Before this film came out, Rob Zombie toured the horror junket, talking about how this would be HIS Halloween, and how he would not be constrained to the rules of a remake (a la his alleged "extreme vision" of the original), etc... To that end, he talked about his choice of film medium, and how he opted for a medium that was grittier, dirtier and rougher.
To that end, Zombie's "H2" is a study of contradiction. After all, here he has created a film that features some inventive, darkly fantastical scenes that in a nicer medium would have been far more effective...but which is more painful to behold because of the outdated film medium used! Even gornophiles will be horribly disappointed with this endeavour: there are plenty of savage, gory deaths, however the film is so gritty, it's like watching them on a black and white TV! And to think, we haven't even talked about the story yet. It's pretty generic: Michael Myers makes his escape at the beginning...and following a homage to Rick Rosenthal's "Halloween II" at the beginning that is revealed through a dream sequence, we are updated to the following year.
Laurie is now living with Annie and her Sheriff father, and in the lead up to Halloween, Michael Myers cuts his way through Haddonfield's "underbelly" while Dr. Loomis reveals himself to be an upper class sleaze ball, capitalizing on the tragedy from the previous year to sell his book.
Michael is not alone on his rampage this time: his dead mother returns, accompanied by a white horse, and some nonsense explanation about the meaning of it all. She eggs Michael on to "take us home," which of course means picking off Angel/Laurie on the way.
There is so much in the film that is deserving of ridicule and contempt, but the reality for me was that most of it centres around Zombie's take on people, and on the horribly inept development of Scout Taylor-Compton's portrayal of Laurie Strode.
The former is not new: Zombie's remake of "Halloween" was chock full of white trash stereotypes that got tedious pretty quickly! For those unsure of what I mean: no one brushes their hair, they wear gaudy clothing as a rule, and most of the men have long hair.
However as for the latter, it got annoying really, really quickly! This is not the innocent Laurie Strode made famous by Jamie Lee Curtis: Taylor-Compton's Laurie harasses her new guardian for his choice of pizza toppings, spray paints her en-suite bathroom with satanic graffiti, and acts in general like a petulant brat! I won't even go into her dreams of killing Annie, or of the incomprehensibility of the ending when she finishes off Michael with a knife AFTER telling him she loves him, then walks out of the broken down shed wearing his mask. Or that silly ending, where she's meant to look menacing...but instead looks less menacing that the child Michael! I sure hope Malek Akkad milked this for all it was worth...because in one movie, he has destroyed the film franchise that Moustapha Akkad had created with John Carpenter and Deborah Hill!
To that end, Zombie's "H2" is a study of contradiction. After all, here he has created a film that features some inventive, darkly fantastical scenes that in a nicer medium would have been far more effective...but which is more painful to behold because of the outdated film medium used! Even gornophiles will be horribly disappointed with this endeavour: there are plenty of savage, gory deaths, however the film is so gritty, it's like watching them on a black and white TV! And to think, we haven't even talked about the story yet. It's pretty generic: Michael Myers makes his escape at the beginning...and following a homage to Rick Rosenthal's "Halloween II" at the beginning that is revealed through a dream sequence, we are updated to the following year.
Laurie is now living with Annie and her Sheriff father, and in the lead up to Halloween, Michael Myers cuts his way through Haddonfield's "underbelly" while Dr. Loomis reveals himself to be an upper class sleaze ball, capitalizing on the tragedy from the previous year to sell his book.
Michael is not alone on his rampage this time: his dead mother returns, accompanied by a white horse, and some nonsense explanation about the meaning of it all. She eggs Michael on to "take us home," which of course means picking off Angel/Laurie on the way.
There is so much in the film that is deserving of ridicule and contempt, but the reality for me was that most of it centres around Zombie's take on people, and on the horribly inept development of Scout Taylor-Compton's portrayal of Laurie Strode.
The former is not new: Zombie's remake of "Halloween" was chock full of white trash stereotypes that got tedious pretty quickly! For those unsure of what I mean: no one brushes their hair, they wear gaudy clothing as a rule, and most of the men have long hair.
However as for the latter, it got annoying really, really quickly! This is not the innocent Laurie Strode made famous by Jamie Lee Curtis: Taylor-Compton's Laurie harasses her new guardian for his choice of pizza toppings, spray paints her en-suite bathroom with satanic graffiti, and acts in general like a petulant brat! I won't even go into her dreams of killing Annie, or of the incomprehensibility of the ending when she finishes off Michael with a knife AFTER telling him she loves him, then walks out of the broken down shed wearing his mask. Or that silly ending, where she's meant to look menacing...but instead looks less menacing that the child Michael! I sure hope Malek Akkad milked this for all it was worth...because in one movie, he has destroyed the film franchise that Moustapha Akkad had created with John Carpenter and Deborah Hill!