My review of Rob Zombies' "Halloween."
SPOILERS. YA JERK.
Okay so first off, I was thinking about how "you can't just spend the review comparing this to Carpenter's version and bashing it for not being exactly like it. You need to judge it as its own independent film."
But then I realized - its a remake, it can't be held to the same standards as say "Superbad" or "Hostel." It's like "The Invasion" or "Harry Potter" or "Spider-Man" and I can nail its interpretation of the source material all I want. We don't make folk tales anymore, so movie remakes are the only thing where we can talk about "interpretations."
THE GOOD
I like Rob Zombie in general, and he still has loads of potential. He's got a cool attitude, I've always liked the visual style he applies to his work, and he has a real appreciation for film/music/the obscure/taboos/etc.
Hollywood really has run out of ideas. It took me forever to name "Superbad" when finding a movie that came out this summer that wasn't a sequel, a remake, a book, a cartoon, a comic book, a toy, a video game, a TV show. There is no film company in L.A. that can make an original idea anymore.
So I hate remakes - and I especially hate horror remakes which 99% of the time fail to improve in every way, shape, or form on something that is 30 years old at this point.*
So even though I hate remakes, they are an inevitability, in creatively-bankrupt L.A.
So they're going to remake "Halloween" whether I like it or not. As such, they could have done a lot worse than giving it to Rob Zombie. Zombie actually appreciates the original and what it stands for, and isn't just some jerk-off music video/commercial director who is using this retread as his ticket to get rich.
THE BAD
I'm sure its going to make a lot of money, and generate a sequel or a prequel (A prequel to a prequel? Retarded, but that's Hollywood for you). Zombie has said he has no intent to do a sequel.
So either he goes back on his word like a sell-out or they get some jerk-off music video/commercial director who is using this retread's sequel as his ticket to get rich.
It's just another excuse for all the skeezy/townie/teenage trash in this country to not watch a movie that's older than 3 years. Who the fuck is John Carpenter? I don't know, but let's go txt in a theater, and then drink and drive. Boosh!
THE GOOD
In all the pre-release buzz, Zombie kept saying that he wanted to focus on Myers growing up, showing why he was the way he was, making it less about Laurie Strode, and more about Michael Myers. Basically, doing the shitty Hannibal Lecter-thing where he romanticizes a monster. Yawn, whine, jerking-off.
Zombie could have really fucked up big time. But its surprisingly good.
The new material Zombie has written - the prequel-esque story of young Michael Myers - is the best part in my opinion.
That's where Zombie's love of grindhouse-style pulp & ridiculous dialogue and characterization works. It's over-the-top and maybe a bit eye-rolling, but I think that's the intent with Zombie, and it does come across with its own twisted charm.
The first scene with Sherri Moon and William Forsythe is no less ridiculous than the van conversation in the original "TCM" or the conversation about breast-size between the two girls in the first five minutes of "Last House on the Left." If we're going to get on Rob Zombie's case for the caricature-style performance of the Myers house-hold, than we need to get on the case of every other B-horror movie we love. I'm 99.9% sure this is intentional camp.
His "origin of the monster" isn't as bull-shitty as it could have been.
THE BAD
Once it moves into adult Myers territory and he terrorizes Laurie Strode, the movie loses all of its charm.
It feels like Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" remake, it tells Carpenter's story almost beat-for-beat, in about half the time. It feels like a CliffsNotes style take on what happened.
Any characterization Laurie Strode had in the original is just jettisoned for lots of kill scenes. There's really no reason to sympathize or even understand her, except for the fact that all of her friends are murdered about 20 minutes after we meet them.
She's not really anything. She's the survivor just because that's how it was in the original.
The entire complex nature of the Laurie-Michael relationship that Carpenter spent two movies explaining, Zombie smooshes into about 45 minutes.
But the thing is, Myers is only interesting by his defined relationships (brains storm! and I guess that applies to all characters. duh!). In the first half of the movie - the young half - Myers has clearly defined relationships with his family and Loomis. In the second half, there is no humanity to anything.
Make it from Myers' perspective. Fine, whatever. But if he doesn't have interesting characters to interact with, he is not interesting, ya dipshit.
