"We're done waiting. Only a river of blood can bring us back together. It's up to you. It's always been up to you, Michael."
— Deborah Myers
Halloween II is a 2009 Slasher Movie written and directed by Rob Zombie. It is the sequel to Halloween (2007), also written and directed by Zombie, and the tenth film overall in the Halloween franchise. Unlike its predecessor, Halloween II is not a remake of its original counterpart, but rather its own story continuing that which was set up in Zombie's first film.
Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) managed to shoot Michael Myers in the head on Halloween night. Later in the night, the coroner's van transporting Michael's body to the morgue crashes, and Michael's body is never found. Two years later, Laurie is trying her best to get over the experience, while Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) has turned the ordeal into newfound success as a writer, whose new book about Myers has just been published. What neither of them knows is that Michael is still alive — and is being coaxed by visions of his mother to revisit Haddonfield and find Laurie so he can finish what he started.
The film was critically panned, remains one of the most polarizing in the franchise among fansnote , and underperformed financially. Zombie later declined to return for another sequel, and a planned tenth installment in the series, Halloween 3D, was eventually cancelled in favor of the greenlighting of Scream 4. Dimension Films dropped the franchise in 2015 after 20 years of ownership, making this the final film in the series under that studio.
The next film in the Halloween franchise, 2018's Halloween, is a direct sequel to the original '78 Halloween.
Rob Zombie's Halloween II contains examples of the following tropes:
- All Just a Dream: The entire hospital chase in the beginning counts.
- Asshole Victim: The rednecks who beat Michael for trespassing, the strip club owner, the passenger in the ambulance driving the dead bodies to the morgue, and even Loomis in a way all count.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Zombie's Halloween was Bloodier and Gorier than any other prior installment in the franchise. This film goes even further that its predecessor.
- Book Ends: The theatrical cut ends with Laurie committed to Smith's Grove — and having the same vision young Michael had at the beginning of the film.
- Subverted by the director's cut commentary, in which Rob Zombie clarifies that the hospital scene is actually Laurie's/Angel's dying thoughts.
- Break the Cutie: Annie, and in the director's cut, Laurie.
- The Cameo: One from "Weird Al" Yankovic, of all people.
- Cluster F-Bomb: After the ambulance carrying Michael crashes, the passenger lets out a long string of F-bombs.
- Laurie is a walking one for most of the movie.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: An extremely literal example delivered by Michael to the Rabbit in Red's bouncer. He simply stomps the man's head into paste.
- Deconstruction: One of the few slasher films that try to realistically tackle the psychological fallout of such films' events on the survivors. Less-so Annie, but primarily Laurie and Doctor Loomis, are all significantly affected and changed by what they went through and are almost unrecognizable from who they were before.
- Downer Ending: In both cuts, the film and Zombie's duology as a whole end on a bleak note. In the theatrical cut, Loomis is killed by Michael before Laurie kills her own brother and is institutionalized, now having the same visions of her mother as Michael did. In the director's cut, Michael and Laurie are both gunned down and killed by the police.
- Dying Dream: The ending of the Director's Cut is this for Laurie,
as confirmed by Rob Zombie. - Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Michael's fondness for his mother is taken further, as he has hallucinations about her wearing all white and urging him on while he murders.
- The Faceless: Fully averted with the adult Michael for the first time, as he is seen on multiple occasions throughout the movie without his mask, and even with it, its left half gets ripped off about a third into the film.
- Fanservice: Laurie dressing as Magenta.
- Fan Disservice: ...before she winds up hysterical and covered in blood.
- Fingore: Laurie's operation in the opening shows her broken fingernails being removed.
- Freak Out: Laurie's freakout at the end of the '07 film is explored further. In this film, she is depicted as an embittered, psychological wreck who is further destabilized by both the return of her accursed tormentor and a traumatizing revelation about her past.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: We're treated to close views of Laurie having her head sewn shut, a man's face after he's mutilated by a crash, a guy having his head sawn off with broken glass, Big Lou Martini getting his arm snapped...there's a lot.
- Guilt by Association Gag: When Michael is beaten up by a couple of rednecks for repeatedly trespassing on their land and stealing from them, Michael retaliates by killing them all...including the woman who tried to get them to stop.
