Say Something Nice: HALLOWEEN II (2009)
Rob Zombie’s Halloween is an abomination, no matter how many nice things my homegirl A.M. Novak says about it. Most of the reason it sucks so bad is because it feels like a movie at war with itself. Regardless how you feel about Zombie’s demystification of Michael Myers – saddling John Carpenter’s avatar for ultimate evil with a rote serial killer backstory – it’s still his movie, including the white trash dress down of the Illinois monster’s clan. Sure, the scene where Michael’s stripper mom (Sheri Moon Zombie) takes off her clothes to “Love Hurts” while the homicidal youngster dejectedly commits his first heinous crime is incredibly silly, but it’s undeniably owned by the grimy auteur who delivered a neo-explo classic in The Devil’s Rejects just two years prior.
Somewhere just past the halfway point, Zombie’s Halloween falls apart completely, as the writer/director seems to suddenly recall that he’s helming a remake. Then he crams a Cliff’s Notes compression of the slasher granddaddy into roughly forty-five minutes, complete with references to characters like Bren Tramer, who you don’t give two shits about unless you’re a hardcore fan of the original. There are elements to admire about Zombie’s vision (the handheld camerawork seems to put us in the shoes of an innocent bystander, ready to bolt as soon as carnage erupts), but the movie’s such a goddamn mess of conflicting intent behind the camera that it’s impossible to ever settle in and attempt to admire his movie on its own terms.
The same cannot be said of Zombie’s only sequel – the much-maligned Halloween II. Arriving two years after his first stab at rebooting the franchise for Dimension (which, to be fair, did make a solid dent for a weekend at the box office and garnered a smattering of devotees thanks to his Director’s Cut), the continuing adventures of his hulking marauder in the cracked Shatner mask (played again by imposing superhuman Tyler Mane) feels like the movie he desired to craft all along. Now that the perfunctory redux aspects of the first are out of the way, Zombie’s free to slather his foul-mouthed, gore-soaked, grease-painted clown makeup all over a horror run that (again, to be fair) already had its day in court and was found guilty of numerous continuity crimes, as well as a slew of rather boring installments that paled in comparison to even the knock-offs that followed in Carpenter’s massive footsteps. Whether you dig Zombie’s wicked patchouli and fried chicken stench is another matter, entirely. Yet there’s no denying Halloween II is possibly the MOST Rob Zombie we were ever going to get inside of this series’ set-in-stone narrative construct.
Halloween II is all about trauma, and living in the wake of horrible things happening to you. This theme doesn’t merely apply to Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), who we first find wandering the streets of Haddonfield, the pistol she just unloaded into Michael’s face still gripped in her bloody paw. No, Michael becomes the focus of Zombie’s junior high psychoanalysis as well. We’re treated to dreams revolving around white horses, and how they symbolize a festering, hellish rage that, once unleashed, demolishes all in its path. Where Carpenter and Debra Hill’s vision of Myers was an invasive, unknowable, unkillable phantom, Zombie’s is one of naked, impotent bloodlust – the backup having built up to such a volume that every murder he commits is an act of savage mutilation. Zombie’s Myers doesn’t just stab people in this movie – he literally punches the massive blade into some of his victims. Grunting and screaming as he goes, it’s as if years of being an abused boy are finally exploding in brazen money shots of squirting karo syrup. To call Zombie’s Halloween II borderline pornographic doesn’t seem utterly unreasonable. Each act of violence comes complete with orgasmic releases of blunt fury that are not erotic in their evocative bloodletting, but instead mere instances of flesh pounding flesh until the climactic moment where the dead’s souls careen out their now useless, punctured corpses.
Each character has been altered by the events of the first film, and are struggling to keep it together in one way or another. Laurie’s become Zombie’s rocker dream girl – hanging under Alice Cooper and Charles Manson posters in her room before drinking with her bad influence work pals (one of which is played by genre queen extraordinaire, Brea Grant). Danielle Harris’ Annie heads in the opposite direction – obsessing over health food while the scars on her face remind her increasingly distant best friend of the tragedy they endured every single day. Sherriff Brackett (Brad Dourif, who does a mean Lee Marvin) is careworn as the warden of this domestic prison of PTSD, loving his blood and newly adopted daughters, but knowing neither will ever be the same again. Meanwhile, Zombie can’t seem to shake the hundred-pound gorilla in the room – acknowledging vicious critics of his initial Halloween via Sam Loomis’ book hocking pseudo-celebrity, who’s made a pretty penny off others’ pain. One could even view Loomis as Zombie’s stand-in, recognizing full well what he’s doing goes against his own code (the shock rocker has always been a rather traditional horror cinephile at heart), but continues to trudge into oblivion because there’s no turning back now.
It wouldn’t be a Halloween movie if there weren’t some terrific set pieces, and Zombie’s second slasher delivers in spades. Cinematographer Brandon Trost turns many of the murder storms into beautifully impressionistic tableaus, as Michael rises from the darkness of a corn field in order to brutalize a trio of stinky shit-kickers, and transforms a sleazy strip club into a neon drenched funhouse seemingly located in Satan’s asshole. Yet the most impressive stalk and slash sequence comes immediately after the title card, as Zombie pays homage to the entirety of Rick Rosenthal’s ’81 hospital set sequel with his own antiseptic Argento-inspired pursuit, as Laurie cries and crawls through a nightmare scored to the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin”. It’s an arresting announcement of stylistic intent, and lets everyone seated in the audience know that Halloween II will reach surreal highs the first film couldn’t even imagine.
If we’re being completely honest, Zombie should’ve been making Texas Chain Saw movies instead of Halloween pictures, but there’s nothing we can do about that now. Halloween II is a “best case” result of the artist applying his distinctly defined aesthetic to a franchise that was already on life support. The ending becomes the auteur’s bleak treatise on destiny and madness, draped in tattered hobo garb as a horror icon is reinvented in order to milk whatever mileage was left in his stolen work boots. For fans, these movies are despised because they don’t show enough reverence to that which came before, but for enthusiasts of Zombie’s idiosyncratic juvenile exploitation, this iteration of Myers & Co. offers up enough ideas and style to mark it as the most engaging entry since Season of the Witch. Zombie takes us to hell with a scarred little boy as our guide, all while his mother’s ghost hovers above him, assuring the child that everything will be alright if he just keeps killing. Love hurts.
