Follow @screenit

"HALLOWEEN II" (2009) (Scout Taylor-Compton, Malcolm McDowell) (R) Alcohol/ Drugs Blood/Gore Disrespectful/ Bad Attitude Frightening/ Tense Scenes Guns/ Weapons Heavy Extreme Extreme Extreme Extreme Imitative Behavior Jump Scenes Music (Scary/Tense) Music (Inappropriate) Profanity Extreme Extreme Extreme Moderate Extreme Sex/ Nudity Smoking Tense Family Scenes Topics To Talk About Violence Extreme Mild Extreme Extreme Extreme QUICK TAKE: Horror: Mass murderer Michael Myers is still alive and plans to continue his killing spree until he is reunited with his long lost sister. PLOT: Mass murderer Michael Myers (TYLER MANE) did indeed survive the gunshot wounds inflicted on him by his long lost sister, Laurie (SCOUT TAYLOR-COMPTON), at the end of the first film. As the sequel opens, Myers escapes the back of a coroner's van and makes his way to the local hospital where Laurie and her friend, Annie (DANIELLE HARRIS), have been taken for treatment. Myers slaughters several hospital personnel. And just as he is about to kill Laurie, she wakes up and it is one year later. Laurie now lives with Annie and her father (BRAD DOURIF), the town's sheriff, but has both physical and emotional scars from the previous Halloween. Myers, meanwhile, has become a recluse in the nearby woods and continues to see visions of his dead mother (SHERI MOON ZOMBIE) and his younger self (CHASE WRIGHT VANEK), nudging him to return to town, continue his killing spree, and reunite with Laurie. Meanwhile, Myers' former psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis (MALCOLM McDOWELL) has cashed in on his experiences counseling Myers and living through the murders of the previous year. He is on a whirlwind book tour and is on the verge of releasing his second volume of research into Myers' family history. When Michael Myers does indeed return to kill again, all of the principals converge to try and stop him. WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT? Teenagers have a long history with such slasher flicks dating back to the original "Halloween" in 1978. It's almost a rite of passage for older high-school kids to experience such films on the big screen in a darkened theater. This makes younger teens and tweens want to see them, as well, on account of their taboo appeal. WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: R For language, strong brutal violence, nudity, disturbing graphic images and crude sexual content. CAST AS ROLE MODELS: TYLER MANE plays a seemingly unstoppable mass murderer who craves to be reunited with his long lost sister. He usually kills with a large knife, showing no mercy and no remorse. He is haunted by visions of his dead mother and himself as a young boy. TAYLOR SCOUT-COMPTON plays the sister of Michael Myers, who is haunted by the gruesome events she survived in the first film. She has frequent nightmares, takes prescription medication to deal with past traumas, drinks alcohol to escape and swears profusely. MALCOLM McDOWELL plays a criminal psychiatrist who has parlayed his experiences as Michael Myers' doctor into a second career as a celebrity author. He is obsessed with selling books and being treated like a VIP. MARY BIRDSONG plays Dr. Loomis' put-upon publicist, who tries to be the voice of reason as Loomis goes to ghoulish lengths to promote his latest non-fiction book exploiting the Michael Myers tragedy. BRAD DOURIF plays a town sheriff whose daughter survived Myers' rampage in the first film. He is ultimately tasked with hunting the killer down. He loves red meat and smokes on the sly. DANIELLE HARRIS plays the sheriff's daughter, who was brutally attacked and wounded by Myers in the previous flick. She bears the scars from those attacks, but seems to be dealing with the past better than Laurie. ANGELA TRIMBUR plays a promiscuous friend and co-worker of Laurie, who likes to swear, drink alcohol and party. BREA GRANT plays a more sensible friend and co-worker of Laurie. You know she's nicer and smarter because she wears glasses. Still, she likes to drink alcohol and party. SHERI MOON ZOMBIE plays the deceased mother of Michael Myers who appears to the killer (and sometimes to Laurie) in the form of an idealized vision, usually with a white horse. CHASE WRIGHT VANEK plays young Michael Myers, who also regularly appears to the killer and to Laurie as a hallucinatory vision. CAST, CREW, & TECHNICAL INFO HOW OTHERS RATED THIS MOVIE Curious if this title is entertaining, any good, and/or has any artistic merit? Then read OUR TAKE of this film. (Note: The "Our Take" review of this title examines the film's artistic merits and does not take into account any of the possibly objectionable material listed below). OUR WORD TO PARENTS: The following is a brief summary of the content found in this horror film that has