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Dancing_P [ 5.5 ]
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Rob Zombie is more interesting than he is talented, I'd say; I ws looking forward to Hallwoeen yet I was pretty sure that it was going to fail. Granted, I don't have nerdy love for the original but to have the notoriously gung-ho Zombie tackle what is basically the most pared-down of slashers is a ballsy move, At worst, the revamped Halloween would've been an interesting cover version; in actuality, it's a notch or two above that.
Young Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) comes from a broken home. His mother's a stripper (Sheri Moon Zombie, of course), his stepfather's a drunken asshole (William Forsythe) and his sister's a tramp. He's bullied and beat up at school, transferring the bulk of his aggression to the torture of small animals. He eventually flips on Halloween night, wiping out his sister, her byofriend and his stepdad. He's put into an asylum under teh care of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell); over the next twenty years he grows into a 7-foot mute behemoth. On Halloween night, he breaks out and returns to his old neighborhood to finish what he started twenty years ago. The first half, while it does stock up on white-trash clichés (kind of Zombie's bread and butter), isn't too heretic an addition to the story. It certainly doesn't make it better... but it could've been worse. It's also peppered with shitty dialogue and overstays its welcome by a good twenty minutes.
This last part wouldn't be so bad if the second half of the film wasn't underwhelming. Everything taken from the original seems rushed and careless, somehow. The shitty dialogue covers more than it peppers, Zombie stacks up the superfluous cameos and the whole thing is just so darkly lit that it's sometimes impossible to see anything. What you do see is a damn sight tighter than the majority of recent slashers, however. Zombie certainly knows his shit; if only he could apply it consistently. Whether this disappointing show is due to studio meddling (a previous cut was judged too slow and moody), time constraints or a widespread lightbulb shortage is anyone's guess.
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chapter11 [ 5.5 ]
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It's a bit weird trying to articulate what works and what doesn't work about a drastic re-imagining of my all-time favorite horror flick, but hey, that's what we do here. And if I don't believe that Rob Zombie's "Halloween" is a true success (or failure, for that matter), here's why: it's about Michael Myers.
Like, way too much about Michael Myers. Let me explain: I think I've come to appreciate Rob Zombie's pulpy, hyper-stylized, homage-heavy approach to horror film. Rewatching "House of 1000 Corpses" and "Devil's Rejects" proved that I certainly didn't hate them as much as I'd initially thought - in fact, I kinda-sorta downright liked "Rejects". And I certainly didn't think his reworking of "Halloween" as a domestic drama with some cumulative slashing was a _bad_ film, on its own merits - it's just not necessarily a film that befits Michael Myers. I mean, if the entire appeal about Myers is what a blank, emotionless cypher he is - it's the essence of what makes him scary, really - then it stands to reason that devoted half of a full theatrical movie to what makes him tick is certainly missing the point.
And none of it's bullshit, from an entertainment standpoint - it's actually pretty well assembled as a movie, and Zombie has reigned in some of his wilder flights of fancy considerably. It's just... it doesn't work for Michael. When we finally get around to the events of the original "Halloween", it feels far too truncated. Part of that is that Zombie actually nails the narrative of the first film, from the crisp autumn atmosphere to revamped kills that stay true to the spirit of their predecessors. But it's cornholed into 40 or so scant minutes, which seems unfair. The rest of "Halloween '07" is "Michael Myers: Behind the Music", nothing more. Seems a wasted opportunity, given what Zombie does with the climax.
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DokBrowne [ 3.0 ]
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Well, I saw the working print, not the theatrical release, but having studied differences between the two, I can see my review will not be affected in any way. The bottom line still remains: Rob Zombie is a bad filmmaker. Seems he'd be much more comfortable directing one of those straight-to-video serial killer docudramas that were being made in a flurry several years ago, with the succinct titles like "Dahmer", "Gacy", "Ed Gein", et al. Those low-budget, aimlessly written, shamelessly exploitative, mystique-obliterating exercises in (pointless) overanalysis and tediously filthy aesthetics. Zombie even makes mention of Charles Manson in this movie (of course), which made me realize there wasn't a DTV "Manson" film ever made, I think, so he should totally jump right on that. And stop making big-screen fare. Especially remakes of horror masterpieces that he either cannot understand or has too little interest in to respect. I don't consider myself any kind of expert on Michael Myers, despite enjoying his movies (well, trying to, as the sequels go) and respecting Carpenter's original, but if someone came up to me with an idea to re-imagine Myers' saga by expanding on his childhood and adding in a bunch of extreme Freudian principles and redneck melodrama to explain WHY he's evil and dampen said evil by suggesting that he's merely the victim of a mean family, I would first spit in this person's face, and then heretofore use that premise to define the stupidest, most misguided direction one could possibly take in "re-imagining" the "Halloween" story.
