Rob Zombie’s H2
This
sequel picks right where my memory as to what exactly happened near the end of
the first film gets fuzzy. People who I
was pretty sure were dead are mostly alive again. Sadly, Danny Trejo is not back. I’m not sure if this film is a sequel to the Unrated
Director’s Cut, the Rated Theatrical Cut, the Leaked Workprint Cut, or to a deleted scene from the DVD of
the first film. But it does have a fair
amount of connections with Rob Zombie’s Halloween. I saw this film in the theatre, making it the
H2: The Rated Theatrical Cut. I assume we will also get some unrated DVD
cut called H 2 Tha X-Treme
and most of you will watch that and wonder what the fuck I’m talking about
here. Actually, who am I kidding? No one reads this.
Lorry
has just shot Michael in the face and is walking off her killin’
cramp when she bumps into her friend’s dad, Sheriff Bracket. Despite being able to walk and talk she
receives instant medical attention. Take
that Michael Moore. There’s a little
medical montage of them rebuilding her that seemed like an
homage to Robocop, but unfortunately the results aren’t the
same. She should’ve at least asked for a
cannon arm. After which I think she is
transferred to a Quebecer hospital because it’s more DYI. Nurses just let her limp around dragging her
own life support system and Lorry is free to dig around through the cabinets
and administer her own medication.
Lorry’s
brother Michael also shows up to visit.
After a lifetime of treatment in psychiatric
institutions have failed Michael, he consults several nurses to see if
maybe his problems are physical. Maybe
all those times he stabbed and choked people he was trying to dance or shake
hands and it just came out wrong because of some tick or something. But the regular hospital fails him too and
after trying to cheer up his sister he decides to become a farmer and live an Into
The Wild lifestyle.
Lorry
moves back to town and makes new friends.
She gets a lower back tattoo, but it seems to have failed to attract a douchey backwards cap-wearing boyfriend. I’d ask for a refund. She wakes up from various nightmares and
weeps in an Alice Cooper themed bathroom.
Welcome to my nightmare, please wash your hands.
Once
again, she has surrounded herself with a group of sexually aggressive chick
pals to take the place of the ones who were killed in the first movie. Their dialogue in this resembles Juno
a lot more than the first film, but they still say ‘fuck’ and ‘cock’ in most
sentences. But I dunno,
the way Zombie keeps making these girltalk scenes it
gets me thinking maybe he’d rather be making a Sex And The
City movie or something. Maybe like
how when Sam Raimi didn’t get to do The Shadow,
he did Darkman, Zombie does these Halloween
movies because they won’t let him helm the Gilmore Girls movie.
Anyway,
as you probably remember, Michael really likes the Halloween festival. I was hoping this year he’d try a new costume
like go as a gorilla or Harry Potter or something, but I guess he likes the
tradition of wearing the same mask every year.
He quits the farm and misunderstands some concepts like how tricking and
treating works. He encounters various
foolish individuals who don’t seem to grasp that the main advantage of a pistol
is that it allows you to attack from a distance. You don’t have to press the tip right up
against your target for it to fire. He
visits the strip club where his mum used to work only to find Frank Zappa is
alive and working there as a bartender.
I don’t know where the huskies go, but I wouldn’t drink his whiskey.
Dr.
Loomis, Michael’s former psychiatrist who I thought he killed last film, now
looks like Kenny Rogers and tours around holding press conferences to promote
his latest book on Michael only to get horribly offended when people ask him
about it. He realizes he sold Michael
out during probably the weirdest passage of the film. I never thought I’d see a movie where Mr.
Clockwork Orange looks like Kenny Rogers and has a life changing epiphany from
getting teased by Weird Al Yankovic.
Moments
like this are in shorter supply in this instalment, and to be honest, this
sequel drags in a lot of places. I think
Michael’s agrarian anabasis and some of his hitchhiking misadventures slowed
this film down a bit too much. Like
always, I appreciate Rob Zombie’s insights into how young women think. When he wraps up his film career I hope he
becomes an editor for Seventeen magazine. I like his characterization of the Meyers
family. I really appreciate his artsy
forays into filming dream sequences. His
critiques on the health care system and the modern family unit are pretty
interesting whereas his taste in music is pretty predictable. Overall this is a pretty decent sequel, but
there is definitely a point in the film where you know exactly where it’s
going. I wish it had got there sooner
and delivered some of that instead of leaving it all for the next sequel. I don’t know how many more times they can
keep killing the same characters, but I’ll definitely watch it happen one more
time. I hope they bring back Trejo.
If you liked this, check out
these other related readings:
There Will Be Superbad Blood!
I’ve seen this movie twice
and made fun of it a lot, so I might as well write about it.
Things that make you go
‘Whoops!’