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When Rob Zombie re-booted Halloween in 2007, trading Michael Myers' boogeyman mystique for a more pointed psychological explanation for his behavior, I didn't hate it. While I much prefer not to see the man behind the mask or to understand his motivations, I thought Zombie's remake was a somewhat interesting experiment. But his version of Halloween II is a whole different and far worse endeavor.

First the good: Brad Dourif. I like Dourif’s characterization of the town sheriff. He brings a little humor and heart to the movie. I was also fairly impressed with Danielle Harris as the sheriff’s daughter. Oh, and it was fun to see Margot Kidder and Caroline Williams in cameo roles. Other than that, there are shots here and there, and some surreal moments that are kinda interesting in and of themselves, but anything remotely interesting in this movie is also wildly out of place in it. Zombie was really trying to bang a square peg into a round hole with this movie.

The worst offense is the characterization of the Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). She’s a whiny, squalling, infinitely annoying character that plucked my every last nerve and I couldn’t wait for the little brat to die. There’s really no way to save a movie from this fatal flaw — if you hate the hero or heroine, why bother hanging out with them for the adventure?

Then there’s the rest of the movie. Where to begin? Let me rant a little.

The first twenty minutes are a tedious chase between Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) and Laurie that winds absolutely no tension whatsoever — it’s the equivalent of watching someone play Doom while waiting for a bus. And it goes on forEVER. So I already disliked the movie after twenty minutes, but then you flash forward in time and spend nearly the rest of the movie watching the whiny, squalling, infinitely annoying Laurie hang out with her brat friends in between shouting matches with Danielle Harris and her therapist (poor Kidder). Meanwhile, there’s a clunky tacked-on subplot involving Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell doing his best in a thankless role), who has just written a book about Myers which reveals to the world that Laurie is Michael’s sister — which makes the whiny, squalling, infinitely annoying brat cry and scream even more, giving Jar Jar Binks a serious run for his money in the ‘Most Hated Character Ever Contest.’ And while all this boring stuff is going on, Michael Myers is far away, killing characters unrelated to the story, while slooooowly making his way back to Laurie. (I wanted to taxi the bastard to Haddonfield myself, it was taking so damned long.) And in between killing people in completely predictable and unsurprising ways, Michael has laughably pretentious visions of his mama (Sheri Moon Zombie) and a white horse (don’t ask). The visions encourage him to capture Laurie and bring her back into the family fold, which results in a finale that still has my mind spinning from how overwrought and ridiculous it is. And just when you think it can’t get any worse, a sappy cover of “Love Hurts” pops on the soundtrack for a would-be killer twist of an ending that left me so limp, I may never get it up again.

I hate this Halloween II not because I love Halloween, but because I love movies.