Halloween II starts with an explanation of the symbolic meaning of a white horse, which immediately raises a red flag that Zombie is taking himself too seriously. However, the sequence that immediately follows, essentially a condensed remake of the original Halloween II, offers up some pretty effective moments. That is, until it all turns out to have been a dream. It’s hard to say which is more numbing: the relentless brutality, the heavy-handed symbolism, the overabundance of dream sequences and flashbacks, or the seemingly endless stream of scenes and ideas lifted from other films. Zombie even goes so far as to steal the endings of both Psycho and Night of the Living Dead, because apparently one plagiarized ending that calls attention to a better film than this one just isn’t enough. There are some good performances and even a few decent scenes scattered about in Halloween II, but it’s not worth having to sit through the rest of the movie to get to them. *
