Let me start by saying that at first I hated Rob Zombie's Halloween. I voted it a 4 out of 10 on here and even though I've come to like parts of it I would still say that I wouldn't rate it any higher. Halloween 2 is a big time improvement in many areas, but fails in many as well.
Michael Myers, while being more like Jason Voorhees in this movie, is a total bad ass. He's hell bent on murder this time around and literally crushes and beats the life out of people (or just stabs them 20 times in a row) and it works well. There are a few scenes of him maskless and he does see visions of his mom and visions of himself as a child. This, to me, wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. If you don't expect much from this part of the movie then it shouldn't bother you too much.
The best thing about this movie is Scout Taylor-Compton. I've read lots of reviews saying that all Scout does is stumble, scream, and cry. This is true to a certain extent, but Scout's Laurie does have some meat to her. She's about 100% more interesting this time around. She carries a few scenes all on her own. At one point she talks to a stuffed bear. On paper this may sound laughable, but it comes off as cute and I did start to root for her. There are quiet a few dramatic/character building scenes that involve Laurie (and Annie) and I liked this stuff more than just about anything else in the movie.
The negative side is the pacing. The story unfolds from the "night" Laurie shoots Michael and then to a couple days leading up to October 31st, a year later. Once it hits "Halloween" again it's like everything happens at once. Laurie finds out she's related to Michael. They go to a Halloween party, and it's seriously too fast. They just threw whatever they could into the edit to move the story along. They could of added ten minutes of "filler" time to draw these things out and build them up, but for whatever reason, they didn't. The pacing, up until October 31st, was workable. There is a pointless segment of Michael killing two people outside of the Halloween party. Pointless because the Halloween party happens so fast, and other than these random kills, you don't see Michael at the party.
If you're expecting Michael to stalk his victims at all, don't. You won't be happy. Michael shows up and kills people. It's fun though, and at this point I'm not expecting a Carpenter like slow burn full of suspense.
Dr. Loomis isn't as pointless as everyone makes him out to be. I actually enjoyed most of his story line and was surprised that his dialogue wasn't as horrible as some of the trailers/soundtrack clips would lead you to believe. Loomis, Annie, Laurie, Brackett are all in different places in their lives and I thought it was a good call to include each different story line. I will say some of the Loomis stuff could of been trimmed to make way for more build up to the Laurie story line.
Laurie and Michel are having the same visions(which doesn't work but isn't as God awful as it could've been), and the ending feels rushed just like most of the stuff that happens on Halloween does, but there are a few great Brad Dourif (Sheriff Brackett) scenes and one scene I really enjoyed where Brackett punches Loomis in the face. I'm rambling on so I'll end this now.
All in all, the directors cut should be a more polished and structured version of the theatrical. I give the theatrical version a 6/10.
Michael Myers, while being more like Jason Voorhees in this movie, is a total bad ass. He's hell bent on murder this time around and literally crushes and beats the life out of people (or just stabs them 20 times in a row) and it works well. There are a few scenes of him maskless and he does see visions of his mom and visions of himself as a child. This, to me, wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it'd be. If you don't expect much from this part of the movie then it shouldn't bother you too much.
The best thing about this movie is Scout Taylor-Compton. I've read lots of reviews saying that all Scout does is stumble, scream, and cry. This is true to a certain extent, but Scout's Laurie does have some meat to her. She's about 100% more interesting this time around. She carries a few scenes all on her own. At one point she talks to a stuffed bear. On paper this may sound laughable, but it comes off as cute and I did start to root for her. There are quiet a few dramatic/character building scenes that involve Laurie (and Annie) and I liked this stuff more than just about anything else in the movie.
The negative side is the pacing. The story unfolds from the "night" Laurie shoots Michael and then to a couple days leading up to October 31st, a year later. Once it hits "Halloween" again it's like everything happens at once. Laurie finds out she's related to Michael. They go to a Halloween party, and it's seriously too fast. They just threw whatever they could into the edit to move the story along. They could of added ten minutes of "filler" time to draw these things out and build them up, but for whatever reason, they didn't. The pacing, up until October 31st, was workable. There is a pointless segment of Michael killing two people outside of the Halloween party. Pointless because the Halloween party happens so fast, and other than these random kills, you don't see Michael at the party.
If you're expecting Michael to stalk his victims at all, don't. You won't be happy. Michael shows up and kills people. It's fun though, and at this point I'm not expecting a Carpenter like slow burn full of suspense.
Dr. Loomis isn't as pointless as everyone makes him out to be. I actually enjoyed most of his story line and was surprised that his dialogue wasn't as horrible as some of the trailers/soundtrack clips would lead you to believe. Loomis, Annie, Laurie, Brackett are all in different places in their lives and I thought it was a good call to include each different story line. I will say some of the Loomis stuff could of been trimmed to make way for more build up to the Laurie story line.
Laurie and Michel are having the same visions(which doesn't work but isn't as God awful as it could've been), and the ending feels rushed just like most of the stuff that happens on Halloween does, but there are a few great Brad Dourif (Sheriff Brackett) scenes and one scene I really enjoyed where Brackett punches Loomis in the face. I'm rambling on so I'll end this now.
All in all, the directors cut should be a more polished and structured version of the theatrical. I give the theatrical version a 6/10.
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