Look everybody has fun with a bad slasher movie where the killer goes around killing a bunch of obnoxious, drunken sluts. But the actually good slasher movies, have actually interesting protagonists: Laurie Strode, Tommy Jarvis, The Dream Warriors.
THE GOOD
The acting - Sherri Moon, whose main credential is being married to the director, gets surprisingly better, yet again. McDowell is, of course, fantastic. I actually really enjoyed the approach that young Loomis is a free-wheelin' hippie (which sort of mimics the other Donald Pleasance psychiatrist character in slasher-lore: 1983's "Alone in the Dark"). And he eventually becomes a broken, haggard bastard that only cares about selling his book.
Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Sybill Danning, Mickey Dolenz (from the Monkees!), Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Dee Wallace-Stone, Ken Foree, Danny Trejo, Tom Towles. The entire movie is filled with people Zombie likes. No matter how small the part, he filled it with an actor he liked. It doesn't feel like cameos, it feels like "The Rob Zombie Ensemble Troupe."
The new Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace are, surprisingly enough, more entertaining than the original kids, and they're on screen for a quarter of the time.
And how could I forget Danielle Harris? She's always been great in whatever bit part she had, but her connection the "Halloween" franchise is special. She's great in the under-rated "Halloween 4" and the only thing watchable in "Halloween 5" to the point that its amazing an 11 year old can carry a film.
In this film, she's on camera for maybe 11 minutes, but she works hard. Her final on-screen moments are better because of the energy she brings to the scene.
THE BAD
A criminally - CRIMINALLY UNDERUSED - Brad Douriff. The sheriff in the original actually had shit to do. What was the point this time around?
Remember what I said about Danielle Harris' last moments? The minutes before and after have a definite drop in manic energy to them, and they just feel cliche. That's what what happens when you put a seasoned pro in a small part - they end up carrying the scene. So when Annie is bleeding on the floor, naked, and it is the most captivating thing in the room, it creates a weird split focus.
Young Michael Myers - not a good actor. Just all over the place, in terms of what he was "supposed" to be.
However, seeing as how he's 10 years old, its not really his fault. That's totally Rob Zombie's fault for not getting the right performance out of his young lead.
THE GOOD
The final chase scene between Myers and Laurie does remind me of the original final chase of "TCM." Mainly in the sense that its not totally unrealistic. I like the fact that Laurie Strode is a fucked-up, bloody mess by the end, almost unable to keep her eyes open. And I like that Michael Myers actually has moments where he is hurt and isn't totally, totally superhuman. It works in the original, where he is an anonymous Shape. But if you're going to add some humanity to him, he can't be getting up from gunshots every five minutes.
THE BAD
One of the main points about "Halloween" was that it was about terror in the suburbs. It was your neighbors' house with the lights turned off. That's how easy it is to come across evil. In this one, most of the terror takes place in the abandoned Myers house. The creepy, old, dusty, derelict house that has been condemned.
Any teenager that squats in something like that to have sex, deserves to die. There's nothing evident about bringing the terror to your house. If you're going to hide out in a haunted house, what the hell do you expect? Where's the unnerving relatability?
THE GOOD
The crime spree of young Michael Myers has a real, lingering terror to it. When he beats a crying kid to death in the park, it doesn't feel like slasher shock. It feels uncomfortably terrifying.
Anything Zombie does in the flashback has more grit and terror to it. That's his grindhouse-knowledge coming through.
THE BAD
So once he's an adult, the movie turns into "Friday the 13th." Like one of the shitty ones, like 6 or 7.
In the original "Halloween," Michael Myers doesn't wantonly kill anybody. He kills maybe 5 people (counting one off-screen). And maybe only two with a knife. It isn't about killing whoever is there, its about stopping anyone who directly gets in his way to get home.
The original "Halloween" isn't a blood bath. The original "TCM" isn't a gorefest. The original "Black Christmas" wasn't gratuitous schlock. But for some reason, we (the audience and Hollywood) remember them that way, and so all we get, and all we want is 30 years of watered-down exploitation.
That's the psychological effect these movies had. There was a certain kind of madness behind the filmmakers, and they put something on the celluloid that was so unsettling, that we never forgot it. It's burned in our brains.
