cameo in the film by Rob Zombie, but he turned it down. Zombie originally stated he would never do a sequel to Halloween until the studio decided to make it. Then he signed on to write and direct because he didn’t want someone to ruin his personal vision.
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Reviews:
” …even Myers was unlikable. He didn’t even wear his mask half the time, he just walked around with a hoodie looking homeless. There were a few other big things that made this movie suck, but that would get into spoiler territory, so I’ll just have to wrap this review up by saying Halloween 2 is easily Zombie’s worst movie. And I’ve seen The Lords of Salem!” All Horror
“While a direct continuation of his finely scattered 2007 retread, Zombie’s Halloween II is a demented, uninhibited sequel that tears off in a vividly lunatic direction. Zombie’s making this one for himself, folks, and either you succumb to the experience or every single scene is going to feel like multiplex imprisonment.” DVD Times
“There are flickers of welcome wit (notably Loomis on a chat show with Weird Al Yankovic) but for an R-rated major studio horror sequel, this is remarkably grim and misanthropic – shot in dirty, grainy 16mm and favouring gruelling brutality over crowd-pleasing splatter and funhouse-scares. This Myers towers over everyone wanders around minus the mask looking like some monstrous hobo…” Horror Screams Video Vault
“Halloween II is a better film than Zombie’s first attempt at reimaging the Michael Myers mythos but it’s still got some pretty serious problems. It improves on the first film in certain ways, but doesn’t really correct enough to save it.” Rock! Shock! Drop!
Technical details:
105 minutes | 119 minutes (unrated director’s cut)
Audio: DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS
Aspect Ratio: 1.85: 1