Halloween (2007)

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Horrorphile - November 2007

Halloween (2007)

November 19th 2007 06:58

"The darkest souls are not those which choose to live within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us." --- Dr. Samuel Loomis
So here we have it, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, and the picture ain’t pretty. He’s butchered my favourite horror movie. He’s carved it up and laid it out with no real rhyme or reason, no respect for the supernatural allure or mystery of the original. This Halloween will be remembered for being wholly unremarkable. Y’see, I don’t think Rob Zombie is a very good director. I can appreciate that he loves horror movies, and he might very well have some interesting things to say about them if I was chatting to him at a party after several beers and a joint, but I think his movies are messy, irritating, bloated and over-rated. Halloween just drives the nails further into his coffin.

Apparently John Carpenter gave Zombie the heads up to do this remake, excuse me, re-imagining. What was Carpenter thinking?! Zombie has destroyed anything truly menacing about the original. In Zombie’s version Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) is simply a screwed up kid who becomes a screwed up adult, and a huge adult at that (actor Tyler Mane must be 6’8” or more). Young Michael kills small animals, is bullied at school, verbally abused by his low-life stepfather and ruthlessly teased by his sister Judith (Hanna Hall). His mother Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie) seems to love him, but she’s a bit of a mess herself.

Sheri Moon Zombie as Michael Myer's low-rent mom

So what does young Michael do? He grabs a kitchen knife, hides behind his clown mask, tapes up the drunken sleeping stepfather, then slits his throat, then clobbers his sister’s boyfriend to death with a baseball bat, then stabs his sister to death. The he sits on the front porch cradling his baby sister until his mother comes home from her strip-joint job. Michael is arrested, charged with multiple homicide and incarcerated at Smith’s Grove Sanitarium where Doctor Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) watches over him for the next 16 or so years.

Halloween (2007) Danielle Harris, Scout Taylor-Compton, Kristina Klebe

Danielle Harris as Annie, Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie and Kristina Klebe as Lynda

Then Michael decides its time to escape, which he does rather effortlessly, and heads back to Haddonfield to find his grown-up baby sister, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton), killing more people along the way. Dr. Loomis tries to convince Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif), but Brackett is reluctant. Meanwhile Laurie is babysitting young Tommy (Skyler Gisondo), and her friend Annie (Danielle Harris), daughter of the sheriff, joins her with her own babysat Lindsey (Jenny Gregg Stewart). Lynda (Kristina Klebe), another of Laurie’s girlfriends, plans to spend Halloween night having sex with Bob (Nick Mennell) in the old abandoned Myers house, just to be sexy-spooky. Bad idea.

Malcolm McDowell knows he'll never be better than Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis

Halloween (2007) Daeg Faerch and William Forsythe

Daeg Faerch as young Michael, killing his stepfather played by William Forsythe

Zombie’s screenplay has a whole back history explaining why Michael Myers becomes the psychopathic killer we all know and love him for. But by explaining everything, Michael becomes less and less the boogeyman, and more and more just your average fucked up mass murderer. He’s not that scary, but the mask still is. But hey, it’s the same design as the original, which curiously was a Star Trek Captain Kirk mask which the props department painted white and slightly altered.

Warning: Contains Spoilers!

There are numerous changes to Rob Zombie’s remake, and I don’t like any of them. Many of them don’t even make much sense. He doesn’t kill Annie, he takes Lynda’s body to his Judith shrine, he kills Dr. Loomis (!), and then Laurie kills Michael (!!) Not happy Jan.

Halloween (2007) Danny Trejo and Tyler Mane

Danny Trejo on the left as a screw and Tyler Mane as Michael Myers all grown up

Zombie uses Carpenter’s seminal music theme, but he doesn’t use it to the same frightening effect that Carpenter used it in the original. It seems to crop up at the wrong moment. But then, I didn’t find Michael Myers that scary either. And young Daeg Faerch isn’t that crash hot an actor. Sheri Moon is all skinny bones and ass. Lynda looks like she’s 30, playing a 17 year old (in fact both Kristina Klebe and Danielle Harris are thirty year olds playing teenagers, with only Scout actually a teenager).

Michael admires his bloody handiwork

Zombie has littered his movie with cult horror movie actors in cameos or bit-parts: Ken Foree, Bill Moseley, Clint Howard, Udo Kier, Dee Wallace, Sybil Danning, Richard Lynch, Danny Trejo, and Zombie regular Sid Haig. Stroking yer own cult of personality, huh Rob?

Halloween (2007) Tyler Mane and Danielle Harris

Michael gives young Annie a few trick or treat thrills, err, chills

The movie is more violent than Carpenter’s, with a lot more blood, but the special effects aren’t very special. It was oddly undisturbing. There’s no atmosphere, no real feeling of utter dread, which Carpenter’s original had in spades. The only time I ever felt a genuine creepiness, was with the shot of Michael Myers staring at Laurie from across the street while she peers out of her school library window … and that’s a shot pretty much lifted from the original. Malcolm McDowell is woefully miscast (I’ve never been much of a fan to be truthful), and only made me think over and over how good Donald Pleasence was. Brad Dourif is wasted in the role of Sheriff. Scout Taylor-Compton is a talented actor, and does possess a certain innocent charm which the character of Laurie Strode demands, but Jamie Lee Curtis is etched in my mind, and no one else could ever portray Laurie with that same controlled hysteria (“The keeeeys! … The keeeeeys!”)

Laurie falls into an empty, rather deep, swimming pool, with Michael not far behind

Halloween for the Y-Generation: smug, excessive, and disposable. Where’s the Darkness? Where’s the True Believin’ Fear Factor? It ain’t in Rob Zombie’s movie, that’s fer sure. Apparently there was a workprint shown to preview audiences in the States, which had a different ending, a different body count, and some other key differences, which some audiences have preferred, and no doubt will feature on the DVD release, but I simply don’t care. Rob Zombie thinks he’s a tough horror muthafucker, but he’s a lame hack, no buts about it. If you truly value your Halloween memories, then avoid this one, unless you’re a glutton for punishment (I know I am sometimes, in fact I rented four horror straight-to-DVD titles over the past week, and they were all absolutely dreadful, but that’s another kettle of stinking fish).

To give you an idea of the incongruous tone within Rob Zombie's Halloween here is a scene which shows young Michael sulking intercut with his mother workin at a strip club set to the music of Nazereth singing Love Hurts. Sheeeeeesh!

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

4 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

November 19th 2007 09:49

For the Sake of Argument
My Apologetics

I hate remakes made by people with funny names.

The worst remake of a classic in my mind was The Spiral Staircase. The first was brilliant- the remake lame boring and skipped all the creepiness.

The other thing which makes me not want to this is Malcom McDowell. This past his prime actor is a woeful shadow of his younger self. No maturity at all. Only Eliot Guild aged worse and became a worse actor as he got older. but I digress.

Perghaps John Carpenter wants a lame version so that his version looks better over time. Just a theory.

Comment by Bryn

November 19th 2007 22:50

Horrorphile

Damo, yeah, Zombie pissed on the grave of Michael Myers. He should be crucified for fucking with an intrinsically and seminally frightening movie by making it as pedestrian and unmenacing as he has. Your theory on why Carpenter gave the thumbs up is very interesting! Damn, Carpenter's Halloween craps all over damn near every single horror movie that gets released these days! I'm having to live in the past to feel safe about the present, but still fearful of the future. If that makes any sense.

Comment by Anonymous

April 17th 2008 22:16

i love this movie

Comment by Bryn

April 17th 2008 22:43

Horrorphile

Anon ... I'm curious, what other horror movies do you love?

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