Halloween II (2009)
Dimension Films | Release Date: August 28, 2009 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
35
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
9
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
New York PostKyle Smith
At times Halloween II dances on the line between alarming and disgusting, and it doesn’t all hold together — I couldn’t figure out what the goblin banquet was doing in this movie. But if it was meant to freak me out, it worked. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe Neumaier
Despite the limitations inherent in the genre, it actually delivers. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubKeith Phipps
Halloween II provides ample spotlights for Zombie’s visual gifts, but—apart from some striking Oedipal fantasy sequences featuring Sheri Moon Zombie as the spirit of Myers’ mother—we saw most of this last time around, and a lot of promising material leads to dead ends. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyAdam Markovitz
What Halloween II does have, though, is Zombie’s claustrophobic visual style; he half-drowns his actors in shadow, then tracks them through windows and around corners like a focused predator. If only we cared about the prey. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTom Russo
The copious violence, as always, is an assault - even aurally, as every thudding knife strike is made to sound like a boulder dropping on the theater. Read full review
50
Slant MagazineNick Schager
Treading well-worn ground to diminishingly creepy returns is a bone-deep problem for Zombie’s latest, especially with regard to his characters. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Hartlaub
This movie isn't horrible, but it seems like a waste for Zombie to keep revisiting someone else's world. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David Edelstein
Freed from the original Halloween template, Zombie is aiming for something hallucinatory, almost abstract: a tone poem of madness and sadism and family ties that bind (and garrote). But the picture runs out of ideas about halfway through, and what’s left is splatter in a void. Read full review
40
Time OutKeith Uhlich
Zombie is still committed to showing how violence perverts all touched by it, yet his carnivalesque approach undercuts his empathy. He panders to the cheap seats whenever he’s not being scary. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterFrank Scheck
As with his 2007 effort, director-screenwriter Rob Zombie's approach is far grittier than in the original series. Read full review
30
The New York TimesMike Hale
Halloween II is full of in jokes and references but nearly devoid of wit. Read full review
30
L.A. WeeklyChuck Wilson
This time, Zombie doesn’t appear to have many deep thoughts, so Michael doesn’t just stab his victims, he slices and chomps them into gooey pulp — an overkill motif that actually feels false to the character and quickly becomes a depressing bore. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesRobert Abele
What you won't feel is genuine horror, because unlike John Carpenter -- whose original 1978 film is a sly game of nerve-racking peekaboo -- Zombie isn't out to engage fans of the genre with a slaughterhouse bonbon like "Halloween II." Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's visceral bloodbathery at its most repellent, but worse than that, it's horrific like the aftermath of a suicide bombing instead of terrifying like the bomb beneath the table or the knife behind the back. Read full review
25
Orlando SentinelRoger Moore
With Halloween II, Zombie shows conclusively that he's not interested in growing, getting better or ever becoming an original. He's just a hack with a made-up name, a cult following and a wife who can't act. Read full review
20
VarietyRob Nelson
Repellent not only in content but in visual style, writer-director Rob Zombie’s hatchet job on the series he revived so artfully two years ago plays like a violent act of euthanasia upon the huge, brain-dead body of work inspired by the 30-year-old “Halloween.” Read full review
12
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Halloween II is an affront to Halloween and horror fans. It's the kind of cataclysmic misstep from which a franchise cannot recover. It has transformed Michael Myers from an iconic movie monster into a laughingstock. Read full review
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