been rated R. Profanity consists of at least 102 "f" words, while a myriad of other expletives and colorful phrases are also uttered. Some sexually related dialogue is present, as is nudity and some fooling around. Violence consists of people being stabbed repeatedly, hacked to death, beaten to death, stomped on, skewered and impaled, while others are manhandled or threatened with weapons. Some of this has extremely bloody and gory results, and those scenes and moments where a seemingly unstoppable serial killer stalks his pray will likely be unsettling and/or suspenseful for various viewers. Bad attitudes are present, as is much potentially imitative behavior, various thematic elements and tense family material. Drinking is present, as is smoking and prescription-drug taking. If you're still concerned about the film and its appropriateness for yourself or anyone else in your home who may be interested in seeing it, we suggest that you take a closer look at our detailed listings for more specific information regarding the film's content. For those concerned about bright flashes of light, a rave party features a strobe light, while several nighttime scenes contain police siren lights that flash throughout. A climactic sequence in which the killer and others are surrounded by police in a wooded shed is lit by an overhead helicopter whose spotlight creates a modified strobe effect. For those prone to visually induced motion sickness, all sorts of camera movement (often quite bouncy and distorted, including point of view) occurs throughout the film. ALCOHOL OR DRUG USE Laurie takes prescription medication to help her deal with the memories of Michael Myers' past attacks. A strip club owner and his employee are show drinking what appears to be liquor. The strip club has bottles of various alcoholic beverages on display. Laurie and two girlfriends share bottled beers before heading out to a rave party. At the rave, multiple partygoers are shown consuming beverages clearly meant to be liquor, beer and other spirits. One couple stumbles back to a van drunk and clutching drinks. The guy tells the girl that he has more booze in the van and promises her that it is not spiked with "Roofies," commonly known as the "date-rape drug." BLOOD/GORE Laurie limps down a street, bloodied and bruised up from the traumas she suffered in the first film. Hospital doctors operate on Laurie and her friend, Annie. These scenes are extremely bloody and hard to watch, as lacerations are prodded, skin is graphically sewn up, gnarled fingers are given close-ups, and fingernails and other objects that were hard to make out are removed from flesh. Crime scene cops are shown briefly surveying the bloody aftermath of the first film's murder scene. A driver's face and mouth (complete with yucky teeth) are severely bloodied after crashing his vehicle, while his assistant that had been sitting next to him lies bloodied and dead. The survivor spits up blood, then is slowly beheaded with a shard of broken window glass as blood spurts. A cow lies bleeding to death after being hit by a van. A nurse stumbles back to her station bleeding profusely down her front and from her mouth. After she collapses, Michael Myers stabs her repeatedly with a knife. The blade thrusts are obscured by the nurse's desk, but we see the woman's extremely bloody corpse afterwards. Laurie stumbles past the bloodied, mutilated corpse of another nurse as she flees Myers down a flight of stairs. A night watchmen is axed through the back by Myers, with briefly bloody results One year after the events of the first film, Laurie and Annie bear the physical scars on their faces and bodies from Myers' attacks. Laurie vomits up her dinner. During a dream sequence, several people with facial mutilations surround Laurie as she lies on a large dinner table. Myers, slightly bloodied from being beaten, skewers one of his attackers to death on deer antlers attached to the hood of the man's truck. He slashes the second guy to death with a knife, then drags a woman kicking and screaming from the truck and stabs her to death. The killings are done in the dark of night with only the truck's headlights providing illumination. So the blood flashes are quick and brief. Myers eats the bloody organs of a gutted dog he has just killed off-screen. Myers stomps a guy's face in, with the usual blood and gore seeping out of the man's skull. Myers hangs the guy from Halloween lights and we see his severely crushed, near-unrecognizable face. Myers brutally beats to death the owner of a strip club, breaking his arm in the process. The broken arm visibly dangles for several moments. Myers repeatedly slams a near-naked stripper face-first into a full-length mirror, bloodying her considerably. A male partygoer pees in the woods, after the girl he is with teases