Halloween 2 Director’s Cut – Notes

Spoony | Jan 14 2010 | more | 
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I’ve already ranted on my distaste for Halloween 2 at length, but I thought I would give it another shake. Besides, I figured the added footage would clear up a lot of my earlier complaints about characterization and continuity.

The initial hospital scene has a really great moment added where Laurie falls into a dumpster full of dead bodies. It’s a very surreal visual, but I can tell why Zombie cut it, because it would have given away that the whole scene was a dream very early on. I probably would have cut it, too.

There’s a lot more footage added involving Laurie and her strained relationship with fellow survivor Annie. In the theatrical cut, Laurie seemed much more confused and irrationally fearful, plagued by nightmares of Michael coming for her. Here, these visions are much darker and more violent, clearly featuring Laurie as the one inflicting violence on people. She starts having fits of rage so severe they manifest as completely dissociative episodes. It scares her enough that she starts asking for stronger meds, saying she’s unable to control feelings of rage against Annie (and she doesn’t really know why she feels this anger). Again, this is valuable characterization that is necessary for the ending to feel like anything but a lame twist. On the other hand, you can tell why these scenes were cut, because it all but telegraphs Laurie’s dark turn at the end. Hell, when Laurie looks up at a Rorschach painting on her psychiatrist’s wall and notes that it looks like white horses, you might as well hang a neon sign around her neck reading “SHE’S GOT THE DEVIL IN HER.”

But really, how much time did that buy the twist ending? It’s fairly obvious when Laurie starts seeing a spectral Myers Mother about two-thirds of the way through the movie. You could argue that these scenes make Laurie less sympathetic (because she really does come across as a bitch in comparison to Annie), but what confuses me more is the message this movie raises about nature vs. nurture in the creation of the Shape. In fact, in one restored scene, a journalist even asks Dr. Loomis which factor he thinks was responsible for Michael, and Loomis gives a waffling, prickish answer. The first movie makes a heavy argument– a bullshit one, to be sure– but a heavy one that Michael Myers was created by a hideously abusive and fucked-up family and childhood environment. His dad was a mean drunk, his mom a stripper, and his sister the town bicycle. Kids tormented him at school, and nobody really picked up on the warning signs before it erupted into violence.

This movie, however, throws all of that away in the case of Laurie, who had a great childhood for as long as she had conscious memory. Sure, a seven-foot, three hundred pound motherfucker tried to ram a kitchen knife into her brain when she was 17, but even after that she couldn’t have asked for a more supportive circle of friends and family to help her through such a traumatic time. And yet this movie’s final judgment is that this evil is apparently the inescapable Myers legacy. You just can’t have it both ways, Rob.

Anyway, there’s also a lot more of Dr. Loomis, which I thought would be a good thing but it all turns out to be pretty redundant. The notion that Loomis’ publicist is the one with moral qualms about profiteering on the Myers victims still slays me. The restored footage is way, way too much Loomis, though. The theatrical version was just enough to make him look like an uncaring prick, but in this cut he’s just weird, throwing out quotes from George Bernard Shaw with a “Loomis twist” and basically doing a stand-up routine about Michael’s victims at a book signing.

Michael still manages to teleport around Haddonfield quite a bit, most notably when he’s at a party one moment, and in the next garroting a cop in front of Laurie’s house across town the next.

I complained a while back about seeing too much of Tyler Mane’s face before without his mask. Even so, Zombie showed some restraint by having his face mostly in shadow, or only showing his eyes or isolated features. Forget that. Here, you see his full face, in direct light, snarling and squinting and grunting in all his caveman glory. Once again I’m struck at how much Rob fails to understand the Shape, who is meant to be cold, emotionless, expressionless evil. A blank expression of destruction, as manifested by the mask.

I was so not expecting the ending, though, which is completely different from the theatrical cut. It’s freaking hilarious. The setup is the same: Michael takes Laurie to a shack and barricades himself inside as the cops surround it. Dr. Loomis sees the standoff on television and runs into the shack, where he finds Laurie struggling against her phantasmal mother, to which Loomis starts yelling “Come with me! It’s all in your mind!” Well, maybe, but the big damn gorilla with a knife isn’t. Anyway, Mike’s mom tells him to finish the job.

