Another day, another post for 31 Days of Halloween, this time looking at Rob Zombie’s Halloween II. This one is a couple of days late, as I am playing catch-up, but I think I have some good points.
But then again, your mileage may vary based on your own appreciation for Rob Zombie’s aesthetic impulses. As for me, I find both of his films in the remake timeline pretty goddamn good, and I am sad we won’t get a third one. I think the story deserves to be told completely, but then again, I am not a movie producer.
I’m just a nerd writing about movies for my 31 Days of Halloween project.
I liked quite a lot about Rob Zombie’s Halloween II, though I do have some quibbles here and there. How can I not? Apparently I take Halloween very, very seriously. I think Zombie’s two films work very well and make for a more cohesive whole than most of the entries in the franchise, with the exception of the Halloween (1978)/Halloween (2018) pairing. I appreciate the ambition of Zombie’s approach and willingness to go his own way within the larger framework of what Halloween is, as we have accepted it as a culture. Halloween II (2009) is a fun commitment to the new ideas and decisions made in his remake; there is no backing down from certain narrative and aesthetic decisions and impulses, and while I do not agree with all of them, I respect the vision, and it works well enough for my purposes.
Case in point, this film really is Sheriff Brackett’s movie. Brad Dourif is an incredible actor, so it’s not surprising he can add a lot of gravitas to the expanded role of the character in this continuity, especially with how the narrative expands his story with his daughter Annie and makes him a surrogate father to Laurie. It’s all very well done, and the character gets put through the wringer as part of the overall darker and more cynical world Zombie concocts for his remake. The cruelty of the universe does not let up, and Brad Dourif plays off it perfectly while maintaining a likable character you just feel devastated for. His expression in the theatrical film’s ending, seeing Laurie approach wearing Michael’s mask, is heartbreaking, especially after just having lost Annie minutes earlier.
This also may just be me fanboying over Brad Dourif, to be fair. I’m not sure I am capable of being objective when it comes to one of my favorite actors.
One thing I appreciate about Halloween II is that Zombie was able to continue his vision, and it ultimately creates a consistency that benefits the story he is trying to tell. Case in point, I was a little down on Michael Myers’ muteness in the previous film. I felt the transition from a talking child to the silent killer we expect from a Halloween film was not quite completely earned. The transition seemed a bit too sudden. However, this film retroactively fixes that, as we do end up getting inner monologue from Michael in the form of apparitions of his child-self and his mother. We see conversations play out in his mind that help bridge the gap between the distinct personality he exhibited as a child and the remorseless and silent killer he is as an adult. I have my issues with the apparitions, to a degree. I think the white horse symbolism is a bit much, and just having Michael speak with the “spirit” of his mother would be enough.
While I am also not the biggest fan of turning Michael into Norman Bates, I understand the impulse and am willing to buy into it. The spiritual apparition ends up recontextualizing the transition from childhood to adulthood in the first film. The fact that Laurie/Angel also seems to have similar visions adds another interesting wrinkle; is the Myers madness hereditary? I don’t love it, but I admire the impulse, and it does something new to move the narrative forward in interesting ways. The fact we never got a third film that explores Laurie/Angel becoming a killer is a missed opportunity (based on the theatrical cut, of course). I guarantee it would have been one of the most divisive Halloween films ever made, but worthy of conversation.
When I first wrote about one of Zombie’s films, House of 1000 Corpses, I had described it as a murder ride – a carnivalesque haunted house ride. Something janky, kind of goofy, but ultimately a lot of fun. I think of Rob Zombie’s take on Halloween in a lot of those same terms. The movies have an uneven quality in them regarding some of the extensions to the lore and story decisions, but there is a wonderful consistency to the ambition and the brutality I cannot help but delight in. Zombie set out to modernize Halloween and apply classic elements to a more cynical crapsack world, and it worked remarkably well.
Just not enough to get that third movie, though, and that’s a bummer.
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