Review Tuesday: Halloween II (2009)

I've had this sitting in my stack of movies to watch for YEARS. I finally got to see the Rob Zombie's sequel in the franchise, HALLOWEEN II.

Michael Myers returns to his killing spree, after years in exile, with the goal of reuniting the family.

Let me start by saying that I watched the HALLOWEEN II UNRATED DIRECTOR'S CUT. The writer and director, Rob Zombie, is a well known fan of classic horror movies and he envisions the classics with the brutality of modern horror. This movie starts off with one of the most violent scenes I have ever viewed in a horror movie and it sets the pace for the rest of the flick.

In the first film, Michael Myers was guy. A regular human. Well, not very regular. He was a violent sociopath. But HUMAN. He could be killed and was at the end of the first movie. This movie picks up from the end of the first when Michael is resurrected from his deathbed like some awful phoenix to rain death once again. But he, instead, goes into exile until an apparition of his mother commands him to bring the family back together. So he embarks on his journey home, to find his sister for the reunion. 

We get to see how well and how badly the survivors of the first film have gone on with their lives. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is riding the fame of the book he had written on the country's most notorious serial killer. Laurie Strode (Scout Tayor-Compton) isn't doing very well with dealing with life after surviving Michael's attack and it only gets worse when she discovers that she is really Angel Myers, Michael's baby sister. And so on and so on. Days are closing in on Halloween and the town has no idea what they are in for. 

To call this, possibly, the most violent, cringe-worthy, terrifying, horror movie that I have ever seen might be an accurate statement. The brutality of the attacks as well as the gruesome realism is certainly shocking. That said, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who is a fan of this genre. Worth watching this part especially if you saw Rob's first part to see how he brings the franchise to a close now that the family is all back together.

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