Cut to the outside. Loomis is suddenly hurled through the shack wall, Michael close behind. Michael picks him up (again, no mask), looks him up and down, bares his teeth and yells “DIE!!!” proceeding to hate-fuck him with a knife. Yes, Michael Myers just spoke in his role as the Shape, and I die a little inside. Anyway, the cops finally wake up and proceed to give Michael a Peckinpah-style hail of bullets, killing him D-E-A-D for really real this time.

But it gets better. A bloodied and battered Laurie shambles out of the shack, picks up Michael’s knife, and starts walking over to where Loomis is laying. The sheriff shouts at her to drop the knife when suddenly the cops open fire and blow her skinny ass away! And just as you’re starting to process the stupidity of what’s happening on screen, she starts to fall in a bloody pile in slow motion to the strains of “Love Hurts.” I literally had to rewind this scene because I realized I had facepalmed for about three minutes straight, and by the time I looked up, the credits were rolling. When I looked again, it shows Laurie in the hospital grinning like a maniac, so I guess she survived this as well. That woman’s got some sand, I tell you what.

I guess I just don’t get it. I don’t understand why Michael is so driven to kill his family aside from the obvious reason that he has an untreated gunshot wound to the head. I guess if I survived a bullet to the head I’d be seeing ghosts and white horses, too. I don’t know how Michael finds Laurie or knows they’re related, but it certainly doesn’t help that Laurie never leaves fucking Haddonfield.

Nah, you know what? Rob Zombie’s the one who doesn’t get it.

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  • adamfox

    Devils Rejects is starting to look more and more like a fluke

  • nightcobra

    spoony, will you do a review or a vlog on the uncharted 2 game since you said you hadn't been really far into it in a previous vlog. i'd like to know your thoughts on the rest of the game.

  • http://twitter.com/Sjuge Andreas Lundh

    I haven't watched either of those movies but they seem entirely atrocious. If he was so keen on not following canon, why bother calling it Halloween at all?

  • Cthulhu07

    And now Rob is doing the The Blob remake. Without the actual Blob-like thing in it! Imagine that…

  • nightcobra

    the title kinda makes sense for that, every movie would be something about regarding halloween and it's urban myths.

  • http://bluehighwind.blogspot.com/ BlueHighwind

    I'm so glad that I didn't see this movie. After the first movie came out, I knew that Rob Zombie had no idea what Halloween was supposed to be and never would. Luckily pretty much all horror is dead to me now, so its easy to avoid these slasher flicks.

  • MargusP

    Ok i finaly finished every video posted by Noah, and they are truly nice, something special about him. He is a nice guy and genuenly funny, i think a joke is truly funny when its not forced and flows smoothly and all natural. Im going to register at the forums too, many interesting posts and people behind them. Cant wait to be apart of this great community, if you would have me ofcourse. :)

  • PinkGunpowder

    Speaking of horrors, I'm guessing some of us are wondering if you've watched Daywatchers yet and what you think of it.
    With you having to take a rest I can understand if you haven't seen it yet but if is there any chance of hearing what you thought of it if you have that would be awesome. :)

  • policeboxtraveler

    You know, I face palmed the end of this review and had to reread it because I thought I must have dreamed your description Spoony…I can't believe it, even now that the added footage was even WORSE than the movie that was in theaters.

    You know, Rob Zombie might get old, classic horror from the 20's, 30's, 40's and 50's but when it comes to modern Horror and especially the film that defined the Slasher genre it seems that Zombie it a complete retard.

  • dennett316

    Well, I've not seen this one yet, and now I don't have to. Not that I was going to though, watching the first movie once was enough for me. Every single aspect of the first movie was garbage – bad cast, bad script, cliché origin story which had no place in a Michael Myers story, fast forward re-shoot of the original – so I had no desire to see this. House of 1000 Corpses was terrible too. I have Devil's Rejects recorded, but I just can't bring myself to watch it despite positive reviews.
    Rob Zombie should stick to the music.

  • Booze Zombie

    Oh man, I've gotta see this alt-ending on YouTube, it sounds fuckin' hilarious!

    On another note, poor Rob, he's trying so hard but he just doesn't get it, you should send him an email, Spoony.

