I can hear you grumbling back there, but just give me a moment, would you? I promise to be brief. For this unnecessary sequel to his unnecessary reboot, Rob Zombies not asking you to pay attention to the plot (there isnt one), care about the characters (who have little to do) or even trying that hard to scare you. Hes saying, Forget that stuff give your eyes to THIS, and delivers what has to be the most stylish sequel in the franchise. Nobody expects an entry in this series to be heavily stylized, in fact the only expectation was that it would be just like the 1981 movie and take place in a dimly-lit hospital full of idiot victims. For 20 minutes, Zombie goes that route, then he says it was all a dream and sets about honing the kind of visuals that were put to better use in The Lords of Salem. He brings a ton of stylish weirdness to the party, including monochrome dream sequences that arent there to serve the story, but to create the same hallucinatory, mood-soaked atmosphere as Robert Voskanians The Child (1977), a film whose dialogue, perhaps not coincidentally, Zombie sampled on his Hellbilly Deluxe II album the following year. It makes you want to forgive the films weaknesses, such as.everything else.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
