Halloween II (2009)

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Movie
German title Halloween II
Original title Halloween II
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2009
length 101 min. (Theatrical version)
112 min. (FSK version)
114 min. (SPIO / JK version)
unabridged: 115 minutes
Age rating FSK kJ
SPIO / JK : no serious risk to young people (indicated)
unabridged: unchecked (indicated)
Rod
Director Rob zombie
script Rob zombie
production Malek Akkad
Andy Gould
Rob Zombie
music Tyler Bates
camera Brandon consolation
cut Glenn Garland
Joel T. Pashby
occupation
synchronization
chronology

←  Predecessor
Halloween

Halloween II is an American horror film by director Rob Zombie from 2009. The film follows on from Zombies horror film Halloween (2007) and is also a remake of the 1978 film of the same name by John Carpenter , which was published under the German title Halloween - Die Night of horror appeared. Tyler Mane can again be seen as Michael Myers, Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode and Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis.

action

A flashback shows Deborah Myers visiting her son Michael at Smith's Grove Sanatorium . She gives him the statue of a white horse. Michael tells her that the horse reminds him of a dream in which he sees her ghost. She is completely dressed in white and stands with a white horse in the entrance area of ​​the sanatorium and assures him in this dream that she will bring him back home.

Fifteen years have passed since then. Laurie Strode staggered down the street covered in blood and in shock. She keeps mumbling that she shot him. After seeing Laurie, Sheriff Brackett takes her to the hospital in the emergency room. At the same time, doctors in the emergency room are busy looking after Annie Brackett and Dr. Loomis, both seriously injured in an attack by Michael Myers, but still alive. Meanwhile, the lifeless body of Michael is transported in another ambulance. Due to the inattentiveness of the driver who grazes a cow, the vehicle begins to roll and causes an accident, killing the driver. All of a sudden Michael Myers wakes up again, kills the only injured passenger and leaves the vehicle, repeating the dream he had when he told his mother, in which she appeared in a white dress and accompanied by a white horse.

Finally Michael appears at the hospital, determined to get to Laurie. As soon as someone gets in his way, he has to die. Laurie can watch what is happening on surveillance monitors and is afraid of being trapped when Michael tries to penetrate the wall to her room with the help of an ax. When Michael finally tries to kill Laurie, she wakes up: A year has passed since the Halloween massacre and Laurie is now living with the Bracketts. Michael's body is still missing. Laurie experiences brutal and shocking nightmares as a result of the events. While Laurie tries to deal with her trauma through therapy, Dr. Loomis overcame his by writing another book.

Meanwhile, Michael has visions of Deborah and his younger self in an unfamiliar place, prompting him to take Laurie home. So Michael makes his way to Haddonfield.

Meanwhile, Laurie is also haunted by hallucinations that are similar to Michael's. She sees Deborah and a young Michael in a clown costume. She sees herself repeating Michael's actions: in a clown costume, she fixes Annie in a chair with tape and cuts her throat, just as young Michael killed his stepfather Ronnie White years ago. Dr. Loomis has meanwhile started the promotion tour for his new book. When it finally appears, Laurie learns the truth about her past: She is Angel Myers, Michael's little, long-lost sister. To distract herself, Laurie wants to go to a Halloween party with her friends Harley and Mya, but Michael shows up and kills Harley. Then he makes his way to the Bracketts house and stabs Annie.

When Laurie comes home, she finds Annie, who is dying. Michael now also kills Mya and is now after Laurie, who just manages to leave the house, but is caught by Michael. When Michael finally knocked Laurie out of action, she again had visions. She sees herself, her mother and her little brother Michael, who supports her while her mother tries to teach her first words and Michael asks her to say: "I love you, Mummy."

