Now I pride myself on my extensive knowledge and even more extensive collection of schlock cinema, it's one of my greatest joys in the world. There's just something about a movie that is so bad that it's good, even if the movie is making you ill watching it. There is, however, a thing as so bad it's unwatchable, you know these ones. The movies that you only remember because of how bad they are, the ones that aren't even unintentionally funny; god monster of indian flats, the incredible two headed transplant, waterworld, and battlefield earth to name a few. These are films that are going to go down in history as the worst of the worst.
I do not feel that Halloween 2 belongs with these other films. It's sort of in limbo between so bad it's good and so bad it's unwatchable. You see there are good things about the movie, sadly these things usually only last about a minute or two in duration and mostly consist of death scenes. You see, the violence is the single best part of the film, but if you laid every death scene end to end i doubt it would be more than 20 minutes. Also zombie tends to blow his load early in the film...the last couple of death scenes are weak by comparison consisting of either; quick stabbings or strangling, something Michael's not exactly known for.
Rob Zombie, I truly believe, has overstayed his welcome as a horror film director. Maybe he can find himself a niche market with his next film the haunted world of el superbeasto. An animated film that I'm actually excited for, but i think his days as a horror director are numbered or at least I hope they are. I've been to many many films, especially within the last year and I have, before tonight, only witnessed one other walk out and that was during the collector. Tonight i witnessed not one, but five walk outs only one of which made sense because it was a younger child with his mom and she probably disapproved of the material. I mean, a woman did just get stabbed to death brutally with a knife, with a lovely follow up shot of the woman with a knife sticking out of her head. I do think it speaks volumes of the material that this occurred. The gentlemen I went with to see Halloween with eventually started riffing on the movie a la MST3K, of course lead by myself, which i think actually led to my enjoying the movie more than maybe i should have.
So let's discuss the things i enjoyed about Halloween 2. The violence was great and the gore was well done for a Rob Zombie film, but to be honest was rather shabby for horror movies in general. The gore in the collector for example was amazing comparatively speaking. The many d-list celebrity cameos margot kidder, weird al, chris hardwick and matt bush to name a few. Actually the casting for all the roles outside of the main group of girls is pretty darn great, especially Brad Dourif (wormtongue in LOTR) as the father/sheriff. The main cast of girls on the other hand were atrocious, including the usually delightful Brea Grant, it's not a good sign when the best things the main characters do is dress up like characters from another movie (in this case rocky horror picture show). The scene featuring chris hardwick as a saucy late night TV talk show host and weird Al as his sidekick could easily be considered the best non-death related scene in the movie and arguably the best scene in the entire movie. The best death scene hands down is the scene where Michael Meyers stomps in a man's head, it's brutal and amazing and might be one of the best deaths I've seen this year, but not worth the price of admission. In fact, there's nothing in the movie that even when combined make it worth the price of admission.
Should I discuss what I disliked about the movie? the short answer is "everything else", but it's more than that. Aside the story being half-assed at best and the direction they decided to go with key characters in the series. There are constant attempts by Zombie to make this and art film, he tries over and over again to make this appeal to the more cerebral audience by making it so fucking weird at parts that it's almost impossible to follow and if anyone out there knows the man maybe they can pass this on for me "STOP CASTING YOUR GODDAMN WIFE IN YOUR MOVIES!". she's terrible, pure and simple, she adds nothing to the film while simultaneously taking quite a lot away from it, this needs to end.
would I recommend Halloween 2? no, it's not worth, even for the good bits, as few as they are. I wouldn't even say wait for the DVD, it's not worth your money there either. Wait till it's available at your local library and get it there for free.
till next time it's your favorite movie snob, watching 'em so you don't have to!