him that she wouldn't mind a "golden shower," and is then skewered from behind by Myers wielding a large knife. Blood is splattered all over the walls of a bathroom in which one of Laurie's friends has been slaughtered by Myers. Her dying corpse, drenched in blood, lies quivering on the floor for Laurie to find. Another friend of Laurie's is stabbed to death downstairs, and we see her bloody corpse soon after. Laurie's face is bloodied after Myers tosses her car down a hill, knocking her out. A main character's face is sliced several times by Myers, causing blood to flow. The character is then stabbed repeatedly until dead. Lots of blood is present. Another main character is shot repeatedly by cops, causing brief blood sprays. The character is then impaled on some equipment in a shed, then stabbed repeatedly with a large knife complete with much blood. Graphic crime-scene photos are shown as the end credits roll. DISRESPECTFUL/BAD ATTITUDE Michael Myers kills without remorse, mercy or emotion throughout the film. An EMT jokes about having sex with the corpse of an attractive girl. A second EMT tells a "What's the difference between jelly and jam?" joke about having anal sex with a dead person. A nurse leaves a distraught, nearly incapacitated Laurie alone in a dark hospital hallway to answer a page. Laurie and her co-workers joke about whether one girl should show their senior-citizen boss her breasts to curry favor. Annie talks back to her father, asking him, "Did I stutter?" Loomis is constantly dismissive of his publicist, berating her in front of others. At one point, Loomis tells his assistant: "When I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you!" Loomis is nearly an hour late to a PR event in which people have paid to hear him speak. The father of one of the girls murdered in the first film disrupts Loomis' book signing and pulls a gun on him. Pop satirist Weird Al Yankovic interrupts Loomis during a talk-show appearance to goof on Loomis' book and Michael Myers' persona. Loomis is punched in the face by Sheriff Brackett and told that his help is not needed as Myers is trapped and surrounded by cops in a nearby shed. FRIGHTENING SCENES Scenes listed under "Violence," "Blood/Gore" and "Jump Scenes" may be unsettling, suspenseful or scary to younger viewers and/or those with low tolerance levels for such material. A child dressed as a clown and trick-or-treating alone encounters Michael Myers. A nurse stumbles back to her station bleeding profusely down her front and is then brutally attacked by Myers from behind. Myers stalks a nearly incapacitated Laurie through a darkened hospital and out into a rainstorm. Laurie is briefly left alone in a small guard shack as the guard leaves to get his car. He then suddenly jumps back into view, startling Laurie and is then killed by Myers. Myers uses his considerable strength to destroy the shack and nearly kill Laurie. Several instances in the film, thunder and lightning are used to hike up the drama. Laurie has a surreal and rather disturbing dream in which she is on a dinner table as various costumed people dine around her, some with horrific, facial mutilations. Suddenly, some arms spring up from inside the table and begin to manhandle her. Laurie has another nightmare in which quick flashes of her killing and being killed are show in rapid succession. Myers violently slams through a shut bathroom door and stalks Laurie through a house after killing two of her friends. GUNS/WEAPONS A bloody Laurie limps down a street in a near-catatonic, traumatized state, holding a handgun that Sheriff Brackett carefully takes from her. Myers uses a large knife through most of the film to kill his victims. But he does use an axe to commit one murder. The father of one of the girls murdered in the first film confronts Loomis at a book, pulling a gun on him. It is later revealed the gun was not loaded. A strip club employee encounters Michael Myers in a dark parking lot and lets Myers know that he has a gun tucked underneath his shirt. A strip club owner pulls a handgun on Michael Myers, but is quickly disarmed. Police train multiple rifles and guns on a shack where Michael Myers is holed up. One cop eventually fires. IMITATIVE BEHAVIOR Phrases: "Shut the f*ck up," "This ain't my first f*cking corpse," "F*cktard," "This is just f*cking great," "This is f*cking insane," "F*ck the man," "You f*cking whore," "Enjoy the f*cking herpes, old man," "I'm gonna put two holes through your mother-f*cking mask," "I want to f*cking get drunk," "Hurry the f*ck up," "Get him the f*ck out of here," "Sh*t heel," "I got wood," "What up d*ck lickers?" "You stupid, slimy dick," "That was a professional ass-whooping," "Move your ass," "Are you going to rock balls?" and "What the Christ are you doing here?" Some kids may be enticed