It has been written, by critics perhaps less sympathetic to the horror genre, that Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 is a remake of the 1981 sequel to John Carpenter’s original suburban slasher. It is important to note that this is not the case. The tricky but essential distinction is that, rather than a remake of a sequel, Halloween 2 is the sequel to Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake.
Two years ago, Zombie remade Carpenter’s original Halloween film, filling in Michael Myers’ childhood, family, and evolution into the pure embodiment of evil. Roughly speaking though, it was a fairly faithful adaptation. Rather than rehashing the 1981 sequel though, the new Halloween 2 makes a respectful nod towards the original franchise before taking off into uncharted new territory. Whereas Zombie’s first film added new content surrounding Michael’s origin as a killer, Halloween 2 takes us inside his head.
The majority of the story takes place a year after the events of the first film. Michael Myers is presumed dead, even though his body was lost, Dr. Loomis has become rich and pompous by exploiting Michael’s notoriety, and Laurie is slowly sorting through the psychological trauma left from last year’s massacre. As another Halloween approaches though, a familiar face is returning to Haddonfield leaving a trail of bodies in his wake.
Halloween 2 struggles with some of the same pacing issues that the 2007 Halloween suffered from, but Zombie’s progression as a filmmaker is marked. The sequences depicting Laurie’s nightmares and the peeks inside Michael’s head are visually stunning while still relying on relatively simple cinematic techniques. There is perhaps even an eerie, gruesome elegance to the simplicity of these moments in comparison to the hyper-gore of the rest of the film and most contemporary horror.
It would be tantamount to heresy to say that Rob Zombie’s new Halloween 2 is on par with John Carpenter’s original 1978 slasher opus. On the other hand though, the comparison isn’t really fair. Carpenter’s original is the apex of the 1970s-80s era of holiday-themed and domestic slasher films. Zombie’s Halloween 2 is more modern, has a lot more money behind it, and is more mature in almost every sense of the word. There’s certainly no replacing Carpenter’s classic, but the new Halloween 2 has already stepped far above all of the seven original franchise sequels put together.