  • ApatheticOne (the original)

    I liked the first remake a lot and thought Rob did a decent job giving Myers a fucking back story. The original Halloween is sorely overrated IMO simply because almost nothing is explained. We're just supposed to buy that he can't be killed..for some reason. The remakes are meant to be a retelling of the movies but with a modern twist. Rob studied serial killers and their motives for their psychotic actions and applied his findings to the Myers boy.

    The second remake was………………………ok at best..considering Rob has gone on record as saying he never intended to make another Halloween (hence the whole GET SHOT POINT BLANK IN THE HEAD AND SURVIVE plot hole from H1..he also has said, on record that H2 was HIS take on Halloween and NOT a remake of the original).
    I just like that Myers seems much more like an actual person in the remakes than he did in the originals. I'm sorry but, man in mask with knife who can't be killed, was never scary to me and never made a bit of sense. I do agree that H2 is a little ridiculous with the white horses imagery, which really was the only thing that bugged me in the second one…besides the ending of course….

  • ApatheticOne (the original)

    Funny that a movie inspired by BLACK CHRISTMAS is labeled as the film that ''defined the slasher genre''….

  • johnnyfog

    “Doesn't get it”, or doesn't WANT to get it?

    If there is one thing Rob doesn't have a shortage of, it's ego. And spoony, you of all people understand the glee of pissing off fanboys. ;)

  • policeboxtraveler

    Doesn't matter what it was inspired by. That doesn't make it a bad movie because it transcended it's inspiration.

    Up above you claim that the remake gave the Michael Myers character a back story. Great, a pop-psychology back story of bad people come from bad homes is a cheap out. Trying to rewrite it in the sequel that it's practically a Myers legacy is even more cheap that the pop-psychology explanation and like Spoony says, completely misses the point of the character.

    I'm sorry but the remakes seem to me more like a man in a mask with a knife that can't be killed than the originals which was a thing that looked like a man with a knife but was anything but. I find the utterly inhuman evil of the original much scarier than some “300 pound gorilla” in a mask.

  • Poipoi

    I don't think Rob Zombie does any reading before he directs. More he is giving paper with what they want and goes, ” I can do better then that! “

  • http://www.facebook.com/BigJoeMex Joaquin Pineda

    Quite honestly, I liked both Halloween movies by Rob Zombie. I think it's not that he “gets it”, rather that he's taking a character and doing a reimagining according to what his creativity dictates. I've always thought that in these movies, the whole “disruptive family” thing was more of a trigger for Michael to snap, rather than the cause itself. He was born pure evil (just like Laurie, apparently) and they both had to go through terrible stress before letting go, so to speak.

    Either way, I have to say I preferred the theatrical cut of Halloween 2 a lot more. It was a lot grittier, and even if Laurie was all sorts of annoying with her screaming and wailing, I do agree that Michael showing his face like that and screaming really hurt the character.

    I don't think Halloween 2 was a bad movie at all, but it's obvious that the theatrical cut was a lot better.

  • kungfuman316

    I'm going to say it, but I still prefer the original Loomis to this one. He was a badass of a character who did plenty by just trying to be protective and was willing (and did) sacrifice plenty to that end. In a way too he was an odd father figure to Michael, more that Michael knew he was a recurring pest, but didn't kill him when he had ample chance to (hell, Loomis basically said “Kill me instead of them!” and Michael just walked off).

    This one's…a completely different character. The idea's there and touched upon in the alternate ending of the original a bit but Rob Zombie got in his head how to do this instead and well that's what we get. He's not a bad character and still believable but…he's just not as awesome, you know?

  • dennett316

    It's explained perfectly by Loomis in the original – he is simply evil, the embodiment of evil. Evil needs no explaination, just stay the hell out of it's way.
    The Zombie remake actually makes matters worse as here we see he's just a redneck kid with terrible parents who graduates from killing animals to people…cliché as hell. He is undoubtedly human so his super human strength and ability to survive head-shots makes even less sense.
    As for Zombie's Halloween being his take and not a remake……what rubbish he spouts. The second half of that movie was the original condensed into 45 minutes – he even lifted shots straight from the original!!
    I wouldn't have even minded that movie so much if he'd just made up his own (generic/cliché) Redneck slasher flick, but no, instead he chose to follow the studio lead and attach the Halloween name. Ugh, now he's going to ruin The Blob too….what's the point? The original and 80's remake pretty much have it covered.

