Review

Carpenter's movie with some schlock Zombie thought up to back story Michael.

So everyone that has ever been on this site knows I loathe remakes. I shouldn't say that, it's not remakes necessarily that I hate, it's remakes of films that do not need a 2nd life. Films that are classic and shouldn't have our memory of them tampered with. Films like Psycho, Gone With The Wind, Wizard Of Oz, Evil Dead and of course, Halloween.

Halloween was the creation of the slasher horror genre. Sure, there had been a few that were made before, but none stuck and created as many replicas as this film. Is it the greatest horror film ever? No. Hell, now you watch it and it's really not even scary anymore. There are too many other films upping each other and we have all been desensitized to the simple scares this classic presented. Halloween was and still is John Carpenter's best film (some of you may argue with The Thing. You'd be wrong).

Everything clicked on this film. The story, the careful plotting, and most importantly - The music. Michael Myers became the boogeyman to an entire generation and just the sight of that mask in a hallway still gives many a jolt. This is also still the best horror score in my mild opinion and the theme song needs only play a few chords before everyone knows what it is. Elegant, creepy and methodic. Ok, enough said, the flick is a classic.

Now comes Rob Zombie's new 're-imagining' of Carpenter's film. If you don't know what this is about, then I don't have time to explain it to you. Part prequel, part remake, this is Zombie's attempt to put his stamp on the Halloween franchise. I will be the first to tell you that when I first heard this, I nearly shit myself silly. The whole idea of Rob Zombie, an accomplished musician playing Director getting handed a franchise remake like this is, well, ludicrous. I know there are tons of his fans out there who just think Rob is the bomb. Well, I really like his music a lot, I think he has some serious depth in there. But his films are like watching an Eli Roth movie - You can tell he loves horror flicks, but he has only minimal talent for them. This is no creative genius. Zombie has a redneck sensibility that says make everything as vulgar and hillbilly as possible, make it twisted, cast your pretty (but bland) wife and you will have yourself a MOVIE! That seems to be all the guy has going for him. Oh yea, I said it bitches.

Michael Meyers becomes just another serial killer, with motivations that can be read on the back of a cereal box

Zombie made a film called House of 1000 Corpses. If you haven't seen it, go rent it so you can see how much his debut sucked the life out of our solar system. This was and still is one of the absolute worst horror films I have ever seen, and I have seen a SHITLOAD of them. Rob followed Corpses with a sequel of sorts, The Devil's Rejects, revolving around the same twisted bastards, only this time the film was worth seeing. He shifted it into more of a 70's crime flick, fleshed out the characters more and managed to almost convince me I might have been wrong about this guy. Now that I have seen Halloween, I am absolutely positive that Zombie belongs directing direct-to-DVD drivel and never allowed near a large-scale project again.

Look, I have read tons of reviews on this film just to see if maybe I was being too harsh (something I never do, but as I was never looking forward to this, I wanted to see if I was bringing too much baggage to this film). The reviews are almost all negative, 4/5 of them. That's 80% bad. The problem with this is that so many of these reviews are written by either fans of Zombie's or people too scared to piss him off that they keep blaming the studio for the film's final feel. Get the fuck outta here! This movie sounds like Zombie's previous works, it looks like his previous works, in fact this film should not been called "Halloween" as it resides solely in Zombie's universe, not Haddonfield, IL. This is all Zombie and any fuck ups are his own, of which there are several.

There are some things about this film I actually liked that I initially thought I wouldn't. I liked Tyler Mane's huge ass as Mikey. This looks like a guy who could toss your silly ass across a room without batting an eye. This is a Michael Myers that I would run screaming like a banshee from the second I saw him. I also like how several people made reference to how slow Michael moves, an obvious wink to all that made a mockery of his slow to get there, fast to off 'em actions of the other Halloween flicks. I liked some of the brutality of the kills. This is not a 'damn, that was a sweet kill!' flick. These are ugly deaths and some of them are quite shocking. Michael doesn't mess around. Zombie's wife, held her end fairly well as Mikey's stripper mom and actually carried some decent emotional scenes with the right amount of heart. This lady is finally becoming a fairly serviceable actress. I also loved finally seeing the crush of my youth (Danielle Harris from 2 of the Halloween sequels) taking it off for the cameras. Happy Days are here again!

