Halloween II (2009)
d. Rob Zombie, 105 minutes, 119 minutes (unrated director's cut)

Film Plot Summary (based upon the director's cut)

The film opened with a title card providing the meaning of a WHITE HORSE in one's dreams, excerpted from The Subconscious Psychosis of Dreams:

"Linked to instinct, purity, and the drive of the physical body to release powerful and emotional forces, like rage with ensuing chaos and destruction."

FLASHBACK --

In a brief flashback, loving mother Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) visited her incarcerated young son Michael Myers (Chase Wright Vanek) at Smith's Grove Sanitarium in Warren County. She gave him a present of a white horse statuette, that reminded him of his previous night's "really good dream," in which his mother was dressed in white like a beautiful ghost, and walking down a white sanitarium hallway leading a big white horse. In the dream, she told him that he was going to be brought back home. Deborah told Michael that he couldn't come home just yet, but the horse would help to be a reminder of her.

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER --

[Note: At the end of the previous Rob Zombie-directed film, Halloween (2007), Laurie Strode (Scout-Taylor Compton) shot Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) in the face with psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Loomis' (Malcolm McDowell) gun at point-blank range (after the gun clicked empty three times) just as he gripped her wrist.]

Now, a bloodied and shocked Laurie Strode (carrying the gun in her hand) stumbled down a deserted, rain-slick road in Haddonfield, Illinois where she was picked up by Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif). Although she was mistaken, she said: "I killed him. The man. I climbed in the wall, I fell. I killed him." Screaming and panic-stricken, she was wheeled into the hospital's emergency room as she cried out: "Where am I?...Am I gonna die?" She was surgically treated for gunshot wounds, multiple bruises and lacerations.

Meanwhile, at the Myers house, surviving Dr. Loomis was treated by paramedics for severe head injuries after being attacked by Michael, and placed in an ambulance for transport. Photographers took photos of Michael's lifeless, presumed dead body, and then the heavy corpse was loaded into Coroner Hook's (Dayton Callie) van, requiring six people to lift him. A second body was loaded into a separate ambulance - the naked, almost-dead Annie Brackett (Danielle Harris), and she was taken to the same hospital for surgical treatment. Sheriff Brackett warned Hook: "I'd say that there's nothing obvious about anything that happened here tonight. Not a goddamn thing."

As the coroner's van drove away to the morgue, the coroner's assistant Gary Scott (Richard Brake) mentioned being tempted about having necrophiliac sex with the female victim -- "She still looked good to me. Nice little titties hanging out." The van collided with a dairy cow in the roadway - the coroner was killed by the crash's impact (# 1 death) and the assistant was seriously injured. A masked Michael broke free, emerged from the van's back door, and with a broken shard of glass crudely sawed through the neck of the hapless assistant Scott and beheaded him (# 2 death). Myers walked down the road toward a vision of his mother dressed in a white gown, holding the reins of a white horse.

[DREAM SEQUENCE]

Later that night in the hospital, Laurie woke up, made her way down the hallway, and discovered her friend Annie in intensive care, still unconscious and recuperating with three massive stitch marks across her face. As Laurie struggled to return to her room, she suffered a dizzy spell, and then the attending Nurse Octavia Daniels (Octavia Spencer) appeared - bleeding and dying from a stab wound in her chest. Michael Myers was stalking after her with a large butcher knife. He viciously stabbed the Nurse almost a dozen times (# 3 death) (in dream), leaving the knife sticking out of her head, as Laurie escaped down a stairwell. She came upon blood-splattered walls and another of Michael's victims among the medical staff (# 4 death) (in dream).

Pursued by Michael, Laurie fled to a lower level and emerged in an underground storage warehouse, and tumbled into a container of corpses. She struggled to another exit and climbed another set of stairs to a large vacant outdoor parking area surrounded by chain-link fencing. Scrambling in the pouring rain, she attempted to find shelter in a security-guard gatehouse as Michael followed after her brandishing a large axe. [Throughout the entire extended sequence, the melancholic "Nights in White Satin" performed by The Moody Blues was viewed on TV screens.]

The brutal masked killer murdered night watchman Buddy (Richard Riehle) with an axe swing into his back (# 5 death) (in dream), when he returned to his post and attempted to rescue Laurie. She watched helplessly as Michael tore through the windows and walls of the gatehouse with the powerful axe. She suddenly awoke from her nightmare as he swung the axe down to murder her. She was haunted by terrible, recurring dreams of her earlier ordeal as a victim.