to try to imitate the various scares and such to frighten others. Several times, Laurie walks down the middle of poorly lit roads at night. A pentagram is painted on the back of a door along with the numbers "666." Laurie and her roommate have written profanity and various witty sayings on the walls of their own bathroom. For instance, the words "Keep your sink clean, bitch" are clearly visible. Laurie sports tattoos on her hand and on the small of her back. A stripper has tattoos on her chest and back. Several incidental characters are shown with tattoos. Laurie's friend dresses as a transvestite for Halloween. Laurie and her friend, Mya, both wear sexually provocative costumers to a Halloween rave party A man attending Loomis' book signing marvels at Michael Myers' killings and wears a T-shirt with a bloody knife and the initials "WMD" (presumably for "Weapon of Mass Destruction") written in big letters. Annie talks back to her father, asking him, "Did I stutter?" Laurie makes up a funny voice for her stuffed animal and uses profanity in that voice. Loomis is constantly dismissive of his publicist, berating her in front of others. At one point, Loomis tells his assistant: "When I want your opinion, I'll beat it out of you!" Loomis asks a female fan if she is a "real redhead." JUMP SCENES A cow appears out of nowhere and is hit by a speeding vehicle on a dark country road. Myers sneaks up behind a guard named "Buddy" and puts an axe through his back. Myers takes the axe and violently pummels his way into a small guard station shack where Laurie is hiding. Laurie has a nightmare in which she is on a table and some arms come up through the table and grab her. Laurie has another nightmare comprised of extremely nightmarish quick-cut edits in which she is killed and she becomes a killer. Myers comes out of nowhere to stab a teenage boy dressed as a werewolf through the back as he is urinating near a tree. The kill is extremely quick and brutal. Myers crashes through the back of a van to attack Harley. Myers grabs Laurie from behind during a hallucination she is having while dancing in a crowded rave party. Myers emerges from the shadow of a tree to kill a deputy from behind in the dark of night. Mya is grabbed suddenly from behind by Myers and pulled back into a house after completing a 911 call. When Annie closes her medicine cabinet, the mirror reveals Michael Myers standing behind her. Myers loudly and violently pounds his way through the door of a bathroom where Laurie has holed up with her dying friend. MUSIC (SCARY/TENSE) Tension-filled music plays throughout the entire film and is heavy on percussion and shrill strings. Whenever Michael Myers thrusts knives or axes into his victims, it is usually punctuated by the film's score. MUSIC (INAPPROPRIATE) At a rave party, a singer croons about demons cutting people's heads off. There is a considerable amount of heavy-metal music played throughout the film that may have contained objectionable lyrics. But the snippets are so short and the sound of the guitars is so harshly mixed with the rest of the soundtrack that it's hard to make out what each singer is saying. PROFANITY At least 102 "f" words (8 used with "mother"), 11 "s" words, 1 slang term for sex ("shaggin'"), 3 slang terms using male genitals ("d*ck," "wood," "Jolly Green Giant"), 15 hells, 8 damns, 4 S.O.B.s, 3 asses (2 used with "hole"), 6 uses of "G-damn" and 1 use each of "Christ,""Jesus Christ" and "Oh my God." An EMT tells a joke about having anal sex with a dead person. A bumper sticker is shown with the words: "Wake the F*ck Up." Written on Laurie's bathroom wall are the words: "Keep your sink clean, bitch." SEX/NUDITY An EMT jokes about having sex with the corpse of an attractive girl. A second EMT tells a "What's the difference between jelly and jam?" joke about having anal sex with a dead person. One of Laurie's friends wonders if she should show her boss her breasts. A strip club has a painting of two topless women as promotional art. A strip club owner prepares to have sex with a topless stripper, only to be interrupted by Michael Myers. The stripper runs from Myers still topless and in a G-string. Laurie's friend dresses as a transvestite for Halloween. Laurie and her friend Mya both wear sexually provocative costumers to a Halloween rave party. Laurie's friend invites a guy to put his hands down her pants to determine whether she is a girl or not. He declines, knowing she is female. Several partygoers and stage performers are shown topless at the party. Harley is lured to a van by a male partygoer to have sex. He calls his van "the Shaggin' Wagon." Harley strips down to her underwear. After much kissing and fondling, the guy leaves to urinate. But not before Harley intimates that she might be into a "golden shower." But that does not