  • AmericanGods

    Laurie didn't survive. That's the point. Zombie explained at some point that the hospital we see is Laure's version of heaven (or hell).

    Zombie wanted his first Halloween film to be his last. He did that by killing Myers in a way that he thought left no room for the studio to ask him back for a sequel. Now he wants to be doubly sure there's no room for them to lure him back to the franchise. So he kills Dr Loomis, Myers, even Annie, leaving no room for a sequel.

    I think you explained perfectly why Zombie's film doesn't work, and why its obvious he doesn't understand what Halloween, no matter how many you manage to alter it from Carpenter's vision, requires so that the look of Myers makes any sense. Myers is without emotion, and with the mask on, without humanity. That's what made the original film so startling, he walked like a normal human being but that mask exemplified what Loomis saw of him in the sanitarium-no emotion, and without that its not really Michael Myers, is it?

  • http://www.vaughnonmovies.com/ Vaughn On Movies

    Worst movie of the year, I don't care how you slice it. At least other films LOOKED like movies.

  • LazarusLong

    Devil's Rejects worked because it knew what it was: cheap, stupid exploitation. The seeds of Grindhouse. El Superbeasto was the same way. This… moving picture, on the other hand, is cheap, stupid exploitation dressed up like something serious, wearing a film costume. Maybe that's how it gets away with calling itself “Halloween.”

  • LazarusLong

    What got me was how it kept trying to remind me of better movies. The corpse dumpster – “Holy crap, she fell into a Dario Argento film!” Annie's American Werewolf mirror moment. The Kubrick Stare at the end.
    The best thing about it, aside from the esteemed Misters Dourif and McDowell, was the rather inspired casting of Margot Kidder as a mental health professional.

  • flipthepage

    Thanks for talking about Halloween again. Simply because I can throw a singing shark tribute into the ring based on ya old vlog that i never showed back then.

    http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/indianam…

    (for those who don't know about singing shark go here: http://encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Singing_Shark )

  • fmdof

    so glad I never saw this one. You said you face palmed through the last bit, I did the exact same, no joke, at the end of the first movie.

  • http://www.facebook.com/marc.aces Marc Aces

    Actually in the Directors Cut Laurie Died in the end when she got shot. An that scene after is what is going through her mind as she dies, and when the movie cuts to black, she is dead. Go back and listen to Rob Zombies commentary on that scene, it'll help you understand the movie a little bit better.
    Keep in mind I'm not a fan of this movie either, but it did clear up the ending. Laurie Strode Dies

  • Bumbo

    A legend, prophecy or myth (whatever you wan't to call it) talks about a man who survives a gunshot to the head. That man will survive and become the anti-christ.In case you didn't know.

    So the “hint hint” from the movie would be that he is the anti-christ, or “the Beast”. Only gigantic problem is that the anti-christ is also supposed to be charismatic and manipulative. Myers is probably the bluntest “kill for the heck of it”, unforgiving, straight forward monster murderer of a man. Not manipulating not so much.

  • mrrubino

    So Jason was Laurie. Haute Tension says 'Hi', Zombie, you ripoff artist. Ok ok I know it's more complicated than that, mostly because like Lynch with Twin Peaks, he was making it up as he went along, creating the illusion of a narrative.

    So they set up this weak Freudian Excuse (loltvtropes) where Mikey's family are trash. Lovely. Clearly the best thing was that Myers originally had no backstory, but the second-best would probably be the “brief glimpse” backstory he was first given where his family are just normal people, and Evil Mike springs fully-formed from suburbia with no real explanation. Now that's scary.

    Luckily, it seems Zombie liked that story better, so he used it here in clear violation of his own Myers backstory for Halloween 1. Of course, the third act of that movie pretty much dispensed with the psychological stuff anyway. Joke's on us?

  • mrrubino

    So Jason was Laurie. Haute Tension says 'Hi', Zombie, you ripoff artist. Ok ok I know it's more complicated than that, mostly because like Lynch with Twin Peaks, he was making it up as he went along, creating the illusion of a narrative.

