Halloween II (Unrated Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

This is my favorite Halloween movie.Unlike most people, I really enjoyed Rob Zombie's Halloween II, and it's my favorite movie in the series. To start off with negatives, I dislike Dr. Loomis in this one. I get that he would try to make money off of Michael's attacks, but he comes off as really rude until the end of the movie. I also dislike Annie getting killed. A bad end to a great character. I also didn't like the ending to the Unrated version where Laurie dies. I much more prefer the Theatrical cut where the pace is a little quicker, and Laurie lives. She is my favorite character in the remake series. I do like the Unrated version, I just prefer to watch the Theatrical version.The good things about the movie, I like seeing how everyone changed because of the attacks. Laurie has become a psychological mess, Annie has matured a lot, and Sheriff Brackett has become more caring towards Annie and Laurie. I think Scout Taylor-Compton is a better actress as Laurie because not only do I strongly dislike Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later and Halloween:Resurrection, but since I'm a teenager now, she and her friends seem more relatable and more like the teens in my generation. She also plays Laurie well in this one because seeing how she was a really friendly and nice person in the first one, and seeing how Michael has messed her life up makes her more sympathetic. I don't mind Michael's look in this one because really what does he do for the rest of the year when it's not Halloween? He's not going to wear the mask 24/7, because the latex will rot further. It gets torn at one point in the movie and by the end of the movie, it looks like it could fall apart. I don't mind the "Hobo Michael" look. Seeing his mom with the "White Horse" concept doesn't bother me because it is his perception of her and not actually her spirit talking to him. Dr. Loomis is my favorite character in the original movies, and Laurie is my favorite character in the remakes. Annie has become more mature in this one and takes care of Laurie. Sheriff Brackett is also likable, he is a beaten down father taking care of Laurie and Annie.There are many other things I love about this movie. Seeing the psychological effects on the characters is interesting. I can imagine Laurie turning out like she did after what happened with in the last movie. The hospital sequence which turned out to be a dream was well done and suspenseful. I initially didn't like Michael grunting when he kills people, but now I don't mind it. In the hospital scene, it makes sense becuase it's Laurie's dream, so she's going to have an exaggerated view on Michael's attacks. Michael's kills were even more brutal than the last movie. Annie's death is the most depressing movie death I have seen ever. The music playing while Laurie holds her as she's dying was really sad. Then Sheriff Brackett comes and breaks down. Rob Zombie did a good job making you feel emotion in that scene. Laurie's friend Mya's death was also kind of sad when she was brutally killed. Dr. Loomis' death in the Theatrical version involves Michael hacking him 6 times and stabbing him 12 more times. The party scene with Laurie and her friends was well done and entertaining.The Theatrical version, which I am reviewing, is my favorite of the two versions because Laurie seems to try to get her life together, and the ending is much better, because in the Unrated version, Laurie is shot and dies. Her dying vision is of her in an asylum as her real mother walks to her while "Love Hurts" plays. Depressing, but I like the Theatrical version's ending, where she kills Michael and lives, then the scene transitions to the same scene in the asylum while "Laurie's Theme" plays, making the ending more sinister and creepy, and setting up for what could have been an interesting follow-up for a Halloween III.This is, in my opinion, the most underrated Halloween movie. Everyone is allowed their own opinion, and in my opinion, this is my favorite Halloween movie. It's not like every other Halloween movie, Rob Zombie recreates the characters and makes them his own further than his first movie. It's gruesome, emotional, gritty, and when Michael kills, you feel the victim's pain. I love pretty much everything about this movie. When I want to watch a Halloween movie, I usually watch Rob Zombie's Halloween and Halloween II. A lot of people hate it because they consider it a remake of the original Halloween II from 1981, but it is not a remake, it is a sequel to Rob Zombie's remake/re-imagining. I love this movie and I watch it often, and I enjoy it every time, no matter what others think.