This new "Halloween"'s second half is just a retread of the shitty 80s tits-and-knives sub-sub genre of slasher films.
The sex and the death is desensitized and redundant.
There's no reason to kill Laurie Strode's parents. It doesn't quite fit with Michael Myers' modus operandi, although at that point, Myers' motive has been basically dropped.
The death of Dr. Loomis is especially bullshit. Mainly because its quick, but not a good, sudden death, like Wash in "Serenity." It cuts away from the immediate gore. Oh and technically, he dies off-screen.
Yeah. That's right. Dr. Loomis is killed in the new "Halloween" off-screen.
To be honest, that's enough right there, to go "fuck you!" to this movie.
THE (kind of) GOOD
There's a bit where Laurie is running away from Myers, screaming for help, and the soundtrack of her voice gets fucked-up. Earlier in the film, Zombie was doing all kinds of shit with the bass line of the audio, fucking around with white noise and blurry vision. It sounded like Laurie Strode's scream was degenerating into an Aphex Twin-esque pitch shift, to really convey the effect of total chaos on the senses.
THE BAD
It may have just been a fuck up in my theater's sound system.
THE GOOD
As always, Rob Zombie has impeccable soundtrack listings.
THE BAD
He didn't always use the classic Carpenter theme in the appropriate setting. The first time its played, it isn't necessary and it feels stupid, in a word.
THE GOOD
The whole sex/death thing has an interesting angle in the beginning.
When Myers' older sister is having sex with her scuz boyfriend, he pulls out "The Shape" mask - for extra kink. Afterward, when Michael walks in ready to stab her, he puts the mask on, and starts to caress her sleeping body - a weird car crash of sex, abuse, incest, and violence in Mike's head.
If Zombie was going to explore that type of taboo, the film wouldn't have felt so gratuitous. But its never dwelt upon.
THE BAD
In the end, once Laurie's friends start getting killed (and they're all topless, mind you) the sex and death in the movie has lost all its shock, drive, and meaning.
It's just more hackneyed, a "girl needs to be naked before we can kill her" lazy misogyny that we've all come to expect from Hollywood.
THE GOOD
When Myers' finally meets with Laurie and takes off his mask, Zombie finally brings back the original connecting thread. It's a good moment.
THE BAD
So moments later, when she fights him away, I guess he just decided to abandon his entire motivation and try to kill her instead. If the whole point is about him trying to "protect" his baby sister, and then he realizes she doesn't want him, don't spend just the last 15 minutes trying to kill her. The pacing is way, way off in this film.
The first half built up who was "safe" in Myers' eyes: his mom, Laurie - his baby sister, Dr. Loomis, Danny Trejo's friendly night guard.
There is something subtly built up about Loomis leaving his case, and Trejo's character retiring - setting up for Michael's snapping - every "safe" character is abandoning him.
It sort of explains why he kills Trejo, but then it doesn't make sense why he doesn't try to kill Loomis at first.
The movie just kind of ignores its own rules. Sometimes he decides to kill people that interfere with the good parts of his life, sometimes he protects who he thinks is innocent, sometimes he just fucking wants to kill everything.
THE EXTRA BAD
This movie feels like its 2 and a half hours long. It's 2 movies mashed up, with different tones, pacing, rules, characterizations, style, everything.
THE FINAL VERDICT
All the shit I was worried about Rob Zombie fucking up, he got right.
All the shit I thought he could do in his sleep, he fucked up.
Amazingly, if he had made this a direct prequel, that builds up to the moment Michael Myers escapes the mental institution, it might have been surprisingly original and interesting. Oh, I would have torn the idea to pieces until I saw it, but if the first 45 minutes to an hour was any indication, it would have been good. That is where Rob Zombie's style and flare and story-telling strengths came through.
What's really interesting is reading this review which compares the work print with the theatrical cut. They sound very different, especially in ending. I remember hearing about Zombie re-shooting scenes, and I wonder how much of that was Dimension Films going "here's another 10 million dollars, I order you to shoot this like everything else out there!"
But as it is, its one big "meh."
Totally meh.