OCTOBER 29TH, TWO YEARS LATER - [In the theatrical version, the jump was only one year]

In her bedroom decorated with an Alice Cooper poster, Laurie abruptly awoke with her television on, broadcasting Romero's classic horror film Night of the Living Dead (1968). She tried to convince herself in front of her mirror, with a sign reading 'WAKE THE F__K UP': "Come on. He's dead. He's f--king dead." Laurie was living in the country outside of Haddonfield with the Brackett family, Sheriff Brackett and his daughter Annie, who had fully recovered. She was still an angry and traumatized young lady, undergoing therapy for her post-traumatic syndrome condition, although Annie encouraged her: "One day at a time, babe."

During a therapy session, Laurie's therapist Barbara Collier (Margot Kidder) was not surprised about her worsening situation: "It's Halloween, and Halloween is a big trigger point for you, isn't it?" Laurie stated emphatically: "I know Michael Myers is dead. I shot him in the f--king head!" However, because the authorities never found Michael's body, the therapist believed that Laurie was experiencing difficulty finding closure and was still recovering: "He's objectively dead, but he's living in your mind and he's living in your heart and your emotions. So that's the reality that we have to heal you from." Laurie described her relationship with Annie as "not good" - calling her scarred face "a constant reminder" of the rampage, which she blamed on herself. Laurie confessed to having uncontrollable rage, but couldn't finish her thought. Hanging on the therapist's wall was a Rorschach ink-blot image of two white horses (backed up to each other) rearing up. Laurie said she simply saw a white horse when asked to interpret it.

To exploit the sensationalist 'Michael Myers' saga as a bookwriter, pompous and self-important Dr. Samuel Loomis arrived in a stretch limousine at a hotel, for a promotional press event with journalists to engender publicity, and had a confrontative chat with his female agent Miss Nancy McDonald (Mary Birdsong) after arriving late. His lecture began with video of young Michael being told that his mother had committed suicide, although the boy was in "complete denial." Loomis' book The Devil Walks Among Us, was due out in stores on Halloween Day. He spoke about how he had become Michael's "surrogate father" after Michael had directed his "first sexual impulses" toward his mother, and his "first murderous hatred" against his father.

During a question/answer period, Loomis denied feeling responsible for the deaths of at least 15 victims: "I was very nearly a victim myself. I'm not a psychic Sherlock Holmes playing Superman." Further questions asked if Michael was still alive, or if he would kill again, and Loomis angrily and forcefully answered:

"Michael Myers is f--king dead. Now, do you brain-dead gossip mongers want me to spell it out for you? D-E-A-D."

(Intercut with his answer was Michael's trek back to Haddonfield. During his return journey, Michael had more visions of Deborah's white ethereal ghost, who spoke to him in a barn (as an adult, and as a younger ghostly version of himself wearing a clown costume): "Halloween is coming. You have to get ready. We are counting on you to bring us home this year." To reunite his dysfunctional family, Michael promised his mother: "I won't let you down.")

At the same time, Laurie drove to her place of work, Uncle Meat's Java Hole bookstore/cafe run by ex-hippie Uncle Meat (Howard Hesseman), where she confirmed she was going to attend the Phantom Jam costume party for Halloween with her Goth/punk-rocker friends:

• Harley David (Angela Trimbur)
• Mya Rockwell (Brea Grant), blonde co-worker

During Michael's trek by foot, he was confronted by three white-trash hillbillies (two males and one female - a daughter of the driver) in a pickup truck (decorated on the grill with mounted deer antlers). They treated him as a drifter who was stealing from them. When one of them called the mute giant Michael "7-foot of f--k-tard" and they beat him with a baseball bat ("a professional ass-whupping"), Michael collapsed to the ground. But then he slowly rose up in their headlights, donned his mask and with his butcher knife, brutally retaliated -- he slashed the neck of one man and then repeatedly stabbed him (# 6 death), and also stabbed the other male in the stomach and impaled him on the antlers (# 7 death). He then dragged the female from the truck and delivered multiple stab wounds to her (# 8 death), before murdering their dog Ivan, gutting the pet, and eating the bloody innards.

Juxtaposed with the brutal murder scene was a pizza-eating dinner at the Brackett home, where the Sheriff gave a tribute to forgotten classic actor Lee Marvin and then acted out an endorsement of non-vegetarian meat-eating: "We, all of us, have a little bit of caveman in us." As Laurie ate, she became sickened and puked in the toilet.