With little Michael Myers now a long-haired outcast portrayed as someone who had to take revenge on the people who wronged him, it's hard not to read into this as being a poorly-veiled Rob Zombie autobiography/cry-baby anthem, with customary horror flourishes added in, rather than an actual attempt to tell the "Halloween" story. Clearly the core of Michael's evil was its impenetrable origin. He was just pure evil, plain and simple, which is all the more terrifying because there's no way to reason with that, no vulnerability you can reach. And Zombie's intent on fleshing out the childhood doesn't even ring sincerely - the way it's written, with William Forsythe and Sheri Moon Zombie spouting off endless streams of nasty insults, comes across quite loudly as just another one of the revolting, self-indulgent rant sessions upon which Zombie based the entire screenplays for both "House of 1,000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects". Not to mention it just feels like a way to pussy out of the dark implications of the original "Halloween", which you'd think is the opposite direction someone as supposedly hardcore as Rob Zombie would want to take. Oh boo hoo he's just a misunderstood loner - what deep thematic and emotional resonance this has. What a perfect way to bridge the necessary fear at the heart of this iconic character and the mythological aspects of his being.
If it wasn't for that final 40-minute truncated rehash of the entire second and third acts of the original movie, Zombie could've just been making up his own serial killer opus here. The beginning has nothing to do with what ever made any of the "Halloween" films (mostly just the first one, though) interesting or worth watching. And while neither Zombie nor any other filmmaker out there should be tethered to the "remake" banner and forced to go Gus Van Sant "Psycho" on it, Zombie's defiant "re-imagining" strays so far off course that I don't see why he even wanted to be involved in the project, other than for an excuse to dabble in more of his beloved psycho-killer subject matter.
I might add that it doesn't help to cast the same b-movie cult figures and family members if you're seriously aiming to make a movie (which I'm sure Zombie was, more or less) and not just make a fun ode to your favorite stars and movie tropes again. Nothing wrong with reusing a school of actors, but if the project is something more focused than sheer narcissism (see: his last 2 movies), you either gotta make these actors disappear into their roles and serve the film rather than have the film serve their personalities, OR substitute an appropriate cast. Malcolm MacDowell is a decent touch, at least, yet with the material so watered-down I wouldn't call it a passing of the torch. It's still Donald Pleasence all the way.
That 40-minute home stretch, by the way, is competently done, especially compared to everything else Zombie's ever directed, but again it just lacks flare. At that point he seems to have given up on his reimagination and decided to just Van Sant it the rest of the way, but since it feels rushed, perfunctory, and unoriginal, you never develop an interest in the characters or a sense of suspense in the way Zombie tries to incorporate Michael menacingly into foreground/background contrasts and peripheral compositions like Carpenter did. It's cool that he's at least throwing true believers a bone by using that great technique, but he doesn't find new ways of executing this creepy gimmick, so for anyone familiar with the 1978 version it's just kind of a time filler while this section of the film goes through these familiar motions. And the sheer oil-and-water feel of the first act (Michael as a kid) and the second (grown up and on the loose) is distracting. I don't think there's a whole more material in the original movie than what Zombie uses for that last 40 minutes, but coming after a whole hour of extraneously added backstory it can't help but feel like kind of an afterthought by comparison, rather than the story's central line.
And so on...if I had anything good to say, it would be that the mask itself looks good. Seems trivial, but most of the "Halloween" sequels in the middle had the most bland-looking, phony-ass, dime-store copies of his signature face, and would have ruined those movies even if they weren't already pure shit. Michael just looked like a fucking trick-or-treater in those movies. This one is rightly ominous, made with or at least filmed with a knowing gravitas. The shape, size, shading, and way he wears it all work pretty well. It has authenticity.
But the movie is a dud. It didn't need to be done. We'd have been better off getting another sequel instead.
I will say this, however - these wrong-headed horror remakes are really helping me get back in touch with the glory of their originals. Watching 2003's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" made me realize all the reasons Tobe Hooper's was a classic, by being the exact opposite, and it looks like Rob Zombie has accomplished the same goal himself.
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Tomcat [ 4.5 ]
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I can see what Rob Zombie was trying to do with the Michael Myers character but as the movie rolls along it's second act basically turns into a generic slash pic. I thought that Myers would have a little more depth to his character. For one, he doesn't talk which detaches him from the audience. I mean, is their one likable character in this film? I had a hard time rooting for the stupid teenage victims who seem to be going through the motions of any other teen slasher movie.
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| Weighted Rating | : 5.5 |
| No. Ratings | : 5 | |
| No. Reviews | : 5 | |
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