Another year, another Rob Zombie remake of a horror classic. I write that in anticipation of what must surely be a continuing trend. After rehashing Halloween in 2007 and focusing on Michael Myers’ childhood, Halloween is back once more for 2009. And this time it has the number 2 attached. I am resisting the urge to slump face forward onto my keyboard and substitute an actual review for whatever I can type by banging my head repeatedly into the keys. I really am.

The plot: The town of Haddonfield, populated by half naked rock chicks and aging hippies for some reason, is once again subjected to the ravages of Myers exactly one year after he was ‘killed’ and his body went ‘missing’ on the way back to the morgue. But wait, there’s more, mostly involving additional forays into the Myer’s family back story.

Zombie is prone to taking a tangential approach to remakes, with the indulgent flash-backery of Halloween allowing him to completely diverge from the plot of the original. Halloween 2 is even more reliant on lazy narrative devices, but this time it’s the dream sequence that gets a thorough butchering. He has realised that a dream sequence in a horror film can be used to show killings that have no consequence on the plot. It’s like Nightmare on Elm Street, except it gives the audience the feeling of being cheated as the repeated dream attacks may as well not have happened.

There is also a subtext to these sequences that goes beyond simple storytelling. They are devices by which Zombie can get his sister (Sheri Moon Zombie) back into the film after her character was killed in his first remake. Zombie, like Judd Apatow, likes to give roles to his nearest and dearest when he can, and like Apatow he makes their appearances seem forced and tacked on. Which is what they are.

The plot is paradoxically confusing and incredibly stupid at the same time, and Zombie has managed to make another slasher film which is bereft of tension and horror. This magic is achieved in two ways. Firstly Myers is able to materialise at a convenient location, kill one or two people and then pops up miles away in the blink of an eye to kill again. There is no sense of the oppressive, relentless pursuer that he embodied in previous films in the franchise. And most of the people he kills are inconsequential and poorly drawn types. Secondly nothing is left to the imagination. Zombie’s film isn’t scary, it’s just nasty. Many of the killings are constructed and carried out randomly and with obsessive attention to gore and violence. It’s as if he missed the aspect that made the original so great. The same goes for most horror remakes and modern horror films. If the audience is shown everything they can never use their imaginations to conjure up something much worse when a violent act occurs just off screen. I believe the correct term is ‘torture porn’ or something to that effect.

So Halloween 2 is rubbish. The script is almost as nasty as the violence and despite all of the gory deaths it manages to be boring more than anything else. Go and watch Zombieland instead. It’s a funny and occasionally frightening film that manages to pack in the gore as well.

Sadly this isn’t the end to Halloween’s continuing legacy. Halloween 3 (which will be in 3D) is slated for a 2011 release. I literally cannot think of anything that I care less about. Saw VIII will (probably) be released the same year. And I am sure that there will be another terrible Hollywood remake of an Asian horror film to fill up the time between now and then. Le sigh.