Michael's hallucinations and visions of his dead mother's spirit continued to haunt him, and triggered violent impulses. He envisioned a strange Halloween-feast with pumpkin-headed participants at a banquet table, with his younger sister Boo (aka Laurie Strode) laid out in front of them. Young Michael (in his clown outfit) asked his mother: "Can we be a family again?" She replied: "Not yet." In her bedroom (under a Charles Manson poster), Laurie again awoke from a nightmare - one that mirrored Michael's.

OCTOBER 30TH

After crossing a field, Michael entered the outskirts of Haddonfield. Dr. Loomis was using the Myers house as a backdrop for an interview with attractive TV reporter Holly West (Catherine Dyer). His agent Miss McDonald questioned his lack of taste, to which he replied that it was only business: "I'm selling the sizzle, not the steak." She cautioned: "It's just gonna add fuel to the lynch mob fire." He countered: "Besides, bad taste is the petrol that drives the American dream."

[DREAM SEQUENCE]

As Laurie sleepily sat in her bathroom while waiting for shower water to heat, she imagined herself acting out a murder - she saw herself in a clown costume reach for duct tape and a large butcher knife, which she used to tape Annie to an armchair, and then slit her throat (# 9 death) (in dream). Her possessed, convulsing body screamed out: "Die, you f--king bitch!" before she finally woke up to reality.

At the park in the Haddonfield town square, a Frankenstein-costumed man (Daniel Roebuck) (named Big Lou, later revealed to be the owner of a local strip club) asked kids: "You guys like Frankenstein?"

During her next therapy session, Laurie described the "crazy attack" that she had experienced, and demanded prescription medication for her increased anxiety: "I'm not strong enough, and I'm tired of pretending that I am." Acting insanely, she called her therapist a "crazy bitch" and stormed out. Watching TV that evening, Sheriff Brackett viewed the taped TV interview of Dr. Loomis speaking about Michael Myers - calling him "the mysterious legend of evil." Myers was a real bogeyman to Loomis, who described how "startling facts" came to light following his last encounter with Michael, such as the loss of Michael's body during transport. He ended the interview with the ominous quote: "Freaks will always find their way home." Drinking beer which she called her new "best friend" in her bedroom, Laurie had an intense argument with Annie. Although both girls had their lives trashed, Annie felt like Laurie was putting on a new "act" with her increasingly outrageous behavior.

The Rabbit in Red strip club, managed by Big Lou, was made "world famous" as the "home of Deborah Myers, the mother of Michael Myers - 'The Butcher of Haddonfield'." With Misty Dawn (Sylvia Jefferies), one of his dancers seated on his lap, Big Lou ordered strung-out employee Howard Boggs (Jeffrey Daniel Phillips) to take out the trash. Near the dumpster, Howard, who was confronted by Michael, challenged the hulking Myers to "hit the bricks, Dorothy" (a reference to The Wizard of Oz (1939)), and then called him a "filthy, dirty hippie." Myers punched Howard to the ground and then repeatedly stomped and flattened his face, crushing his skull (# 10 death). [Inside the club, Howard was strung up by the neck with a string of colored lights.]

Michael saw his white-garbed mother standing on the bar, provoking him to further violence and blood-letting: "We're done waiting. Only a river of blood can bring us back together. It's up to you." At midnight as it technically turned to Halloween, Big Lou (in his Frankenstein mask) was preparing for intercourse with his naked stripper Misty: "You're my bride of Frankenstein...I'm gonna give you my jolly green giant." [He parodied the Monster's short phrases from the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, albeit sexually: "Titties good. Ass good."] Michael appeared in the back room where he assaulted gun-wielding Big Lou - he snapped the proprietor's right arm and then threw him against the wall in the hallway to break his skull (# 11 death). He grabbed Misty as she fled by the hair and smashed her face into a mirror until she dropped dead (# 12 death). The "OPEN" sign on the outside building was turned off, replaced by a "CLOSED" sign.

OCTOBER 31ST

As Sheriff Brackett read one part of Loomis' recently-released book, he was angered by what he read. On a downtown street, Laurie walked by a storefront advertising Loomis' book, with the subtitle: "The True Story of America's Most Notorious Serial Killer" - He was born to kill. With his mother next to him, a bearded, unmasked Michael stood in front of a roadside billboard advertising the new book, as a long line formed in town to purchase the new publication. She urged Michael to go after Dr. Loomis: "He's still out there. Rich and famous. All because of our pain."

