There’s a scene in Rob Zombie’s follow-up Halloween II where one of Michael Myer’s victims lies broken on the floor, blood everywhere. Was all that red stuff really necessary? Was it necessary for Michael’s other unfortunate victims to be stabbed not once, but multiple times over and over again, the violence accompanied by Michael’s feral growl and each blow punctuated by the sound of crunching thwacks? The scene chilled me to the bone but not in a good way. This kind of bloodletting and brute force is an example of what I call “superficial scares, a quality in modern horror I’m always shouting foul over, because it focuses way too much on exploiting the ugliness of humanity pushed to extremes in order to terrorize the audience.

Believe it or not, there is art to horror filmmaking, and it precludes the excessive use of such practices. Masterpieces like Psycho, The Innocents, Rosemary’s Baby, The Omen, the recent Let the Right One In, and of course, John Carpenter’s 1978 classic Halloween come to mind. These movies display skillful and imaginative use of the conventions in the filmmaker’s toolbox which can wreak psychological havoc in the viewer’s mind.  To this day, I can’t think of any recent gory or special-effects driven horror flick that scared me witless the way that Carpenter’s chilling musical sore did -- and that’s just one of the techniques he used in his watershed film.

I don’t intend to disrespect Rob Zombie’s directorial and writing skills, or even to disparage his brand of horror. Having said that blood and gore isn’t necessary to great horror doesn’t mean I think its use is wrong out of hand. The genre is broad enough to accommodate many themes, subject matter, and stylistic approaches. Any category can succeed commercially and artistically given the filmmaker’s skill. It’s just that with so many releases coming across as either laughably inept or brutally violent, a relentlessly steady diet of these films becomes nauseating.

Halloween II starts off in the aftermath of Michaels’ Halloween night massacre. The survivors -- Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton), Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), and Laurie’s friend Annie (Danielle Harris) -- are whisked to the hospital, while Michael’s dead body gets carted off to the morgue. However, in the tradition of all great bogeymen, he rises like Lazarus and is led into the forest by a vision of his dead mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie). To me, this year-long sabbatical from murder and mayhem seemed oddly to be the cinematic equivalent of Jesus wandering in the desert for forty days and nights, only in Michael’s case, he’s tempted by his mother.

Michael’s absence leads the psychologically damaged Laurie, Loomis, Sheriff Brackett and Annie to believe he’s dead. But as Halloween approaches, Laurie’s fear mounts, propelled in part by the tragic revelations in Loomis’ new book about Michael. When he returns with his purpose redoubled, the resulting carnage pushes Laurie over the edge in Norman Bates fashion. No surprise there.

Regarding Michael’s psychosis, Zombie expands his back story by including references to the meaning of the symbolic white horse in dream analysis. It appears Zombie aims to make Michael a sympathetic character. However, his move doesn’t work. The explanation that Michael’s “rage” is “linked to instinct” and results in “ensuing chaos and destruction” appears unnecessary, for that’s patently obvious. And, delving into the character’s psychology seems like an attempt to give the Halloween story a level of importance it doesn’t warrant. Zombie may be taking things too seriously here.

Equally unfortunate is what has happened to our beloved Laurie and Loomis. They have morphed into characters I don’t recognize or even care about. Whenever Laurie and her pals were onscreen, all I could think about was how I wanted to wash and brush their dirty hair. And Loomis who was once an intelligent, well-spoken and heroic figure has been replaced by an irritating, publicity-seeking media hound. McDowell’s Loomis ends  up being one of the talented actor’s most embarrassing performances. And the town of Haddonfield has gone from a quiet bedroom community into a low-rent town complete with strip clubs, rednecks, and ear-splitting punk rock music.

To his credit, Zombie excels in creating a creepy tone and an aura of foreboding that feels like an uneasy calm before the disastrous storm. I also found his signature use of grainy visuals and murky lighting unnerving and edgy.  And Zombie’s take on Michael -- as well as Tyler Mane’s performance -- comes across in some ways more frightening than the original Michael. Mane’s Michael is a driven, ferocious beast with a cold-eyed stare, and I could feel his raw energy radiating from the screen.

In Halloween II Zombie delivers the final chapter of his Halloween saga. Like it or hate it, his reboot of the classic film reinterprets the story using his singular vocabulary and does have some strong points. Still, there are too many films these days with similar stylistic approaches, and Halloween II can’t break away from the pack. 

(Released by Dimension Films and rated "R" for strong brutal bloody violence throughout, terror, disturbing graphic images, language, and some crude sextual content and nudity.)

Review also posted at www.moviebuffs.com.