Unfortunately, I have so much more to dislike. The kid playing young Mikey blew. This kid is like a Lifetime TV-movie actor thrown into the big time. Zombie has always really sucked at casting and this is no different. This kid is bad-sitcom bad, just little to no talent whatsoever. Sorry kid, but you need to stick to Burger King commercials and leave the real acting to better actors... like Scooby-Doo or Underdog. I didn't like Malcolm McDowell as Sam Loomis, not a single iota. McDowell is a good actor but this may be his worst career performance. His line-readings are slow, he looks as though he's completely detached and most of all - he acts as though he's just waiting for a paycheck. Though Loomis' presence in the film is a lot less than the original, he's still in this enough to make me wish they could bring Donald Pleasance back from the grave. Pleasance's corpse would have done a better job. Just embarrassing how bad McDowell is in this.

Which brings me to the two things that are absolutely Rob Zombie that I absolutely hated - the story and the kills themselves. This backstory is so ridiculously cliched that this could easily be any horror movie's setup, not just one of the most enduring franchises of all time. Stripper mom with a heart of gold? Got it. Abusive redneck step-dad that deserves comeuppance? Absolutely. Bullies making poor Mikey feel weak? Why not. Oh yea, we almost forgot slut sister! Shit, get that in there too! This whole backstory is so half-assed, your retarded little brother could have written it and it would have came out the same. Utter waste of my precious time. What Zombie should have paid attention to in the first film was that Michael was creepier because he had such a normal family. That no one ever saw this coming and why is this kid so damn crazy. In this flick, little Dahmer gets busted for carving up little animals by the Principal, a shrink AND his mom and then everyone's like 'what happened to this kid?'. The ridiculousness is easily summed up by one of the the most laughable scenes I have seen in a long time: Little bad-actor Mikey, sitting on the porch in his little clown costume as he watches in heartbreak the other little kids trick-or-treating with their families while his sister is banging her boyfriend upstairs. Oh, that's not the best part, the whole time this kid is wallowing in self-pity / retardation, Nazareth's 'Love Hurts' plays over the score. Now I'm not sure if Michael then snaps because of the sad state of affairs or simply because that annoying fucking song was playing, either way it was hilarious in a bad way. Cliche'd and lazy writing, plain and simple.

And the last half of the film, which is a sped up version of the original, never gives you any chance to give a rat's ass about any of these retards running around screaming. I don't care about Laurie, Loomis, the Sheriff or Annie (though Harris is still SMOKIN'!). I actually cared more about the janitor looking after Michael than I ever did about any of the people I was supposed to care about. Zombie doesn't even seem to care, giving them nothing of use to say nor do. Laurie has maybe 10 minutes of screen time before the killing starts, not exactly enough time for the audience to root for her. Michael apparently buried his Shatner mask and knife (cops don't look for murder weapons anymore) and he of course has to get those back quick-like. Then he must locate his long-lost sister (the only family member still alive) whom apparently he finds using some sort of serial killer sonar because there is absolutely no information whatsoever that should have led him to Laurie's doorstep. I have never seen a filmmaker make such a leap in quality as I did from Corpses (an absolutely horrible film) to Devil's Rejects (a very solid and original work). Apparently, Reject's was the fluke.

Oh yea, the kills. While I like some of the brutality, it gets to be repetitive. Michael bashes and thrashes everyone in sight, often for no apparent reason. People that aren't even in his way get offed, apparently just to up the body count. It's not only that, you can barely tell what the frack is going on with ANY of these murders. Zombie employs the world-famous 'shaky-cam' often and it never makes these kills jump alive, it makes you frustrated. I never thought I'd see The Bourne Supremacy with Bourne wearing a really tattered William Shatner mask. This is one of the most irritating trends hitting films today and frankly I'm getting sick of it. It's annoying, it's frustrating and most of all - it's lazy filmmaking. The only kill that was interesting was the one stolen directly from Carpenter's film.

Otherwise, this film does have a different ending and several characters switch places on the 'do they live or die' structure of the original. Outside of seeing a classic horror icon get even more embarrassing than the sequels allowed, I really see no reason to see this film. Trust me, save your money and wait for the inevitable sequel.

Then you can do what I can't - you can forget this shitty backstory ever happened, this redneck hehaw Michael Myers holiday. You can watch the original with fondness and not have to reflect on how Zombie cocked up a great opportunity for himself. Most of all, you watch and admire how the original can blow this flick away just by NOT throwing everything under the sun at the camera. By being directed by someone with talent. Sorry, Zombie, but your future is in music. Leave the horror icons to the big boys.