While Loomis signed books, one of the customers Kyle Van Der Klok (Robert Curtis Brown) identified himself as the father of Lynda, one of Michael's victims. [She was murdered in the first Halloween (1978) film, portrayed by actress P.J. Soles. Her death was reprised in the Zombie-directed Halloween (2007), portrayed by actress Kristina Klebe.] He accused Loomis of complicity in the death: "Your monster killed her...He butchered her...I'm gonna get you, Loomis" - and he drew an unloaded weapon on the author. Security guards hauled him away. Later, Loomis' agent prophetically told him that she was of the personal opinion that the book crossed quite a few lines:

"These are people's lives you're toying with. There's gonna be serious repercussions."

When Laurie read in the book that her real identity was Michael's long-lost sister, named Angel Myers, she was freaked out by knowledge of the connection and drove off in a rage. To protect his own daughter, Sheriff Brackett ordered his Deputy Andy Neale (Greg Travis) to take his shotgun to his own house and sit guard over Annie. Laurie visited her friends Mya and Harley and attempted to describe her confused state of mind: "I'm not me...I'm Angel Myers, Michael Myers' sister," pointing to excerpts and pictures in the Loomis book about her "f--ked up life" to prove her point.

Loomis was interviewed on the TV talk show The Newman Hour by host David Newman (Chris Hardwick), while seated next to another guest, Weird Al Yankovic (as Himself). Newman brought up the fact that Loomis had been accused of "profiteering off the misery of others." Loomis took "great issue" with that statement, and afterwards expressed how he felt humiliated by the interviewer's questions.

In town, Michael came upon one young trick-or-treater named Mark (Matthew Lintz), who asked: "Are you a giant? Can we be friends?" (a reference to the film The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)).

Laurie insisted that her two female friends join her to "go party" and get drunk - and they attended the Phantom Jam costume party. There, the stage band, Captain Clegg (Jesse Dayton) and the Night Creatures (including bare-breasted dancers), sang "Terror Train" (a reference to the film Terror Train (1980), starring Halloween's scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis). Laurie was costumed as a domestic maid, while Harley impersonated a Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) character ("I'm a chick who's dressing up as a dude who wants to be a chick"), and Mya was dressed in a sparkling gold ringmaster's costume. Sexually-aggressive Harley was escorted by a werewolf-looking guy named Wolfie (Matt Bush) (a reference to The Wolfman (1941)) to his "Shaggin' Wagon" van, but before having sex as he urinated against a tree, he was slashed by Michael from behind (# 13 death).

The famed serial killer then crashed into the back door window of the van and strangled Harley (# 14 death). Meanwhile in his hotel room, Loomis was disgusted as he watched the earlier taped broadcast of his TV interview, in which he was told that he had a "self-inflated ego and never-ending quest for fame and fortune." Al Yankovic asked jokingly if Loomis' book was talking about actor Mike Myers as the film character Austin Powers. Loomis sighed: "It's over."

Back at the carnivalesque Phantom Jam stage show, Laurie suffered another hallucination of her mother Deborah and her young brother Michael. She asked: "What do you want from me?" Her mother replied: "It's almost time to come home, Angel." Laurie thought she was grabbed from behind by the hulking adult Michael, but she was brought back to reality by Mya, who dragged her away from the party and insisted that they return home.

While Deputy Neale stepped off the porch and took a smoke break outside the Brackett home, he was garrotted from behind and his neck was broken by Michael (# 15 death). Inside, Annie prepared to take a shower in her bathroom, where Michael confronted, chased, and repeatedly stabbed her, leaving her for dead. Laurie was driven home by Mya, and on her front porch yelled out: "Hey, world! Guess what. I'm Michael Myers' sister. I'm so f--ked!" When they went upstairs, as in the conclusion of the previous film, Laurie found Annie's nearly-dead, bloodied body. As Mya raced to call 911 on a downstairs phone, Michael attacked and killed her by repeatedly stabbing her in the chest (# 16 death). Sheriff Brackett was informed of the 911 call coming from his home, as Annie succumbed on the floor of the bathroom in Laurie's arms (#17 death), who was vainly pleading: "You gotta stay with me...Don't leave me, baby."

