Rob Zombie is taking his second stab at Halloween with Halloween 2 that is out in theaters now. This Halloween feels more like a Rob Zombie film than the first one and he told us at The Weinstein Company press day that he felt this one was more his, “This film to me is more of a logical follow-up to the Devil’s Reject’s, where as Halloween the first one seemed like a weird side step that because it was someone else’s material. It kind of messed with me. I made the first half of the movie more my thing and the second half of the movie, I felt well I should bring in more of the John Carpenter beats because that is what the people are going to be expecting. But as soon as I started doing that, I don’t think I had the same enthusiasm of the film when it was new stuff. Because the fun of it creating your world and you’re going Annie Brackett, and Laurie, well these are someone else’s characters. That’s why in this movie, I tried to flip them all upside down and make them my characters.” He definitely made these characters his own. I have to admit it took me a while after seeing Halloween 2 to absorb what he did with Michael Meyers and the movie. After listening to him in the above interview, I understood him and the direction he took the movie in even more.
He explained to us when he was first approached about doing the H1, they didn’t know what they wanted, so he watched the original one again and realized we didn’t know much about his past and he decided to expand on that. That is the thing with so many of these slasher films, we don’t find out what made them the way they are. It wasn’t only Michael we got to know better, but if he gets his director’s cut for H2 it will also be a much different Laurie Stode we will get to know. He told us, “There’s another version of the movie that is very very different. That will probably be the Director’s Cut. There was two ways we could cut the movie. The way we cut for theatrical is sort of like Laurie Strode’s character is sort of holding it together, getting her life together, it starts spiraling downward, but in the other version she’s an incredible mess and gets worse. I mean she never has any good moments. She’s just messed up. She’s lashing out at everybody. She’s horrible. She’s like messed up on drugs. She’s completely spun out throughout the whole movie. Which makes for a really challenging movie to watch and I feel like, I don’t know if the fans would embrace so much darkness around her.” He added the rest of the movie is the same, but “her relationship with Annie is horrible. They’re like at each other’s throats through the whole movie. Which they are not in the theatrical.” I really hope this version gets released because it sounds like it could be really powerful yet more haunting as compared to scary.
When it comes to the theatrical Meyers we get in Halloween 2 that is out now, he is one of the most disturbing killers I have ever seen in any movie. He is so cold and unremorseful, that you walk away from the movie uncomfortable, which is what a good horror movie does. I can’t explain it, but the kills are so realistic and that is what Zombie and Tyler Mane, who plays Michael Meyers, were going for and accomplished. If you are a fan horror, I highly suggest seeing the movie. If you are squeamish, I hate to say it but beware of this one. The male reporter sitting next to me sat through most of the movie covering his eyes with the productions notes because the movie scared him that much. I have to say seeing him do that cracked me up!
All in all I have a whole new respect for Rob Zombie’s movies and the man himself just because of his attitude about it all. He is just so f*cking cool and lax about it and there is absolutely no BS coming out of his mouth that it is really refreshing. I seriously can’t wait to see his next movie The Haunted World of El Superbeasto when it comes out on September 22nd. Here is how he sold it to us, “That’s an animated movie. That’s a comedy. That’s totally different than anything I have ever done. It’s kind of like X rated Scooby Doo. It’s ridiculous, It absolutely ridiculous. It’s like part musical, part comedy. Absolutely crazy.” Sounds fun, no?