occur. Loomis suggestively asks a female fan if she is a "real redhead." SMOKING An ambulance driver pulls out a large cigar while driving. He doesn't get a chance to light it, though. A deputy assigned to protect Sheriff Brackett's daughter takes a smoke break outside the house. Sheriff Brackett and another police officer are shown smoking cigarettes outside the local station house. TENSE FAMILY SCENES Michael Myers has multiple hallucinations that his dead stripper mother and his younger child self are with him, commanding him to commit his murders and reunite their family. In a brief opening, pre-titles sequence, Myers' mother visits her young son at a sanitarium and proceeds to playfully tickle him. Laurie laments growing up without parents to her psychiatrist. The father of one of the girls murdered in the first film confronts Loomis at a book signing and blames the psychiatrist-turned-author for his daughter's death. Laurie discovers by reading Loomis' latest bestseller that she is the long lost sister of mass murderer Michael Myers. A father finds his daughter's dead, mutilated body. A hysterical Laurie pleads with a vision of her mother that she loves her as she hallucinates being held down by Michael Myers' younger self. This is all happening in a shed surrounded by police with guns drawn. TOPICS TO TALK ABOUT Serial killers and their long history of evil in this world. The physical toll real violence takes on the human body. The psychological trauma that lingers long after one has been stalked and attacked. The public's fascination with grisly murder cases and how it has created a whole celebrity subculture. VIOLENCE A coroner's van carrying Michael Myers' "dead" body crashes into a cow on a two-lane road in the dead of night. Myers uses a shard of glass to slowly saw off the driver's head. A nurse stumbles back to her station, blood spurting down the front of her from her mouth. She collapses on the floor and Myers emerges to plunge a knife into her backside multiple times. A nurse lies dead in a stairwell, carved up by Michael Myers. Myers kills a security guard by driving an axe through his back. Michael Myers is brutally beaten with clubs by two men while a woman watches, pleading for them to stop. Myers gets up from the beating to skewer one man to death on the deer antlers attached to his truck's hood. He slashes the second guy to death, then drags the woman kicking and screaming from the truck and stabs her to death. Myers eats the bloody organs of a gutted dog he has just killed off-screen. Security guards wrestle a man to the ground and disarm him after he threatens Loomis at a book signing. Michael Myers violently throws a man to the ground and stomps his face in until his neck is broken and he is dead. Myers then hangs the guy from Halloween lights inside of a strip club. Myers brutally beats to death the owner of the strip club, breaking his arm which dangles for several moments. Myers repeatedly slams a near-naked stripper face-first into a full-length mirror until she is dead. Myers stabs a teenage boy dressed as a werewolf through the back as he is urinating near a tree. Myers crashes through the back of a van and strangles Laurie's friend, snapping her neck in the process. Myers kills a deputy from behind in the dark of night, breaking his neck. Later, when the man's corpse is shown,, we see that Myers has jabbed something - a small metal rod, perhaps - through the man's head. One of Laurie's friends is killed by Myers in her own home. At first, you only hear the screams of the woman and the sound effects of Myers' knife thrusts as the scene cuts to a car approaching the house. Later, as Laurie stumbles through the ransacked home, we get brief flashback glimpses of the woman being manhandled, thrown about, and ultimately stabbed. Another friend of Laurie's attempts to call 911 when Myers attacks her from behind, throws her hard onto a floor and stabs her repeatedly. Myers violently pounds his way through the door of a bathroom where Laurie has holed up with her dying friend. Myers kills a man by slamming him face-first through the window of his car. Michael Myers picks up one side of a car with Laurie inside and flings it end over end down a small hill. Sheriff Brackett punches Loomis in the face. A main character's face is sliced several times by Myers, causing blood to flow. The character is then stabbed repeatedly until dead. Another main character is shot repeatedly by cops, impaled on some equipment in a shed, and then stabbed repeatedly with a large knife. Reviewed Aug. 28, 2009 / Posted Aug. 28, 2009

Other new and recent reviews include:

Privacy Statement and Terms of Use and Disclaimer
By entering this site you acknowledge to having read and agreed to the above conditions.

All Rights Reserved,
©1996-2016 Screen It, Inc.