Halloween II (2009) review
Man I have not watched a scary movie, let alone a Halloween Michael Myers movie in a hot minute.
I grew up watching scary movies. My mom was a horror movie nut. I have some mixed feelings about it because you know they're scary and when you're like super little that crap can kind of suck. But overall honestly I did enjoy those times with my mom. I knew the stuff I was watching was fake. It is definitely a thrill watching scary movies. Some snacks and a blanket, good times really.
Watching Halloween was definitely really kind of a bit emotional? I have not spoken to my mom in quite some time and memories of watching the Halloween movies really flooded back to me. I wonder if I purposely didn't watch scary movies since my relationship with her soured. I haven't watched many movies in general since then, like early 2013.
Weird. But I'm not going down too far that rabbit hole in this post.
I'm catching up on the two sole Halloween films I missed in preparation of seeing the new Halloween this Thursday night.
This 2009 installment, was indeed scary. A lot of typical horror movie moments but I am not at all claiming that to be a negative. Many modern horror films are clearly influenced by Halloween and other classics so I am not mad about it, in fact I kind of like it.
Michael Myers is the ultimate horror villain in my opinion. I find him scarier than Jason or Freddy, not to say I don't like those guys either. They are the ultimate trio no doubt.
This 2009 film was also surprisingly dare I say sentimental? I have not watched many of the older ones in quite awhile, but I have my reasons. Michael Myers appeared as a kid in this one throughout a large portion of this film as like a vision I guess. I found that quite interesting. It tells me that he is still attached to his mother (shocker). Basically he's like trapped in the mind of a child in a lot of ways. An angry, insane child. A very large child with beyond grown man strength.
Michael Myers apparently likes white horses after his mother gave him a toy one as a gift. That was sorta almost sweet and made Michael a smidge more like relatable. In a way Michael seems to be a hurt, insane child that is just pure evil, but I believe we can all relate to the hurt part of Michael. I think many people with tough childhoods can sort of understand Michael, in a way. Which makes him all the more scarier!!
I've always found the rocker vibes and music and sort of like older style these movies tend to lean towards enjoyable, and that remains the same in this film. These movies always capture the typical relatively boring yet relatively peaceful life of folks in small towns or suburbs. Once again that all remains the same here.
This film also makes you wonder if some evil people are born evil or it's from the environment, or both. That question is still left unanswered because well, I doubt many people really know the answer to that question.
Another interesting aspect of this movie was the viewers being able to see Michael's maskless face other than his massive amount of facial hair which, again makes him a bit more relatable and kind of eerie. I believe this movie was by far the longest you see Michael without his mask, I could be wrong.
Overall this was another thrilling installment that felt sort of melodramatic more so than the other ones I've seen although it's been awhile since I've seen the older ones. The family anger that Michael has mixed with his insanity and everything. Him seeing himself as a child along with his mother. The whole storyline of Angel Myers being the protagonist but you can see her becoming angrier and angrier and sort of questioning if she cared about anything anymore including being evil herself. I saw it that way anyway, she seemed to be deteriorating. In the end it seemed that either she accepted her murderous family legacy, or she was like possessed by Michael I can't decide which. Then the whole mother storyline continuing with the white horse, it was just kind of dramatic, not always as slasher gasher fast paced.
A lot of people don't really respect horror movies and personally I don't know why. There are cheesy versions of any kind of movie. But a well made horror movie is like the ultimate drama/thriller in my opinion. I mean how much more dramatic can you get than trying to avoid evil, avoid pain, avoid death?
Horror can be the most intriguing, thought provoking films ever and I'm happy I am catching up a bit.
It was a solid movie, surprisingly not as scary as I expected but still pretty damn scary.