It Was A Night Of Great Power Part 2: Rob Zombie's Halloween II And My Addiction To The Loathed Films Of This Damned Franchise
Ugliness can be a powerful cinematic tool. That should go without saying when it comes to the horror genre, but we are in a world far removed from the phrase "Go without saying." Michael Rooker in a crumbling apartment, stammering slowly through a dark confession in Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer. The David Hess song that plays while Krug's gang cruises through the woods in The Last House On The Left, a satire of a movie theme with a jaunty banjo touch. However, that ugliness needs to be nurtured and grown, an antichrist infant suckled gently on the teat of blackest intention. Rob Zombie's Halloween II (Or H2 if yer' nasty) overflows with ugliness, but it is unearned and deafening. The sensory experience is akin to drowning in a tar pit while a boombox just out of reach plays a loop of The Beverly Hillbillies yelling "Fuck" in unison. I return to this abomination at least once every two years, and every time I tilt my head in bafflement like my boy Mikey. What draws me back to the unremittingly cruel tragedy of Laurie Strode?
WHITE HORSE - Linked to instinct, purity and the drive of the physical body to release powerful and emotional forces, like rage with ensuing chaos and destruction
--excerpt from
The Subconscious Psychosis of Dreams
So starts Rob Zombie's Halloween II. We see a young Michael in Smith's Grove Sanitarium gifted the figurine of a white horse by his mother. Then we jump ahead to Dr. Loomis as he informs Michael of her death, with the boy promising she will return. Cut to the events immediately following the climax of Robert Zombie's Halloween. Through a freak cow-related incident, Michael is able to escape the paramedics transporting him. Laurie Strode and Annie Brackett have survived the night he came home, but are far from unscathed.
A year later, Laurie lives in an isolated farmhouse with Sheriff Brackett and Annie. The trauma of her semi-final girl experience sits heavy on her shoulders, poisoning her dreams. Meanwhile, rambling man Michael Myers experiences visions of his mother and younger self, visions that compel him to return to Haddonfield and find Laurie Strode. Finding out her familial link to Michael (Via a very shitty PR move by Dr. Loomis), Michael and Laurie reunite as another bloodbath sweeps the cursed town of Haddonfield.
Paramedic Gary (A wasted Richard Brake) tells a necrophilia joke that your paint-huffing cousin would make while transporting Michael at the start of the movie. My eyes drifted upward. When his ambulance collides with a cow, there's a beautiful shot of the wreckage on an empty road lit by a full moon. I experience a glimmer of appreciation. Then Brake wakes up and says "Fuck" at least 74 times. My eyes began their lonesome trip up into my skull yet again. There's a cadence to this movie where something I technically enjoy is almost always followed by something that makes me grit my teeth in pain. If I spread the elements of this movie out on the living room floor, there's so much to love. Then it goes into the Rob Zombie blender, and becomes a deafening, hellbillly slurry.
The soundtrack courts corniness and lands firmly in comfort food territory: MC5, Motorhead, Void, Misfits Bad Brains, even some season-appropriate rockabilly tunes. In a hospital dream sequence, the video for "Nights In White Satin" by the Moody Blues follows Laurie, playing on various televisions in the background as she's stalked by Michael. It's a condensed homage to Carpenter's sequel that mainly works, the grainy ghost of a Justin Hayward a clue that something is off. Laurie wears Ace Frehley and Black Flag shirts, hanging out with punk-coded pals Mya and Harley. Their dynamic rolls up to the starting line and then explodes before the gun, a wasted opportunity to explore her social life.
The Halloween party that the three gals hit up is a visual feast, horror movies projected on barn walls and a rockabilly band in full effect. I want to be at this party. Then Jeff Daniel Phillips shows up to deliver Dane Cook level stand-up while dressed as Vincent Price from Madhouse. Now I definitely don't want to be at this party, and I want to watch Madhouse. There's an eerie dream sequence that features a court of Halloween creatures, imagery that feels like Sam from Trick R' Treat by way of The Black Lodge. It of course has to climax with Laurie screaming at full volume. Even Michael's partially torn mask makes for a compelling image, one that is shattered when he begins gutturally grunting as he power-stabs his victim 500 times.
Then there are elements that wholly baffle me. Loomis (Consummate professional Malcolm McDowell) feels part-meta and part-"Rob Zombie hates Samuel Loomis." Exploiting the tragedy he failed to prevent, he hits on hot reporters and sputters in rage when ribbed by Weird Al on a talk show hosted by Chris Hardwick. He does this all so he can have a unearned attempt at repentance in the last act, one which ends in a gruesome death (Insert baffled Jack Nicholson from The Shining face here). The legend Brad Dourif may be the most wasted of the entire cast as Sheriff Brackett. Dourif brings a world-weary quality to Brackett that begs to be explored, and his guilt as a result of keeping Laurie's true identity from her should be a major element. Instead we take a trip to the Rabbit In Red strip club so its proprietor can make Frankenstein-themed sex jokes to a stripper while trying to get some action.
Like Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, this movie continues to fascinate me because of its unfulfilled promise. There's a film in my mind where the nightmares of Laurie Strode and The Shape meet at a horrifying junction, a tale where evil is passed on under Samhain skies. It's a transference that happens through visions of capering creatures in an otherworld where ash falls like snow. It's a legacy of violence glimpsed between crowds of costumed revelers at a Halloween party turned orange-hued bloodbath. As it is, the ugliness of the actual film is like heavy smog obscuring a harvest moon. Without a view of the heavens, you can't truly dream of Hell.
-Dr. Benny Graves
