There Be Minor Spoilers:
This weekend past I took in a double feature of Halloween II and The Final Destination.
The latter I expected to be crap simply because it is a Final destination film. I expected a lot of gore and creative deaths and I got what I expected. I did not expect a riveting story and sharp dialogue and acting. FD4 did not disappoint in this sense. It was what it was, an enjoyable 3D gimmick.
Halloween II was the biggest disappointment since Halloween I was remade by Rob Zombie. I will say this, RZ knows how to market a film, unfortunately that is all there is to this grim and brutal follow-up to the 2007 reimaging that took the horror out of The Shape.
Zombie spent the first hour of the original remake crafting an intricate back-story explaining why Michael Meyers is what he is. That alone stripped the terror out of the original screenplay from the 70's where Michael was just plain evil...no rhyme or reason for it.
In Halloween II Zombie takes the character into a whole new direction. The shape is now a lone drifter walking his way across IL back to Haddonfield, a trip that takes 1 year as he is guided by vision of his departed mother a'la Ms. Voorhees. For some reason his mom's specter totes around a white horse and we get some psycho-babble script before the titles explaining what White Horse syndrome is.
The surviving cast, Laurie Strode, Annie Brackett and her sheriff father have all been changed for the worse. Where they were once All-American folk the events of the first film have had a tremendous impact on their psyche. Laurie is a wreck who is haunted by nightmares as the titular holiday approaches as does the one year anniversary of the terror she survived leaving her an orphan. She now attends psychiatric sessions regularly as she tries to cope with her loss and resume some sort of normal existence.
Annie, her best friend is now an agoraphobic, never leaving the house throughout the film and Sheriff Brackett is just getting by haunted by the murders that rocked the small town just one year prior.
The opening scene, which takes place in a hospital on the same night of the attack from the first film builds tension that the rest of the film fails to capitalize on. Instead of remaking John Carpenter's Halloween II which took place entirely in the hospital, Zombie thumbs his nose at the source material making the entire opening segment a dream and then proceeds to make his own film and the franchise takes a terrible nose-dive from here.
Halloween II is filled with brutal rage induced violence that is disgusting and vile for the sake of being disgusting and vile. The worst part of the film though is that Zombie took these characters, horror Icons in and of themselves and turned them on their ear.
The dialogue tries to be cutting edge and controversial as two paramedics discuss the joy of screwing dead bodies while they are still fresh. It comes across cheap and pathetic rather than shocking. The rest of the cast curses up a storm simply because that is the way RZ and his regular entourage speak.
Laurie Strode is now a mental basket-case who is frail, weak and downright filthy. She is tattooed and the house she shares with her friend Annie and the Sheriff is in disrepair, vandalized and poorly lit. Satanic imagery like pentagrams and 666's are spray painted on the walls of the house and everything is outdated from the stove to the fixtures. All I kept thinking about when the characters were eating was "I bet it stinks in there." Then out of the blue Laurie runs from the table and throws up for no reason and i suspect that it was because of the odor in the house.
Doctor Loomis, the hero from the original franchise as well as Zombie's remake is now an attention seeking media whore pimping his new book and no longer cares about the lives touched by the monster he tried to cure. It was a disservice to the character and the story and it was just lame. His superhero revelation at the end of the film was flimsy and ridiculous and served no purpose whatsoever.
Halloween II is an abomination of film making and does not deserve to be called a Halloween film. I never thought I would suggest Halloween III: Season of the witch over any other Halloween film, but alas...rent that instead of seeing Rob Zombie's abortion of a film franchise.
Zombie tricked us, this film is no treat.
This weekend past I took in a double feature of Halloween II and The Final Destination.
The latter I expected to be crap simply because it is a Final destination film. I expected a lot of gore and creative deaths and I got what I expected. I did not expect a riveting story and sharp dialogue and acting. FD4 did not disappoint in this sense. It was what it was, an enjoyable 3D gimmick.
Halloween II was the biggest disappointment since Halloween I was remade by Rob Zombie. I will say this, RZ knows how to market a film, unfortunately that is all there is to this grim and brutal follow-up to the 2007 reimaging that took the horror out of The Shape.
Zombie spent the first hour of the original remake crafting an intricate back-story explaining why Michael Meyers is what he is. That alone stripped the terror out of the original screenplay from the 70's where Michael was just plain evil...no rhyme or reason for it.
In Halloween II Zombie takes the character into a whole new direction. The shape is now a lone drifter walking his way across IL back to Haddonfield, a trip that takes 1 year as he is guided by vision of his departed mother a'la Ms. Voorhees. For some reason his mom's specter totes around a white horse and we get some psycho-babble script before the titles explaining what White Horse syndrome is.
The surviving cast, Laurie Strode, Annie Brackett and her sheriff father have all been changed for the worse. Where they were once All-American folk the events of the first film have had a tremendous impact on their psyche. Laurie is a wreck who is haunted by nightmares as the titular holiday approaches as does the one year anniversary of the terror she survived leaving her an orphan. She now attends psychiatric sessions regularly as she tries to cope with her loss and resume some sort of normal existence.
Annie, her best friend is now an agoraphobic, never leaving the house throughout the film and Sheriff Brackett is just getting by haunted by the murders that rocked the small town just one year prior.
The opening scene, which takes place in a hospital on the same night of the attack from the first film builds tension that the rest of the film fails to capitalize on. Instead of remaking John Carpenter's Halloween II which took place entirely in the hospital, Zombie thumbs his nose at the source material making the entire opening segment a dream and then proceeds to make his own film and the franchise takes a terrible nose-dive from here.
Halloween II is filled with brutal rage induced violence that is disgusting and vile for the sake of being disgusting and vile. The worst part of the film though is that Zombie took these characters, horror Icons in and of themselves and turned them on their ear.
