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It took me a while to get around to it, but I finally managed to see Rob Zombie's re-envisioning of John Carpenter's Halloween. Initially, I wasn't all too jazzed up about the idea of a re-make. Why do-over a classic is always my question, and doubt it not, the 1978 original is, indeed, a classic. And I am a fan of the classic. However, hearing that Rob Zombie was going to take the helm, well, why the hell not? If anyone could give Michael Myers an invigorating and unforgettable face lift it would be Rob Zombie.
It was always in the works to see it in the theatres, but I played phone tag and re-do with a co-worker for a couple of weekends and missed it. Plus, well, that nagging doubt crept in because after all, we're talking, classic here. Last weekend I borrowed Halloween from a friend and spent a couple of hours with my face partially covered, peering through my fingertips.
Rob Zombie's Halloween is a pretty nifty hybrid of prequel and remake. Lest we forget how short the original movie was, especially in light of the recent trend in epic cinema marathon, the first hour of the two hour movie was all Zombie. He takes pains to create a back-story that attempts to explain how and why Michael Myers is who he is. Although, he does maintain that in the end Michael is a born psychopath, we are also introduced to the idea that his rage is a "perfect storm", a "perfect marriage of internal and external forces" -- or something like that that Malcolm McDowell tells us as Dr. Loomis.
But see, one of the things that I loved about the original is that Michael Myers is just straight up pure D, psycho mad killer crazy. For absolutely no reason At All!! There is no redemption or empathy for the character because there is no real person behind the mask. Rob Zombie tries to humanize Michael Myers to some extent. He's psychopathic but he also comes from a tragically dysfunctional home environment. He was an innocent kid, but he also happens to be aware of his own twisted darkness (he wears masks to hide his ugliness). Intolerably incarcerated in a Sanitarium, caged, he is encouraged by his caretaker to seek solace and refuge within himself and so he becomes increasingly distanced from the external world until finally we see him fifteen years later having grown from a ten-year old boy into a silent, hulking, papier machie wearing behemoth.
Cletus liked the back story, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Michael Myers's average, upper middle class suburban background was part of the scariness for me. There is absolutely no reason for why he goes psycho crazy and that is more chilling then the violently dysfunctional trailer park family that Zombie installs him in. He's bullied by his mother's asshole boyfriend, Ronnie, by his overtly sexual older sister, Judith, and kids at school. The only people he has an affinity for are his mother, Deborah, and baby sister, Laurie.
Michael is as much a victim of his circumstance as he is a born psychopath, and Zombie makes a case for the dual influences of nature and nurture. Don't doubt it, Michael would have always been a killer, but, we wonder, if things might have been a least a little different if he had had a "normal" home. Of course, per the 1978 original, that just isn't true because Michael goes off the deep end there as well.
Rob Zombie's Halloween retains the shock-schlock of the classic seventies slasher film, of which Halloween is one of the crown jewels. Blood and misogyny are represented in equal parts as Michael murders his way ever closer to teenage Laurie. Objectified female bodies are arranged across the screen in various states of undress. Presented for the puerile obsessive male gaze they are penetrated by boyfriends and lovers and then their volatile, demanding, sexualized bodies are destroyed. The problem of aggressive female sexuality is violently resolved.
There are male deaths as well, figuring most prominently in the beginning of the movie as enactments of male rage against males in power. Ten year old Michael beats the school bully to death in the woods with a tree limb, Ronnie is ingeniously duct taped to his Lazy Boy and has his throat slit, Judith's boyfriend is beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat. As an adult he kills a truck driver in a bathroom for his overalls (a completely WTF moment because Michael never strikes us as being all that aware, he's acting on pure animal instinct by the time he heads towards home), Linda's boyfriend, Annie's boyfriend and attempts to maim Dr. Loomis. It's interesting to note that with the exception of the truck driver (a gratuitous plot devices), Michael attacks men at the head. It's always a personal attack on male identity.
The last half of the movie is pretty much a repeat of the original with some minor changes. It's implied that Micheal came back for Laurie because he loves her or feels some sort of connection for her. He re-assembles his family in the basement of the house: Deborah's tombstone, Laurie's recently murdered friend Lynda standing in for the slaughtered Judith and Laurie herself. I really liked, by the way, the way that Zombie repeats scenes and themes not only from the original to the re-make (which we expect), but also from the first half of the movie to the second half.
There is a fake ending where Dr. Loomis shoots Micheal, but of course our boy gets up and goes after Laurie one more time. He then proceeds to chase her all over kingdom come and the house that he lived in for the first ten years of his life. I can't say how tired I got of that scene. Laurie screamed way too much and that got really annoying. Dr. Loomis almost dies and in the end Laurie shoots Micheal in the face. I LOVED that part. We're left wondering if Laurie has snapped and is now as damaged as Micheal. Will the happy, well-balanced teen now become a psycopathic killing machine. The end was probably the only part where I didn't mind all of the screaming because that girl had completely snapped.
