Halloween II is the sequel to rocker-turned-film-director Rob Zombie's controversial remake of John Carpenter's late-seventies horror classic. The film, for those few of you who have never seen or heard of the Halloween flicks, further documents notorious mask-wearing murderer Michael Myers. The sequel focuses less on Michael and more on Laurie who is Michael's long lost sister (who was played by actress Jamie Lee Curtis in John Carpenter's film and following sequel along with two other sequels). The film begins showing the aftermath of the first film where Laurie shoots Michael and she gets sent to the hospital while Michael "escapes" out of the ambulance he's being carried off in. Just like in the first sequel, Laurie "imagines" Michael is stalking her while she's in the hospital. She and everyone else involved with the case believes Michael is dead. However, unbeknownst to Laurie, not only is Michael still alive and continuing his gruesome killing spree on his way back to her but she also learns that she is Michael's long lost sister after reading Dr. Loomis's book--Dr. Loomis being, of course, the doctor who "treated" Myers before his bloody escape from the loony bin--about Michael's bloody killing spree. It probably goes without saying that Laurie is none too happy finding out about this and it ends up seriously screwing with her head. Michael ends up kidnapping Laurie and takes her to an abandoned shed. Throughout the movie, Michael sees visions of his mother along with his younger self who "instruct" him on what do to. While in the shed, Laurie also "sees" their mother and her younger brother who likewise "instructs" her what to do. To make amends for what he's done, Dr. Loomis enters the shed while the police is surrounding the shed with their guns drawn and tries to convince Michael to let Laurie go. Now there's two different endings to this flick. The theatrical version--spoiler alert!--shows Michael stabbiing Loomis literally to death before being shot by police. Laurie then grabs Michael's knife and, after telling him that she "loves" him, stabs him to death before stepping outside the cabin while wearing Michael's infamous murder mask. The "alternate" ending, the one which Zombie reportedly preferred (and another spoiler alert!), shows Michael gripping Dr. Loomis in a bear hug outside the shed before removing his mask and showing his face (something he, of course, has NEVER done in any of the earlier films) and he says "Die!"--his first works EVER spoken--and fatally stabs Loomis. The police then shoot him down. Laurie then steps out and grabs Michael's knife and walks over to the lifeless body of Dr. Loomis. As she's staring down at the doctor's body while holding her dead brother's bloody knife, one of the cops inexplicably shoots her. Both endings show Laurie in a loony bin imagining her mother walking towards her next to a white horse. Frankly, I prefer the theatrical ending myself since I think it makes Michael Myers LESS scary unmasking him and showing the actor's face (the actor in this case being former pro-wrestler Tyler Mane who played mutant villain Sabretooth in the very first X-Men movie). Plus it didn't make much sense, at least for me, to have Laurie shot by police and THEN showing her in the nut house or whatever (so does THAT mean she only "imagined" her encounter with Michael like she did in the hospital?). Again, frankly, I think Rob Zombie likes screwing around with moviegoers (as he seemingly did in his notoriously nonsensical the earlier-reviewed Lords Of Salem flick). However, in spite of the two vastly different endings, I still think Rob Zombie's Halloween II is a pretty decent--albeit gory-as-hell--remake of the classic film (which, I must admit, I wasn't the biggest fan of to begin with). It was certainly a hell of a lot better--again, at least to me--than the rather crappy sequels throughout the eighties and nineties (with the exception of H2O which marked the return of Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween franchise and which would have to be my all-time favorite Halloween film). And DON'T get me started on that godawful third Halloween sequel which didn't even feature Michael Myers at all. Even WITH the rather questionable "alternate" ending, Zombie's Halloween sequel was certainly a hell of a lot better than THAT! A sidenote: Halloween fans will probably know there was likewise an "alternate" ending to the first Halloween sequel that was shown on TV known as the TV cut. Maybe--just maybe!--Rob was paying "homage" to this by filming an "alternate" ending to his own Halloween sequel. You think? There was also a grisly murder "connected" to the first Halloween sequel where a deranged man by the name of Richard Delmer Boyer repeatedly stabbed elderly couple Francis and Eileen Harbitz to death back in 1982. It was revealed in court that Boyer suffered from hallucinations and that he had seen Halloween 2 while under the influence of PCP, marijuana and alcohol. Boyer was convicted and sentenced to death. The case became known in the press as the Halloween II Murders when the flick became the first motion picture in American legal history to be entered as "evidence" in a murder trial. Predictably, the brutal murders caused SOME "moral" critics to call for ALL horror/slasher flicks to be--that's right!--banned. Good thing that DIDN'T happen! Actually, I think Rob Zombie or somebody ought to do a movie about this, wouldn't you agree?
Here's a video someone posted on YouTube combining both the theatrical and alternate endings of Rob Zombie's Halloween II that I found rather interesting:
