Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

Announcement: I will be contributing DVD/Blu-Ray reviews in the near future to the NY-based and -oriented site Cinespect, but for the time being I contributed a short review of one of my favorite horror films, Rob Zombie's Halloween II. A major leap forward for the director only furthered by this year's The Lords of Salem, Zombie's sequel to an unexpectedly solid revision takes for its subject not Michael Myers so much as the lingering traumas of his carnage the first time around. An annihilating form of survivor's guilt is as threatening as the masked slasher, and from a certain point of view, he even seems a figment of it. Zombie's Halloween remake clarified that, unlike the spectral, unstoppable force of Carpenter's original, Michael Myers was very much a man, and Halloween II delves into how one toxic human can poison all whom he touches.

My full review is up now at Cinespect.