10 Things You Learn Rewatching Halloween II (2009)
5. The Visuals Are Piss-Poor
Once again, Zombie's greatest hindrance is himself and his complete and total lack of restraint or subtlety.
Eschewing the more cinematic aspect ratio of 2.39:1 that he used on his Halloween remake, Zombie switches to a 1.85:1 frame on this film and it is immediately noticeable. This results in a more narrow frame, which only serves to further emphasize Zombie's other bad tendencies.
Nearly half of the shots in this film are close-ups, and viewers can practically count the number of actual wide shots between two hands. This gives the film a claustrophobic style that Zombie is pretty obviously not aiming for, he just can't help himself. Every character who is delivering a line is constantly framed in extreme close-ups and to quote David Fincher;
"Every time you go to a close-up, the audience knows 'look at this, this is important'. You have to be very, very cautious and careful about when you choose to do it."
Zombie is decidedly not careful about he chooses close-ups here, instead just seemingly defaulting to them in nearly every instance.
To further worsen things, in the editing of the film, Zombie opted to desaturate the visuals so much that the film is practically in black-and-white at times. Between the desaturated visuals, the narrow frame, Zombie's aversion to wide shots, and the truly atrocious editing, there are entire minutes of screen time in this film where viewers will have no idea what is going on.
Most notably, the majority of the sequence of Michael in The Rabbit In Red Lounge is just quick cuts of indistinguishable shaky footage. You literally can't tell what is supposed to be happening, at all.