I caught up with Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN II last night at the local $1.50 theater and that was about the right price. This is easily the worst film I've seen theatrically all year and after TRANSFORMERS 2 I thought I had seen 2009's biggest turkey. I am in the camp that thinks Zombie had an interesting if not very good first movie, a better but still not very good second and has crapped the bed ever since. His inability to write dialog that might actually be spoken by real human beings becomes less annoying and more (unintentionally?) comic as his movies play out. He seems unaware of how people interact in life when not being threatened by a homicidal manic. I'll give him some slack for the rushed time frame he had to make this mess but if in the future he doesn't have an idea of what to do he should try asking someone else to write a script. His default redneck blather/sexual jokes/repetitions of the F word style of typing is pathetic. He almost made it work in THE DEVILS REJECTS but here it (once again) comes off as sloppy, faux-offensive drivel.
I think that may be the bottom line with Zombie's films- he so much wants to be seen as a hard-ass that he keeps tripping over his own shoelaces. To be a hard-ass filmmaker you first have to actually be a good filmmaker and he just isn't. Hopefully the poor box office for this will move him on to other things. Maybe back to music where he can be more easily ignored.
3 comments:
Another example of why we call you Movie Jesus, Rod...willing to face certain cinematic torture so the rest of us don't have too. At least now you've found a cheaper means of crucifixion...all hail the $1.50 theater!
Other than a few moments that don't work, I truly enjoy DEVIL'S REJECTS, but that's all I've liked of Zombie's work so far. One can almost picture him reading his dialogue aloud and desperately hoping that each line will become a t-shirt catch-phrase. His stunt-casting gets on my nerves as well. Bringing in cool cult actors means nothing if you have them play security guards with 10 seconds of screen time. And how many times in HALLOWEEN did we have to see Michael Myers' victims crawling away from him while he towers over them? Apparently Zombie thinks that's the scariest image imaginable and uses it ad nauseum.
I haven't seen HALLOWEEN 2, but so far I've felt Zombie's technical hand is fairly assured, in the sense that the editing is pretty coherent and the films "look" good. That means nothing if the story and characters are shite, though, and if he insists on making films it might be better if someone else writes the scripts.
I adore this film and have since day one. There's so much magic in it that I'm always baffled when people slam it.
Yes,Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN 2/H2 is indeed one of the worst HALLOWEEN films ever(alongside Part 5,6,and H20),for even if the likes of Uwe Boll,Ulli Lommell,Phillipe Mora,and Albert Pyun were separately given the job they each would have all turned out a much better,much more original,and a much more entertaining HALLOWEEN film(as well as done more with Michael Myers instead of making him into a lumbering,hairy,grungy looking psychopath[who's given nothing to do]).
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