No, you don't have to be a degenerate to enjoy director Rob Zombie's violent remake/sequel of "Halloween 2." Director Rick Rosenthal's original "Halloween 2" (1981) qualified as a one-dimensional, no-brainer sequel bloodbath with stabalicious Michael Myers prowling a hospital and killing everybody in sight, not always with a knife. Michael assumed a supernatural omnipotence in "Halloween 2" and he survived virtually everything, even being blinded by Laurie. Nevertheless, "Halloween 2" told us nothing new about Michael other than he derived satisfaction from killing more people in different ways. Writer & director Zombie doesn't make this mistake with "Halloween 2" and it is virtually as brilliant and psychologically insightful as its predecessor. The cinematography and the songs, especially "Nights in White Satin" by the Moody Blues, enhance the atmosphere of this chiller. Zombie's "Halloween 2" is a surreal saga and a commentary about family values. This remake of "Halloween 2" is far more ambitious, gruesome, and psychological than the original.Briefly, in the prologue, Zombie flashbacks to 10-year old Michael at the mental asylum conversing with his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie of "House of 1000 Corpses") about a white horse that she has given him. The first thing we see is a definition of a white horse and that it symbolizes the rage of the protagonist. Meanwhile, the Michael that talks with his mom is the Michael before he retreated behind the mask. Sure, it is unfortunate Zombie couldn't bring back Daeg Faerch to reprise his role as young Michael. According to Zombie, young Faerch had grown too old to play a 10-year old. Nevertheless, Chase Wright Vanek brings his chilly presence to the role, resembling a murderous munchkin.Thereafter, Zombie's "Halloween 2" replicates the original as ambulances deliver both Laurie and Annie (Danielle Harris) to Haddonfield Hospital where the emergency room physicians perform miracles, especially the hacked up Annie. Meanwhile, Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif of "Dune") orders the coroner to lock up Michael's body until he can examine it. No sooner have the two sleazy attendants loaded Michael and driven off than they slam into a cow on the highway, killing the driver instantly, smashing up his partner, and allowing Michael to escape. At the hospital, Laurie isn't doing so well. Laurie is frantic about Annie and she still suffers from the trauma of having emptied a revolver into Michael. Just as she is regaining her grip on reality, Michael comes a-slashing and nobody can keep him out. He chases a hysterical Laurie during a storm around the hospital and corners her in the security guard shack with a fire axe. He chops his way into the shack, but Laurie manages to escape.Indeed, Laurie escapes by waking up. Dreams, hallucinations, and nightmares pervade "Halloween 2" and you can never be sure when reality is real. Michael is driven by the image of a giant white horse held on a rope by his dutiful mom Deborah, with himself standing alongside her as an angelic 10-year adolescent. Family solidarity means a lot to Michael, and Michael has sworn to reunite the family, even if it means butchering Laurie like a steer. However, Zombie shows us a deeper, psychic linkage between Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Michael. When Michael (Tyler Mane of " Troy ") slaughters a dog and dines on it, Zombie cross-cuts images of Michael devouring the dog with Laurie eating a pizza. Psychically, Michael and Laurie groove on the same wavelength and Laurie winds up vomiting. because she can taste the dog meat. Without spelling it out in dialogue, Zombie tells us it is this deep, psychic connection between Michael and Laurie as blood kin that enables him to track her down.Life after Halloween has not been a picnic for Laurie. She visits her therapist (Margo Kidder of "Superman"), works at an old hippie-style coffee house run by none other than Howard Hesseman of "WKRP in Cincinnati ," and hangs out with two trippy girlfriends. Repeatedly, Laurie has lurid nightmares about Michael's attacks, but Michael is nowhere nearby. Indeed, he has gone into hiding in the woods, until two pugnacious rednecks catch up with him and too late realize their error. Like the original "Halloween 2," Laurie doesn't know she is related to Michael Myers, and this revelation scrambles her brain.Laurie Strode is the chief protagonist in "Halloween 2" and the film justly belongs to Scout Taylor-Compton as she struggles to survive. She lives now with Annie and her father at their rural house. Not only does "Halloween 2" look different from its predecessor, but also Zombie emphasizes the rural quality of the area. In his remake of "Halloween," we were trapped along with the principals in what appeared to be a rural suburb. "Halloween 2" takes us back to the woods. Michael spends his time communing with nature and the visions of his mother, the white horse, and himself as an innocent adolescent before he resumes his murderous ways.Not surprisingly, the violence in "Halloween 2" is gruesome but not sickening. In other words, we rarely see close-ups of the knife penetrating flesh. Zombie's favorite tactic is to let Michael strike just as things are calming down and part of this involves sudden movements and things like glass or wood shattered by his fists. There are moments when the violence takes on a traumatic weight that will scare the daylights out of the squeamish while gorehounds may yawn at some of Zombie's discretions."Halloween 2" is both a triumph in style and substance with an ending that suggests Zombie may pull the biggest surprise in the franchise should the saga continue.

No scratches and worked good, also loved the movie and needed it for my collection