Immediately afterwards, the police, accompanied by Dr. Loomis into the house. Loomis tries to get Michael to let his sister go. However, Michael has a vision in which his mother appears to him and announces that it is time to go home. Then Michael flings Dr. Loomis across the room and attacks him with his knife. While stooping for Loomis' body, Michael comes into the field of fire and is shot by Officer Brackett. In doing so, he falls backwards into stacked metal and is impaled. Laurie goes to him, strokes his mask and whispers: "I love you, brother." Michael drops his knife. Laurie picks it up and screams several times in the chest and head of her brother. Then she leaves the house, having pulled Michael's mask over her head beforehand, which causes the police officers to look horrified. After a few steps, she falls to her knees, takes the mask off her head and stares at it. The picture overlaps and Laurie is now in a mental institution. In a vision Laurie appears in the depth of her room, her mother Deborah, who is dressed in white and is leading a white horse.

Director's Cut / Alternative ending

The Director's Cut mainly differs from the Theatrical Version in the figure of Laurie Strode, who is shown much more unstable in the Director's Cut. In the Director's Cut Laurie struggles a lot more with the traumatic experiences from the first part, is a psychological wreck from the start, is dependent on medication, has delusions and practically no positive experiences in the film. In the theatrical version, on the other hand, she tries to get her life under control at the beginning and only gradually slips away. The Director's Cut takes a lot of time to shed light on this. The film and the character itself seem much more depressed here. In addition, the Director's Cut has an alternative ending that, unlike the Theatrical Version, doesn't let Laurie survive.

The end of the film takes another turn from the moment Loomis tries to tear Laurie out of her delusion, and Michael has a vision of his mother who tells him it is time to return home. This is followed by a view of the house from outside alternating with pictures of the police. Then suddenly Michael Myers and Loomis break through a house wall outside. Michael tears the mask off his head and looks at Loomis with hatred. The latter tries to calm him down, but Michael only says one word to him: “Die!” Then he kills Loomis with his knife. The police officers standing around open fire on Michael, who collapses after being hit several times and dies.

Now Laurie steps out of the house blankly, accompanied by a vision from Deborah Myers. She walks to the bodies of the two men, while Sheriff Brackett watches the scene in horror and disbelief. Laurie goes to Michael's corpse, bends down, picks up his knife, goes to Loomis's corpse, stands over him and pauses there for a moment. Before it becomes clear what she's up to, a few police officers fire at her. Sheriff Brackett's shouts of “stop fire!” Come too late, Laurie falls to the ground, fatally hit. The bodies of Michael, Loomis and Laurie are shown in a long shot from above, while the camera slowly pans down to Laurie's face.

The picture fades into a white, sterile corridor, at the end of which Laurie is sitting on a bed and looking at the floor. She looks up and a smile slowly flashes in the corner of her mouth. She looks down the aisle to see Deborah dressed in white with a white horse. Laurie's smile widens. The picture fades out black and leads to the credits.

production

Production notes

Filming began on February 23, 2009 in Atlanta , Georgia and lasted until April 9, 2009 with additional shots in July 2009. The film was shot in Decatur in Georgia, New Milford in Connecticut , Covington and Madison in Georgia, Los Angeles in , among others California , Newborn in Georgia (Sheriff Brackett's official residence) and Conyers in Georgia (scenes in the forest). The budget of the film was an estimated 15 million US dollars .

Cast and background

Daeg Faerch, who played the young Michael Myers in the previous film in 2007, had to be replaced by Chase Wright Vanek . Daeg Faerch had grown too quickly to pick up where the film left off in 2007. Danielle Harris played Jamie Loyd in the fourth and fifth installments of the series.

The fact that the face of the character Michael Myers can be clearly seen several times in the course of the film and that he even speaks at the end of the film was largely received negatively by the fans and film critics.

In the end of the theatrical version, Laurie survives. She comes out of the house wearing Michael's mask. When she takes off the mask, the viewer realizes that she has lost her mind due to the traumatic events. So the scene with Laurie in which she is incarcerated in the mental hospital is not a hallucination.

It was controversial whether Laurie survived in the Director's Cut version of the film or not. Director and screenwriter Rob Zombie confirmed her death in the audio commentary on the DVD.