    So they set up this weak Freudian Excuse (loltvtropes) where Mikey's family are trash. Lovely. Clearly the best thing was that Myers originally had no backstory, but the second-best would probably be the “brief glimpse” backstory he was first given where his family are just normal people, and Evil Mike springs fully-formed from suburbia with no real explanation. Now that's scary.

    Luckily, it seems Zombie liked that story better, so he used it here in clear violation of his own Myers backstory for Halloween 1. Of course, the third act of that movie pretty much dispensed with the psychological stuff anyway. Joke's on us?

  • http://twitter.com/Kenro199x Lester Romero

    After seeing both versions back to back and with the commentary on it’s safe to say that Rob’s version of Halloween isn’t about the Shape as he’s been mythically portrayed over the years but of homicidal escape mental patient Michael Myers. He basically says as much in the commentary. Whether or not that was the right approach is obviously a different matter.

    The director’s cut made me hate Laurie a whole damn lot. I didn’t care about her much before but at least she had my sympathies and the interactions with Annie and Sheriff Brackett were great. Now the way they made her into a huge bitch was too much for me to take. Just die already.

    I must say the Brad Dourif was the man in that movie. His acting when he saw Annie was simply incredible. That was awesome and it made me forget for a millisecond that Rob directed that movie. All that said it’s still not the worse movie in the series. I’ll take Rob’s giant psychopath over druids, Busta Rhymes kung fu and The Shape crying (part 5) anytime.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_QBTZABTGNH5ZYAZR3KNTXZM4OU B-Dizzle

    I don’t think that this movie was all that good, but I feel that you all are way too critical. Yes, Rob might have messed this movie up a bit with all the times that you see the face of the Michael Myers, but there is only so much you can do. Like one person said, it’s better than Busta Rhymes kung fu moments. I am the type of person who likes “bad” movies because i don’t take the time to analyze every little bit. It’s not about analyzing!!!! Movies are just meant for you to watch them and enjoy. And if you aren’t entertained, LEAVE THE FREAKIN THEATER!!!! Don’t go around saying how bad someone did. That is rude. Let me see one you make half the movie this was. So all of you haters, for ANY movie that you are hating on, should shut up. Cause you wouldn’t be able to do ANY better.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/George-Rosenbaum/100001387887487 George Rosenbaum

      I know you will never find this, but I have some problems with your reasoning. Let me list them.

         ”I am the type of person who likes ‘bad’ movies because I don’t take time to analyze every bit… Movies are must made for you to watch and enjoy.”

      There is a difference between movie that is bad in a good way, and a movie that just sucks. This isn’t the kind of movie that is unintentionally funny. This is just incompetent, and full of holes. You might call me a killjoy for not liking poorly made movies that aren’t unintentionally funny or awesome. I call that a sense of taste.

      And just because someone made a movie for me to enjoy doesn’t mean I am FORCED to enjoy it. That is entirely dependent on the skill of the people behind the movie.

         ”…If you aren’t entertained, [leave the theater]. Don’t go around saying how bad the movie was.”

      That’s also called being a critic. It’s part of what he is paid to do, give his honest opinion.

      Also, I really hate this whole *If you don’t like it, don’t talk about it* mentality in your post. You can’t dismiss every negative opinion of a movie you hear just because you think it’s ‘rude’. God Forbid anyone talk about anything serious with you. Someone could be taking about their failing marriage, and you would spend the whole trying to change the subject to something happier. You must live in blissful ignorance.

         ”Let me see one you make half the movie this was (I think that first bit has sentence structure issues)…[A]ll you haters, for ANY movie that you are hating on, should stop. Cause you wouldn’t be able to do any better”

      I think this is the crux of your argument. And your right, Spoony and his semi-professional camera can’t compete with a team of professional actors with a half-million dollar camera and a Hollywood budget. That isn’t a fair comparison though, because the playing field isn’t level. Rob Zombie has better resources than the little known Internet critic.

      Here’s a better comparison: how about we compare this movie to previous installments? How about we compare bad movie directors to better movie director? In this comparison, Rob Zombie is a flailing idiot who wrote a really stupid script, then tried to fix it in post with a pair of scissors and tape.

      In summary, EVERY SINGLE ONE of your arguments are flawed, and perpetuated by the millions of dumbasses who use those same arguments for every negative opinion they hear. I know you will probably never read this, but if you do, never make those arguments again.

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