Wednesday, Sep. 02, 2009

Good slash, thin story in 'Halloween 2'

By Edward Robertson, atomictown.com

I rag on horror sequels a lot for being so bad even Jesus can't forgive them, but the opportunity is there for them to be better than their originals.

This phenomenon is most visible in the last decade's superhero movies, where X2, Spider-Man 2, and The Dark Knight all kicked it up one or more notches over the ones that came before them.

I love origin stories because you get to see what turned people into the bad-asses we all know and love today, but once the first movie has waded through all that setup and exposition, a director can really cut loose on his second entry. It's a simple formula: less time on dudes sewing their first costume is more time for cities blowing up.

Thus my anticipation of Rob Zombie's Halloween II. The first was OK, but it was a remake and it had to cover all that boring stuff where Michael Myers wasn't chopping people into strudel. Yawn!!!. This time, Zombie had free rein to take the series wherever he wanted it, rendering it extra boo-worthy that he seems content to stomp back over the same patch of blood-soaked ground.

It's been a year since killer Michael Myers (played by Tyler Mane) was shot to death by estranged sister Scout Taylor-Compton. But his body was lost on the way to the morgue, and Taylor-Compton is still dealing with the trauma of that night.

She's right to worry, because Michael isn't dead. He's been hiding in the woods outside town. With Halloween night approaching again, he comes back to finish business with his long-lost sister.

Halloween II is 101 minutes long, including credits, and writer/director Rob Zombie wastes the first 15-20 minutes of his sequel on that highest form of art, the dream sequence. It's meant to ramp up the suspense at the start, but the usual response to having the rug pulled out from under you isn't terror, it's a sharp pain in the ass as you crash into the ground.

In fact, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to ring up Hollywood right now and demand a complete moratorium on the cinematic dream-sequence. They never, ever work. At best, your reaction is a disappointed "Oh," and at worst it's "What the ----?", where "----" is any and every combination of curse words you can imagine. Maybe it's that this reminds me of my ex-girlfriends, but they're just no good. Squandering 20 percent of your movie on one is insane.

After that giant misstep, Halloween II settles down into what Zombie does well: brutal, bloody violence, an intense and skillful aura of chaos, and dialogue that's as funny as it is filthy. Zombie is talented with both a script and a camera, and his creative brain throws sparks onto even the smallest scenes.

This extends to the casting. Loaded with cameos and bit parts from actors you love but can't name (yay Charlie Udder from Deadwood and Fat Charles Bukowski from Batman Begins!), they bring their sliver-thin roles to life in a way that makes it sad when they have their faces stomped in. But that's fun, too, so what are you going to do, not have people's faces crushed to goo? Let's not get crazy.

The small things are great, the bigger one's aren't. Zombie does some interesting things with Michael Myers (less boogeyman, more realistic) and weaves in a psychological element that's rare in these things, but the plot never really hangs together and the rest of it doesn't rise above its genre roots.

As a slasher flick, it's got some interesting stuff.

As a story, it's nothing special.

Grade: C+