- Hallucinations: Michael Myers has hallucinations about his mother...and some rather random things, including pumpkin-headed aristocrats and a white horse, although the horse isn't random as explained by the film's opening text.
- Heroic BSoD: Laurie is shown wandering around town in shock at the start of the film, and almost doesn't recognize Sheriff Brackett when he finds her.
- I Love the Dead: The
Squick-tastic ambulance passenger. - Immediate Sequel: Before the time skip, we are shown the aftermath of the last film's climax.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A redneck is impaled on antlers. In the theatrical cut, Michael is impaled on a farm tool.
- Jerkass: Laurie and Loomis are huge jerks after the events the first Rob Zombie installment, justified by the trauma of their experiences in that film.
- Jerkass Realization: Loomis eventually realizes what an asshole he's become.
- Loony Fan: Dr. Loomis meets one named Chett during one of his book signing events.
- Mugging the Monster: A redneck duo decides to pick a fight with Michael when they find him crossing their property on his way to Haddonfield.
- Similarly, the Rabbit in Red's bouncer does the same, repeatedly antagonizing what looks to be a psychotic, stocky, 7-foot tall, homeless man in front of him. It does not end well.
- Nature Tinkling: One of Michael's victims is a young man dressed as a werewolf who steps out of his van to piss on a tree.
- Nightmare Sequence: Michael and Laurie have chronic cases of these.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The daughter of one of the rednecks who beat down Michael for trespassing pleads with them to leave him alone, and at least apologizes when they leave him for dead. Michael kills her anyway. Buddy, the security guard at the hospital in Laurie's nightmare sequence, is repaid for trying to help Laurie with an axe to the back.
- Off with His Head!: Michael does this to the ambulance passenger with a shard of glass.
- Police Are Useless: Sheriff Brackett asks Andy, one of his deputies, to protect Annie. To say Andy fails horribly shouldn't come as a shock.
- Psychotic Smirk: At the end, Laurie makes one in the asylum having the same vision as Michael did: seeing her real mother as a white, ghostly figure with a white horse.
- Rasputinian Death: In the theatrical version, Michael gets shot twice in the chest, than gets impaled on farm equipment, than gets stabbed multiple times in the chest and finally the face.
- Redemption Equals Death: Loomis demonstrates this in the film's climax.
- Shout-Out: To The Ghost of Frankenstein."Are you a giant?"
- Soft Glass: When running away from Michael in the hospital, Laurie comes across a fire axe in its container. She fails to break the glass and continues running. When Michael finds it, he breaks the glass with his fist, grabs the axe, and moves on.
- Slimeball: The paramedic from the opening who makes explicit jokes about necrophilia.
- Suddenly Speaking: The Director's Cut has Michael scream "DIE!" before killing Loomis.
- Theme Music Withholding: The Halloween theme doesn't appear until the end credits.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill:
- In Laurie's nightmare sequence, Michael stabs a nurse in the back...and then does it again...and again...and so on and so forth for a minute, at which point he rams the knife into her skull and leaves it stuck there.
- The cops shoot Michael with a full barrage of bullets at the end of the director's cut. He would likely have died from the first few bullets alone. However, considering Michael survived a shot to the face, overkill is playing it safe in this instance.
- Time-Passage Beard: Michael has grown a huge, curly one after 2 years of no maintenance.
- Time Skip: There's a two-year time skip after the opening.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Loomis, after embracing his newfound success as an author. This eventually turns around by the climax.
- What the Hell, Hero?: One of the parents of Michael's victims calls out Loomis for "creating" Michael.
- Wouldn't Hurt a Child: While Michael has no qualms with brutally murdering anyone else who crosses his path, he doesn't lay a finger on a young trick-or-treater who approaches and speaks to him.
- Wrestler in All of Us: Michael takes Howard down with a chokeslam before stomping his face in.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Laurie and her new friends Mya and Harley attend a party dressed as Magenta, Columbia, and Dr. Frank N. Furter, respectively, but none are identified by name. Harley only describes herself as "...a chick, dressed as a guy, who wants to be a chick."
- Love hurts...Love scars...Love wounds...And mars...