Laurie fled from the house on foot, with Michael in pursuit. A large force of police cars arrived at the Brackett home, with the Sheriff in the lead. He discovered the naked corpse of his dead daughter and broke down, screaming: "No!" - remembering her as a young girl from home videos. Laurie raced through woods to Eagle Road, where she flagged down a passing motorist, but after she was helped into the passenger seat, the driver was grabbed by Michael and smashed head-first into the windshield (# 18 death). Myers then tipped and flipped the car over with Laurie still in it.

When the car caught fire, the hulking giant Michael carried the unconscious Laurie to a nearby barricaded shack where he had been camping - verified by an eyewitness's report. As Laurie was restrained by the younger Michael, she saw another vision of Deborah -- and was ordered to repeat: "I love you, Mommy." The shack was surrounded by police and a helicopter, as Laurie desperately screamed for help, and Michael was commanded to surrender. After being alerted to the breaking WPKW-TV news story of the hostage crisis, a police standoff, and a resurrected Michael Myers, Dr. Loomis hurried to the scene.

After being punched in the face by Sheriff Brackett for the danger he had put Laurie in, and for his "greedy f--king book," Loomis (against orders) approached the shack to possibly "draw him out" and persuade Michael to release Laurie. Inside, he told Michael: "She needs to come with me." He informed Laurie that she was only imagining behind held down by the younger Michael ("It's all in your mind") - as Deborah instructed the older Michael: "We are ready. It is time, Michael. Take us home." Holding onto Dr. Loomis, Michael crashed through the side of the shack, cast off his mask, and yelled: "Die!" before stabbing Loomis in the chest (# 19 death). Michael was repeatedly shot by police gun-fire, and dropped to his knees (# 20 death).

Still experiencing a vision of Deborah and the young Michael, Laurie stepped through the hole in the building's wall and walked over to Michael's body, took the butcher knife from his right hand, and stood over Dr. Loomis. Suddenly, Laurie was shot by trigger-happy police, and as she fell backwards, the image freeze-framed. To the sound of the tune "Love Hurts" on the soundtrack (performed by Nan Vernon), a helicopter's floodlight captured the scene of three bodies lying on the ground: Laurie, Michael, and Dr. Loomis.

In the epilogue, as the camera zoomed in for a close-up of Laurie's face (assuming that she had survived the gunshots), the scene transitioned to a white corridor in a psychiatric institution. As the camera slowly tracked forward to the end of the long hallway, demented patient Laurie was sitting alone on the end of her bed in her room. In closeup as she slowly looked up, she smiled an evil grin at an hallucinatory vision of Deborah leading a white horse toward her, as the film went black.

[Had the entire film been Laurie's dream?]

[Note: In the shorter theatrical version, Michael grabbed Loomis in the shack and began repeatedly slashing his face and stabbing him in the chest (# 19 death). Stepping in front of a window while holding Loomis's body, Michael was shot twice by Sheriff Brackett and fell onto the spikes of some farming equipment (# 20 death). Apparently released of the visions, Laurie walked over and told Michael that she loved him, but then in a frenzy stabbed him repeatedly in the chest and in the head. The shack door opened and Laurie walked out, wearing Michael's mask. As she pulled the mask off, the scene transitioned (as in the Director's Cut) to Laurie sitting in isolation in a psychiatric ward, grinning at a vision of Deborah dressed in white who stood with a white horse at the end of her room.]

Sepia-toned stills of crime scene photographs of Michael's murdered victims were interspersed within the credits.

Film Notables (Awards, Facts, etc.)

Written, directed, and produced by Rob Zombie. Although the film was first released in late August 2009, it was again re-released during the 2009 Halloween weekend. It was filmed in 16mm to give it a harsh, gritty tone.

With a production budget of approximately $15 million, and box-office gross revenues of $33 million (domestic) and $37.6 million (worldwide).

This was the 10th film in the series, and Rob Zombie's second and final film. It was a sequel to the earlier remade Zombie film Halloween (2007), and not a remake of the Halloween 2 (1981) film. Although its first 20-30 minutes were similar to the 1981 film, it then skipped ahead one (or two) years and became its own film.

With the tagline: "Family is Forever."

Plans were underway for an 11th film, Halloween III (2011) directed by Patrick Lussier.

Body Count: 20 (some in Laurie's dream sequences), plus one murdered, cannibalized dog.