Halloween II: The Likable Characters Cut

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Halloween II: The Likable Characters Cut
Faneditor Name:
Original Movie Title:
Genre:
Franchise:
Fanedit Type:
Original Release Date:
2009
Original Running Time:
119
Fanedit Release Date:
Fanedit Running Time:
71
Time Cut:
48
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Brief Synopsis:
Two years after her encounter with Michael Myers, Laurie Strode struggle to get past the events of that fateful Halloween Night. Following a tragic accident on the way to the morgue, Michael's body is missing. The quiet town of Haddonfield, Ill. has convinced itself that he's long dead. Very much alive, Michael is coming home. Will he find Laurie and will she be able to survive another Halloween night massacre?
Intention:
As a fan of the Michael Myers character, it was disheartening to me that I found so many of the Halloween sequels unwatchable. Halloween II (2009) was very much a Halloween movie in name only. Characters we should root for were insufferable, both the gore and language were beyond excessive, the dialogue was poorly written and delivered, and nepotism led to the return of a previously deceased character that felt very much shoehorned in. My intentions here were to make this movie feel like a part of the Halloween saga. Laurie and Loomis have been made a bit more likable while still maintaining their original character arcs. The gore, language, trashy characters, and white horse angle have all been significantly trimmed. Replaced some scenes with more traditional Halloween themes although some original cues have been kept. True to the pure evil and enigma of the original character, Michael Myers never speaks in both his child and adult forms in this cut. I wanted to make a movie for myself that I could sit next to the other sequels I enjoy. I hope you can do the same!
Special Thanks:
Thanks to TinyBreadMouse for very good feedback that has me now confidently releasing this here!
Release Information:
Digital
Editing Details:
Luckily Halloween II is one of those amazing movies that has a clear center channel allowing me to remove all background music cleanly. This very much helped me make the edit that I wanted.
Cuts and Additions:
1) Created a new prologue using footage from Halloween (07) and using The Shape Stalks Laurie by Tyler Bates.
2) Converted Halloween 07 footage to 16:9.
3) Cut opening flashback of Michael as a child at Smith's Grove.
4) Cut Laurie walking down the empty street.
5) Cut Laurie screaming on the stretcher.
6) Cut doctor's scrubbing up to do surgery.
7) Trimmed paramedics speaking to Brackett.
8) Cut paramedics talking about necrophilia.
9) Cut number of times paramedic yells "fuck" after car accident.
10) Paramedic's death happens off screen.
11) Cut Michael walking towards the white horse.
12) Rescored Michael chasing Laurie through the hospital with Halloween 2007 by Tyler Bates.
13) Cut down the number of times Michael stabs the nurse to four.
14) Cut grunting sound Michael makes while stabbing the nurse.
15) Cut Laurie seeing dead body in the stairwell.
16) Cut Laurie having to crawl over dead bodies in the dumpster.
17) Cut out the security guard that Laurie runs into.
18) Shortened Michael breaking through the security station.
19) Rescored Laurie waking up from nightmare with Laurie's Theme from Halloween (78).
20) Cut Laurie yelling at Annie during breakfast.
21) Shortened Laurie's counseling session.
22) Cut Loomis and his assistant walking through hotel lobby.
23) Trimmed Laurie talking to her friends at the record store.
24) Trimmed Loomis speaking to audience about his book.
25) Cut scene with adult Michael meeting with child Michael and his mother in a barn.
26) Trimmed rednecks attacking Michael in the field.
27) Rescored Michael attacking the rednecks with Chase Laurie from Halloween: Resurrection.
28) Michael doesn't impale the first redneck.
29) Michael stabs second redneck only once.
30) Cut Michael dragging woman from truck and repeatedly stabbing her.
31) Cut Michael speaking to his mother in Laurie's dream.
32) Rescored Laurie's dream with The Ceremony from Halloween: Resurrection.
33) Cut any instances of young Michael speaking.
34) Cut Laurie dreaming about killing Annie.
35) Trimmed Laurie's second counseling appointment.
36) Cut parts of Loomis talking to the reporter.
37) Cut entire Rabbit in Red lounge scene.
38) Cut Michael's mother talking to him about Loomis next to a billboard.
39) Trimmed Loomis's book signing.
40) Trimmed Loomis talking to his assistant in the limo.
41) Cut Laurie screaming at another car while driving.
42) Cut Weird Al segment.
43) Trimmed parts of the girls at the Halloween festival.
44) Trimmed Annie berating the deputy at her house.
45) Trimmed Harley walking with the Wolfman to his van.
46) Cut Laurie having a vision of her mother standing next to child Michael.
47) Cut Michael's mother telling Michael to "go have some fun" while attacking Annie.
48) Trimmed Mya's death. Michael only stabs her once.
49) Recut/Rescored Brackett finding Annie's body with Dumbledore's Farewell from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
50) Cut VHS footage of Danielle Harris as a child.
51) Rescored Michael throwing man through the windshield with the Shape Stalks Laurie by Tyler Bates.
52) Ending from Theatrical cut used.
53) Trimmed Michael killing Loomis. Scene now scored with Halloween 2007 by Tyler Bates.
54) Rescored Laurie in insane asylum with Halloween 1963 from John Carpenter's Halloween.
55) Removed still images from murders from the credits.
56) Rescored credits with Main Titles from Halloween: Resurrection

User reviews

5 reviews
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.4(5)
Audio Editing
 
9.2(5)
Visual Editing
 
9.6(5)
Narrative
 
8.8(5)
Enjoyment
 
8.2(5)
Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Its a much better movie you edit. Jaime is much better in this one. Less yelling cussing and les bitching. The Audio, Visual and Editing is much better. I enjoy it more then the real move.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
9.0
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
8.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
9.0
Enjoyment
 
9.0
Rob Zombie's Halloween II has always been an interesting film for me. I still remember that it left quite an impression on me and my wife when we saw it upon initial release at the cinema. The sheer brutality of the film left us quite shaken and frightened - honestly, the drive home that night in the fog was pretty scary!