Soundtrack

synchronization

The dubbing company was the Berliner Synchron AG Wenzel Lüdecke , dialogue script: Frank Preissler , dialogue director: Engelbert von Nordhausen

reception

Publication, approval

The film was released in 2009 in the following countries: August 28 in the USA and Canada , in September in Iceland and Malaysia , in October in Greece , Slovenia , the United Kingdom , Ireland , Hungary , Italy , Belgium , the Philippines , in Lebanon , the Netherlands , Singapore , Taiwan , Egypt , the Czech Republic and Mexico (at the Morbido Film Fest). In 2010 it was released in Argentina , France (at the Gérardmer Fantasticarts Film Festival), Australia (DVD premiere), Brazil , Peru , Turkey , South Korea , Japan , Sweden , Poland , Finland and Spain . It has also been published in Chile , Croatia , Lithuania , Portugal , Serbia and Russia . The English working titles were H2 and Halloween 2: The Devil Walks Among Us , the advertising title H2: Halloween II , alternatively Halloween 2 and the complete title is Rob Zombie's Halloween II .

In contrast to the direct predecessor film, there was no nationwide cinema release. However, the film was shown in its original version, which is based on the American R-rated version, with subtitles at some fantasy film festivals. This theatrical version ran without a previous FSK test.

The common German-language publications for the home cinema market are based on the Director's Cut (Unrated). The unabridged version has not received approval from the FSK or the SPIO / JK and is indexed in Germany. The film premiered on DVD and Blu-ray with a German soundtrack on October 8, 2010.

The rental version bears a test sticker from the SPIO / JK, with the label “no serious risk to young people”, because this version was also not approved by the FSK. This version is also on the index in Germany, but - compared to the unabridged version - it has been shortened by around 1 minute.

In addition, there is a so-called “department store version” which has received approval from the FSK (no approval for young people), so it can no longer be indexed and sold without restrictions. This version is shortened by about 3 minutes compared to the uncut version.

criticism

Mike Hale wrote in the New York Times on August 28, 2009 that the film was "full of inside jokes and innuendos" but that it was "almost devoid of esprit."

The lexicon of international films found that the film “largely lost the aura of 'absolutely evil' [...]” because it relies “instead of building up tension [...] on the stringing together of various assassination scenes”, which is why it ultimately “follows the principles of Porn than that of narrative cinema ”.

The film critic James Berardinelli did not like the film and confirmed it to be so bad that he had him reconsider his criticism of the film The Curse of Michael Myers as the worst of the series so far. Berardinelli went on to write that if he didn't know that Zombie was an avowed Halloween fan, he would assume that this was a deliberate attempt to sabotage the franchise. Zombie mistake darkness for atmosphere. Brutal killings are not to be equated with tension. Regarding the performance of Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode, the critic said that one could not describe how terrible she was in her single-track performance, that stifled every spark of hope. Finally, it was said that Halloween II was an affront to Halloween and horror fans. The film is such a catastrophic misstep that he can hardly recover from it. Michael Myers was turned into a laughing stock by an iconic movie monster.

Oliver Forst's criticism at filmrezension.de left him, as he wrote, "ambivalent". He wondered what Zombie wanted to "aim" with the sequel , he was throwing practically everything overboard, "which were the pluses of the first part". Among the main actors there are “no more figureheads, everyone involved” is “obnoxious, blown by the wind or arrogant assholes. Or killer. Or all together ”.

success

On the opening weekend, the film grossed around $ 7 million (3 million less than its predecessor). The film grossed $ 39.4 million worldwide.

Awards (selection)

  • The film won the Saturn Award in the “Best DVD / Blu-ray Collection” category.
  • Halloween II received a nomination for the Chainsaw Award in the category "Worst Film" at the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards 2010

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Halloween II . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , January 2010 (PDF; test number: 121 005-b V).
  2. ↑ Filming & Production , cf. imdb.com
  3. ↑ a b Halloween II box office results adS boxofficemojo.com
  4. ↑ Halloween II in the German dubbing file
  5. ↑ Release Info , cf. imdb.com
  6. ↑ Halloween II Fig. Blu-rayDisc case
  7. ↑ Halloween II review on nytimes.com
  8. ^ Halloween II. In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ James Berardinelli : Halloween II sS reelviews.net (English). Retrieved May 27, 2018.
  10. ↑ Oliver Forst: Halloween II (2009) see filmrezension.de. Retrieved May 27, 2018.