The dialogue tries to be cutting edge and controversial as two paramedics discuss the joy of screwing dead bodies while they are still fresh. It comes across cheap and pathetic rather than shocking. The rest of the cast curses up a storm simply because that is the way RZ and his regular entourage speak.
Laurie Strode is now a mental basket-case who is frail, weak and downright filthy. She is tattooed and the house she shares with her friend Annie and the Sheriff is in disrepair, vandalized and poorly lit. Satanic imagery like pentagrams and 666's are spray painted on the walls of the house and everything is outdated from the stove to the fixtures. All I kept thinking about when the characters were eating was "I bet it stinks in there." Then out of the blue Laurie runs from the table and throws up for no reason and i suspect that it was because of the odor in the house.
Doctor Loomis, the hero from the original franchise as well as Zombie's remake is now an attention seeking media whore pimping his new book and no longer cares about the lives touched by the monster he tried to cure. It was a disservice to the character and the story and it was just lame. His superhero revelation at the end of the film was flimsy and ridiculous and served no purpose whatsoever.
Halloween II is an abomination of film making and does not deserve to be called a Halloween film. I never thought I would suggest Halloween III: Season of the witch over any other Halloween film, but alas...rent that instead of seeing Rob Zombie's abortion of a film franchise.
Zombie tricked us, this film is no treat.
“I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.”
Certified 100% Serious
AsMoral Wrote:There Be Minor Spoilers:
This weekend past I took in a double feature of Halloween II and The Final Destination.
The latter I expected to be crap simply because it is a Final destination film. I expected a lot of gore and creative deaths and I got what I expected. I did not expect a riveting story and sharp dialogue and acting. FD4 did not disappoint in this sense. It was what it was, an enjoyable 3D gimmick.
Halloween II was the biggest disappointment since Halloween I was remade by Rob Zombie. I will say this, RZ knows how to market a film, unfortunately that is all there is to this grim and brutal follow-up to the 2007 reimaging that took the horror out of The Shape.
Zombie spent the first hour of the original remake crafting an intricate back-story explaining why Michael Meyers is what he is. That alone stripped the terror out of the original screenplay from the 70's where Michael was just plain evil...no rhyme or reason for it.
In Halloween II Zombie takes the character into a whole new direction. The shape is now a lone drifter walking his way across IL back to Haddonfield, a trip that takes 1 year as he is guided by vision of his departed mother a'la Ms. Voorhees. For some reason his mom's specter totes around a white horse and we get some psycho-babble script before the titles explaining what White Horse syndrome is.
The surviving cast, Laurie Strode, Annie Brackett and her sheriff father have all been changed for the worse. Where they were once All-American folk the events of the first film have had a tremendous impact on their psyche. Laurie is a wreck who is haunted by nightmares as the titular holiday approaches as does the one year anniversary of the terror she survived leaving her an orphan. She now attends psychiatric sessions regularly as she tries to cope with her loss and resume some sort of normal existence.
Annie, her best friend is now an agoraphobic, never leaving the house throughout the film and Sheriff Brackett is just getting by haunted by the murders that rocked the small town just one year prior.
The opening scene, which takes place in a hospital on the same night of the attack from the first film builds tension that the rest of the film fails to capitalize on. Instead of remaking John Carpenter's Halloween II which took place entirely in the hospital, Zombie thumbs his nose at the source material making the entire opening segment a dream and then proceeds to make his own film and the franchise takes a terrible nose-dive from here.
Halloween II is filled with brutal rage induced violence that is disgusting and vile for the sake of being disgusting and vile. The worst part of the film though is that Zombie took these characters, horror Icons in and of themselves and turned them on their ear.
The dialogue tries to be cutting edge and controversial as two paramedics discuss the joy of screwing dead bodies while they are still fresh. It comes across cheap and pathetic rather than shocking. The rest of the cast curses up a storm simply because that is the way RZ and his regular entourage speak.
Laurie Strode is now a mental basket-case who is frail, weak and downright filthy. She is tattooed and the house she shares with her friend Annie and the Sheriff is in disrepair, vandalized and poorly lit. Satanic imagery like pentagrams and 666's are spray painted on the walls of the house and everything is outdated from the stove to the fixtures. All I kept thinking about when the characters were eating was "I bet it stinks in there." Then out of the blue Laurie runs from the table and throws up for no reason and i suspect that it was because of the odor in the house.
Doctor Loomis, the hero from the original franchise as well as Zombie's remake is now an attention seeking media whore pimping his new book and no longer cares about the lives touched by the monster he tried to cure. It was a disservice to the character and the story and it was just lame. His superhero revelation at the end of the film was flimsy and ridiculous and served no purpose whatsoever.
Halloween II is an abomination of film making and does not deserve to be called a Halloween film. I never thought I would suggest Halloween III: Season of the witch over any other Halloween film, but alas...rent that instead of seeing Rob Zombie's abortion of a film franchise.
Zombie tricked us, this film is no treat.
I just went and puked from the stink. I saw the first one and walked out saying eh I prefer the original. I will not watch this film only because the original Halloween 2 is my favorite horror film of all time. This just sounds like a disgusting mockery of that.
One of my favorite actors and characters of all time is Donald Pleasance as Loomis. To think of Loomis as a money grubbing whore makes me want to go kill my brother on Halloween. Despicable. Disgusting. Revolting.
INCONCEIVABLE!
I didn't care for the original and have no desire to see the remake. By the way, I just had my latest piece put out at FILMS IN REVIEW (www.filmsinreview.com) on one of my favorites films, "FEAR NO EVIL".
If you haven't heard of it-ck it out. If you have seen it-leave a comment at the site!!!
If you haven't heard of it-ck it out. If you have seen it-leave a comment at the site!!!