However, over the years I've come to appreciate the film less and less. One reason for this, is simply that this is about as far removed from Carpenter's concept of "The Shape" as you can get. Also, Zombie's terrible writing doesn't help (with an over reliance on non stop swearing) and the fact that he turns all the characters into assholes - even the ones you're meant to be routing for. So, this edit from Ryantology certainly piqued my interest.

Prior to watching the edit, I had recently watched the theatrical cut again on blu ray. It didn't change my mind in terms of the problems the film has, but I'm glad I did watch it before seeing this edit. With the edit only being 71 minutes, I did fear that the film would now suffer from major pacing problems. However, I have to applaud Ryantology here, as he skillfully manages to avoid this problem, to the point where it didn't really feel like anything important was missing. By restructuring the film and in-particular its characters, he's managed to turn Halloween II, almost, fully into a film where you genuinely do like the characters.

By trimming back on the trauma Laurie is going through, the film actually becomes more effective on portraying this aspect of the film - what's the old saying, "less is more". It reinforces my opinion that somewhere buried in Zombie's inability to subtlety portray the story and the events which his characters are going through, there is a solid and deep character study in Halloween II, which could have produced a genuinely excellent and unique Halloween movie. I'm not saying Ryantology genuinely manages to achieve this, but but streamlining everything here, he gets about as close as one could get with the material available.

Also, by cutting back on the violence, the film is no less effective. This kind of surprised me a little, as I thought the practical effects in this film were incredible and that by cutting back on some of the gruesome and unrelenting scenes might make the film weaker. It doesn't change how traumatic Annie's death scene is - still brilliantly acted by all concerned, including Brad Douriff's reaction - and the re-editing of he sequence was nicely handled by Ryantology.

The only slight hit and miss here is the audio work. It's not bad at all, but by having a clean centre channel there are some scenes which have been left "unscored" which I feel would have benefited from music, to the point where some of the sequences feel a bit hollow and empty - this is probably due to the fact that often just using a centre channel can mean certain atmospheric sound effects which were only located in say the right and left channels are now missing. However, I must give kudos to the use of music from Harry Potter during Sherriff Bracket's discover of Annie's body - I genuinely didn't think this would work, but it's sad and effective without being over the top. I would never have thought to use orchestrated music like this in any Halloween film, let alone a Rob Zombie Halloween film, so it was a brave move from Ryantology and one which works.

Overall, I had a blast with this edit. Sure, I'm still not sure I like any of the "White Horse" style sequences, but it will easily be my "go to" version of Rob Zombie's Halloween II from now on. I'm sure Rob Zombie himself would hate it, but for me this version is a much more restrained and focused movie. Great job.
L
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Overall rating
 
8.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
Talk about a far-superior update on the worst installment in the Halloween series. Much of the stuff I loathed about this trainwreck of a horror film is chucked right out the window, resulting in a much more enjoyable and better-paced, and certainly less vile and ugly, experience. A rock-solid effort.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
(Updated: November 27, 2018)
Overall rating
 
9.6
Audio/Video Quality
 
10.0
Audio Editing
 
10.0
Visual Editing
 
10.0
Narrative
 
10.0
Enjoyment
 
8.0
i never cared much about the Halloween remakes but this one i really liked, you made the movie so much better and i really had a good time with it :)

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
Report this review Comments (0) | Was this review helpful? 0 0
Overall rating
 
8.4
Audio/Video Quality
 
9.0
Audio Editing
 
9.0
Visual Editing
 
9.0
Narrative
 
8.0
Enjoyment
 
7.0
Pretty good edit that cuts back on some of the wilder moments of RZ's HII. I'll be the first to say that the premise was great. Not many horror sequels deal with the aftermath of the slasher spree, but seeing Laurie (and co) trying to work past her trauma, Loomis showing his true colors of being a greedy, pompous ass, and the rest of the town trying to ignore the bloodshed, SHOULD have been good. Unfortunately, Loomis is made too far into the money-grabbing sleezball that his heel-face turn later in the film seems almost contradictory. Laurie is just such a displeasure to watch, and while I understand it's totally natural for a young kid to be this traumatized, it doesn't make it any better to watch. It's still handled poorly.

But this edit does a great job of, like I said, cutting back on the more far-out things in the movie. A lot of needless fat was trimmed, making the pacing a lot better. Audio/Video was good, A/V editing was also good. Nothing stood out to me.

Unfortunately, the narrative still isn't very good, and by the last 30 minutes feels like more a retread than Halloween 4 was to the original Halloween. But none of that is the editor's fault.

My enjoyment might look low at a 7, but it is double what it was before. Theatrically, HII would get a 3-3.5 out of me for gore and good acting.

User Review

Do you recommend this edit?
Yes
Format Watched?
Digital
T
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