*By the way, that 1% is Zak Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead.
Okay so first off, I was thinking about how "you can't just spend the review comparing this to Carpenter's version and bashing it for not being exactly like it. You need to judge it as its own independent film."
But then I realized - its a remake, it can't be held to the same standards as say "Superbad" or "Hostel." It's like "The Invasion" or "Harry Potter" or "Spider-Man" and I can nail its interpretation of the source material all I want. We don't make folk tales anymore, so movie remakes are the only thing where we can talk about "interpretations."
THE GOOD
I like Rob Zombie in general, and he still has loads of potential. He's got a cool attitude, I've always liked the visual style he applies to his work, and he has a real appreciation for film/music/the obscure/taboos/etc.
Hollywood really has run out of ideas. It took me forever to name "Superbad" when finding a movie that came out this summer that wasn't a sequel, a remake, a book, a cartoon, a comic book, a toy, a video game, a TV show. There is no film company in L.A. that can make an original idea anymore.
So I hate remakes - and I especially hate horror remakes which 99% of the time fail to improve in every way, shape, or form on something that is 30 years old at this point.*
So even though I hate remakes, they are an inevitability, in creatively-bankrupt L.A.
So they're going to remake "Halloween" whether I like it or not. As such, they could have done a lot worse than giving it to Rob Zombie. Zombie actually appreciates the original and what it stands for, and isn't just some jerk-off music video/commercial director who is using this retread as his ticket to get rich.
THE BAD
I'm sure its going to make a lot of money, and generate a sequel or a prequel (A prequel to a prequel? Retarded, but that's Hollywood for you). Zombie has said he has no intent to do a sequel.
So either he goes back on his word like a sell-out or they get some jerk-off music video/commercial director who is using this retread's sequel as his ticket to get rich.
It's just another excuse for all the skeezy/townie/teenage trash in this country to not watch a movie that's older than 3 years. Who the fuck is John Carpenter? I don't know, but let's go txt in a theater, and then drink and drive. Boosh!
THE GOOD
In all the pre-release buzz, Zombie kept saying that he wanted to focus on Myers growing up, showing why he was the way he was, making it less about Laurie Strode, and more about Michael Myers. Basically, doing the shitty Hannibal Lecter-thing where he romanticizes a monster. Yawn, whine, jerking-off.
Zombie could have really fucked up big time. But its surprisingly good.
The new material Zombie has written - the prequel-esque story of young Michael Myers - is the best part in my opinion.
That's where Zombie's love of grindhouse-style pulp & ridiculous dialogue and characterization works. It's over-the-top and maybe a bit eye-rolling, but I think that's the intent with Zombie, and it does come across with its own twisted charm.
The first scene with Sherri Moon and William Forsythe is no less ridiculous than the van conversation in the original "TCM" or the conversation about breast-size between the two girls in the first five minutes of "Last House on the Left." If we're going to get on Rob Zombie's case for the caricature-style performance of the Myers house-hold, than we need to get on the case of every other B-horror movie we love. I'm 99.9% sure this is intentional camp.
His "origin of the monster" isn't as bull-shitty as it could have been.
THE BAD
Once it moves into adult Myers territory and he terrorizes Laurie Strode, the movie loses all of its charm.
It feels like Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" remake, it tells Carpenter's story almost beat-for-beat, in about half the time. It feels like a CliffsNotes style take on what happened.
Any characterization Laurie Strode had in the original is just jettisoned for lots of kill scenes. There's really no reason to sympathize or even understand her, except for the fact that all of her friends are murdered about 20 minutes after we meet them.
She's not really anything. She's the survivor just because that's how it was in the original.
The entire complex nature of the Laurie-Michael relationship that Carpenter spent two movies explaining, Zombie smooshes into about 45 minutes.
But the thing is, Myers is only interesting by his defined relationships (brains storm! and I guess that applies to all characters. duh!). In the first half of the movie - the young half - Myers has clearly defined relationships with his family and Loomis. In the second half, there is no humanity to anything.
Make it from Myers' perspective. Fine, whatever. But if he doesn't have interesting characters to interact with, he is not interesting, ya dipshit.
