Last week, horror news site Bloody Disgusting got their hands on an unused trailer for Rob Zombie’s forthcoming slasher sequel “Halloween II” (out this week). And you know what? It pretty much rules.
Those of us that have been fans of Rob Zombie’s directorial career but felt that he spent all the goodwill he earned on 2005’s masterful horror-western hybrid “The Devil’s Rejects” on the Weinstein Company’s pointless “re-imagining” of John Carpenter’s classic, have felt that “Halloween II” could be a return to form. Unencumbered by having to actually, you know, remake “Halloween,” the general feeling was that he could really let loose and come up with something as crazy/cool as “Rejects.”
Of course, this has all just been wishful thinking as the trailers so far have the movie looking like another rote slasher flick. In fact, the trailer’s emphasis on a hospital setting (which Zombie claims is only a small portion of the movie), had some thinking he had gone and remade the original “Halloween II,” the hospital-set 1981 sequel that was written by John Carpenter and Debra Hill but directed by Rick Rosenthal (well, if you believe lore, Carpenter also had to set in and shoot all the scenes that Rosenthal botched), who also helmed 2002’s odious “Halloween: Resurrection.”
But this new unused trailer? Looks dynamite. Between the psychedelic hillbilly freak-out imagery (who, exactly, is that pumpkin-faced man?), the expert use of “Nights in White Satin” and the overall unsettling vibe, it’s the trailer for the movie we had always expected Rob Zombie had made… we just didn’t know it yet.
Never one to hold his tongue (recently the musician/director revealed that he pitched his original “Halloween” remake as two movies, but the Weinsteins convinced him to make it one, which explains why the first movie takes great pains in setting up murderer Michael Myers’ back story only to rush through the killing spree in the last act), Zombie spoke to EW about his feelings on the leaked trailer.
“When I first saw the trailer [cut by the company Buddha Jones], I went, ‘This is the fucking movie we made.’ And then [Dimension Films] was like, ‘We don’t want to use it, we don’t like it,’ and they just threw it away. Then they cut all these other trailers that just look like generic, stupid fucking slasher movie trailers, and I was fuckin’ pissed. In fact, I wrote this long letter to the promotion department: ‘I hate these trailers and these TV spots, and I fuckin’ hate you.’ You spend forever trying to craft something special and they’re gonna market it like a generic piece of ’80s slasher movie shit because they think audiences are so fucking stupid they can’t understand anything else. That trailer leaked from wherever, and I’m thrilled. The response has been like, ‘Wow, I didn’t want to see this movie until I saw this trailer.’ ” Again, we couldn’t agree more.
Zombie went as far as to send a thank you to the marketing people behind the original clip. He said, “I wrote the marketing guys a thank you note. I said, ‘I don’t know if you guys leaked this, but thank you if you did.’ ”
While Zombie’s first “Halloween” was a big hit, the Weinstein Company have a lot riding on this film, and a lot going against it. First off, they’re releasing it a week after their other big summer gamble “Inglourious Basterds,” which should cannibalize a lot of the same audience — young males. The other big roadblock to success is the release of “The Final Destination,” the fourth and reportedly final installment of New Line’s successful horror franchise. “Destination” has something going for it that “Halloween II” doesn’t — a whole dimension, since “Destination” is in 3-D.
It’ll be an uphill battle, but certainly this new “Halloween 2” trailer will do a lot to energize people, even if it’s not studio-approved. [Bloody Disgusting/EW] – Drew Taylor