Look everybody has fun with a bad slasher movie where the killer goes around killing a bunch of obnoxious, drunken sluts. But the actually good slasher movies, have actually interesting protagonists: Laurie Strode, Tommy Jarvis, The Dream Warriors.
THE GOOD
The acting - Sherri Moon, whose main credential is being married to the director, gets surprisingly better, yet again. McDowell is, of course, fantastic. I actually really enjoyed the approach that young Loomis is a free-wheelin' hippie (which sort of mimics the other Donald Pleasance psychiatrist character in slasher-lore: 1983's "Alone in the Dark"). And he eventually becomes a broken, haggard bastard that only cares about selling his book.
Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, Sybill Danning, Mickey Dolenz (from the Monkees!), Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Dee Wallace-Stone, Ken Foree, Danny Trejo, Tom Towles. The entire movie is filled with people Zombie likes. No matter how small the part, he filled it with an actor he liked. It doesn't feel like cameos, it feels like "The Rob Zombie Ensemble Troupe."
The new Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace are, surprisingly enough, more entertaining than the original kids, and they're on screen for a quarter of the time.
And how could I forget Danielle Harris? She's always been great in whatever bit part she had, but her connection the "Halloween" franchise is special. She's great in the under-rated "Halloween 4" and the only thing watchable in "Halloween 5" to the point that its amazing an 11 year old can carry a film.
In this film, she's on camera for maybe 11 minutes, but she works hard. Her final on-screen moments are better because of the energy she brings to the scene.
THE BAD
A criminally - CRIMINALLY UNDERUSED - Brad Douriff. The sheriff in the original actually had shit to do. What was the point this time around?
Remember what I said about Danielle Harris' last moments? The minutes before and after have a definite drop in manic energy to them, and they just feel cliche. That's what what happens when you put a seasoned pro in a small part - they end up carrying the scene. So when Annie is bleeding on the floor, naked, and it is the most captivating thing in the room, it creates a weird split focus.
Young Michael Myers - not a good actor. Just all over the place, in terms of what he was "supposed" to be.
However, seeing as how he's 10 years old, its not really his fault. That's totally Rob Zombie's fault for not getting the right performance out of his young lead.
THE GOOD
The final chase scene between Myers and Laurie does remind me of the original final chase of "TCM." Mainly in the sense that its not totally unrealistic. I like the fact that Laurie Strode is a fucked-up, bloody mess by the end, almost unable to keep her eyes open. And I like that Michael Myers actually has moments where he is hurt and isn't totally, totally superhuman. It works in the original, where he is an anonymous Shape. But if you're going to add some humanity to him, he can't be getting up from gunshots every five minutes.
THE BAD
One of the main points about "Halloween" was that it was about terror in the suburbs. It was your neighbors' house with the lights turned off. That's how easy it is to come across evil. In this one, most of the terror takes place in the abandoned Myers house. The creepy, old, dusty, derelict house that has been condemned.
Any teenager that squats in something like that to have sex, deserves to die. There's nothing evident about bringing the terror to your house. If you're going to hide out in a haunted house, what the hell do you expect? Where's the unnerving relatability?
THE GOOD
The crime spree of young Michael Myers has a real, lingering terror to it. When he beats a crying kid to death in the park, it doesn't feel like slasher shock. It feels uncomfortably terrifying.
Anything Zombie does in the flashback has more grit and terror to it. That's his grindhouse-knowledge coming through.
THE BAD
So once he's an adult, the movie turns into "Friday the 13th." Like one of the shitty ones, like 6 or 7.
In the original "Halloween," Michael Myers doesn't wantonly kill anybody. He kills maybe 5 people (counting one off-screen). And maybe only two with a knife. It isn't about killing whoever is there, its about stopping anyone who directly gets in his way to get home.
The original "Halloween" isn't a blood bath. The original "TCM" isn't a gorefest. The original "Black Christmas" wasn't gratuitous schlock. But for some reason, we (the audience and Hollywood) remember them that way, and so all we get, and all we want is 30 years of watered-down exploitation.
That's the psychological effect these movies had. There was a certain kind of madness behind the filmmakers, and they put something on the celluloid that was so unsettling, that we never forgot it. It's burned in our brains.
This new "Halloween"'s second half is just a retread of the shitty 80s tits-and-knives sub-sub genre of slasher films.
The sex and the death is desensitized and redundant.
There's no reason to kill Laurie Strode's parents. It doesn't quite fit with Michael Myers' modus operandi, although at that point, Myers' motive has been basically dropped.
The death of Dr. Loomis is especially bullshit. Mainly because its quick, but not a good, sudden death, like Wash in "Serenity." It cuts away from the immediate gore. Oh and technically, he dies off-screen.
Yeah. That's right. Dr. Loomis is killed in the new "Halloween" off-screen.
To be honest, that's enough right there, to go "fuck you!" to this movie.
THE (kind of) GOOD
There's a bit where Laurie is running away from Myers, screaming for help, and the soundtrack of her voice gets fucked-up. Earlier in the film, Zombie was doing all kinds of shit with the bass line of the audio, fucking around with white noise and blurry vision. It sounded like Laurie Strode's scream was degenerating into an Aphex Twin-esque pitch shift, to really convey the effect of total chaos on the senses.
THE BAD
It may have just been a fuck up in my theater's sound system.
THE GOOD
As always, Rob Zombie has impeccable soundtrack listings.
THE BAD
He didn't always use the classic Carpenter theme in the appropriate setting. The first time its played, it isn't necessary and it feels stupid, in a word.
THE GOOD
The whole sex/death thing has an interesting angle in the beginning.
When Myers' older sister is having sex with her scuz boyfriend, he pulls out "The Shape" mask - for extra kink. Afterward, when Michael walks in ready to stab her, he puts the mask on, and starts to caress her sleeping body - a weird car crash of sex, abuse, incest, and violence in Mike's head.
If Zombie was going to explore that type of taboo, the film wouldn't have felt so gratuitous. But its never dwelt upon.
THE BAD
In the end, once Laurie's friends start getting killed (and they're all topless, mind you) the sex and death in the movie has lost all its shock, drive, and meaning.
It's just more hackneyed, a "girl needs to be naked before we can kill her" lazy misogyny that we've all come to expect from Hollywood.
THE GOOD
When Myers' finally meets with Laurie and takes off his mask, Zombie finally brings back the original connecting thread. It's a good moment.
THE BAD
So moments later, when she fights him away, I guess he just decided to abandon his entire motivation and try to kill her instead. If the whole point is about him trying to "protect" his baby sister, and then he realizes she doesn't want him, don't spend just the last 15 minutes trying to kill her. The pacing is way, way off in this film.
The first half built up who was "safe" in Myers' eyes: his mom, Laurie - his baby sister, Dr. Loomis, Danny Trejo's friendly night guard.
There is something subtly built up about Loomis leaving his case, and Trejo's character retiring - setting up for Michael's snapping - every "safe" character is abandoning him.
It sort of explains why he kills Trejo, but then it doesn't make sense why he doesn't try to kill Loomis at first.
The movie just kind of ignores its own rules. Sometimes he decides to kill people that interfere with the good parts of his life, sometimes he protects who he thinks is innocent, sometimes he just fucking wants to kill everything.
THE EXTRA BAD
This movie feels like its 2 and a half hours long. It's 2 movies mashed up, with different tones, pacing, rules, characterizations, style, everything.
THE FINAL VERDICT
All the shit I was worried about Rob Zombie fucking up, he got right.
All the shit I thought he could do in his sleep, he fucked up.
Amazingly, if he had made this a direct prequel, that builds up to the moment Michael Myers escapes the mental institution, it might have been surprisingly original and interesting. Oh, I would have torn the idea to pieces until I saw it, but if the first 45 minutes to an hour was any indication, it would have been good. That is where Rob Zombie's style and flare and story-telling strengths came through.
What's really interesting is reading this review which compares the work print with the theatrical cut. They sound very different, especially in ending. I remember hearing about Zombie re-shooting scenes, and I wonder how much of that was Dimension Films going "here's another 10 million dollars, I order you to shoot this like everything else out there!"
But as it is, its one big "meh."
Totally meh.
*By the way, that 1% is Zak Snyder's "Dawn of the Dead.