So, overall, an entertaining movie. I didn't care for the little boy who played young Micheal Myers. In the extras Rob Zombie described him as angelic and innocent. I thought he looked sullen and dirty. When I think of psycopathic, angelic child murderers, I always think of Macauly Culkin in The Good Son. No one has beaten him yet on that one. Tyler Mane did a great job as Micheal Myers. I loved the body language and GODS that guy is huge. I remember him from X-Men, but damn. I didn't realize that he really is actually 6'8". DUDE!! He was a monster in the movie, just massive. I kept thinking, how the fuck do you stop someone that big AND that crazy?!
Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob's wife, did a solid job as Deborah Myers, Michael's mother.
It was always in the works to see it in the theatres, but I played phone tag and re-do with a co-worker for a couple of weekends and missed it. Plus, well, that nagging doubt crept in because after all, we're talking, classic here. Last weekend I borrowed Halloween from a friend and spent a couple of hours with my face partially covered, peering through my fingertips.
Rob Zombie's Halloween is a pretty nifty hybrid of prequel and remake. Lest we forget how short the original movie was, especially in light of the recent trend in epic cinema marathon, the first hour of the two hour movie was all Zombie. He takes pains to create a back-story that attempts to explain how and why Michael Myers is who he is. Although, he does maintain that in the end Michael is a born psychopath, we are also introduced to the idea that his rage is a "perfect storm", a "perfect marriage of internal and external forces" -- or something like that that Malcolm McDowell tells us as Dr. Loomis.
But see, one of the things that I loved about the original is that Michael Myers is just straight up pure D, psycho mad killer crazy. For absolutely no reason At All!! There is no redemption or empathy for the character because there is no real person behind the mask. Rob Zombie tries to humanize Michael Myers to some extent. He's psychopathic but he also comes from a tragically dysfunctional home environment. He was an innocent kid, but he also happens to be aware of his own twisted darkness (he wears masks to hide his ugliness). Intolerably incarcerated in a Sanitarium, caged, he is encouraged by his caretaker to seek solace and refuge within himself and so he becomes increasingly distanced from the external world until finally we see him fifteen years later having grown from a ten-year old boy into a silent, hulking, papier machie wearing behemoth.
Cletus liked the back story, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.
Michael Myers's average, upper middle class suburban background was part of the scariness for me. There is absolutely no reason for why he goes psycho crazy and that is more chilling then the violently dysfunctional trailer park family that Zombie installs him in. He's bullied by his mother's asshole boyfriend, Ronnie, by his overtly sexual older sister, Judith, and kids at school. The only people he has an affinity for are his mother, Deborah, and baby sister, Laurie.
Michael is as much a victim of his circumstance as he is a born psychopath, and Zombie makes a case for the dual influences of nature and nurture. Don't doubt it, Michael would have always been a killer, but, we wonder, if things might have been a least a little different if he had had a "normal" home. Of course, per the 1978 original, that just isn't true because Michael goes off the deep end there as well.
Rob Zombie's Halloween retains the shock-schlock of the classic seventies slasher film, of which Halloween is one of the crown jewels. Blood and misogyny are represented in equal parts as Michael murders his way ever closer to teenage Laurie. Objectified female bodies are arranged across the screen in various states of undress. Presented for the puerile obsessive male gaze they are penetrated by boyfriends and lovers and then their volatile, demanding, sexualized bodies are destroyed. The problem of aggressive female sexuality is violently resolved.
There are male deaths as well, figuring most prominently in the beginning of the movie as enactments of male rage against males in power. Ten year old Michael beats the school bully to death in the woods with a tree limb, Ronnie is ingeniously duct taped to his Lazy Boy and has his throat slit, Judith's boyfriend is beaten to death with an aluminum baseball bat. As an adult he kills a truck driver in a bathroom for his overalls (a completely WTF moment because Michael never strikes us as being all that aware, he's acting on pure animal instinct by the time he heads towards home), Linda's boyfriend, Annie's boyfriend and attempts to maim Dr. Loomis. It's interesting to note that with the exception of the truck driver (a gratuitous plot devices), Michael attacks men at the head. It's always a personal attack on male identity.
The last half of the movie is pretty much a repeat of the original with some minor changes. It's implied that Micheal came back for Laurie because he loves her or feels some sort of connection for her. He re-assembles his family in the basement of the house: Deborah's tombstone, Laurie's recently murdered friend Lynda standing in for the slaughtered Judith and Laurie herself. I really liked, by the way, the way that Zombie repeats scenes and themes not only from the original to the re-make (which we expect), but also from the first half of the movie to the second half.
There is a fake ending where Dr. Loomis shoots Micheal, but of course our boy gets up and goes after Laurie one more time. He then proceeds to chase her all over kingdom come and the house that he lived in for the first ten years of his life. I can't say how tired I got of that scene. Laurie screamed way too much and that got really annoying. Dr. Loomis almost dies and in the end Laurie shoots Micheal in the face. I LOVED that part. We're left wondering if Laurie has snapped and is now as damaged as Micheal. Will the happy, well-balanced teen now become a psycopathic killing machine. The end was probably the only part where I didn't mind all of the screaming because that girl had completely snapped.
So, overall, an entertaining movie. I didn't care for the little boy who played young Micheal Myers. In the extras Rob Zombie described him as angelic and innocent. I thought he looked sullen and dirty. When I think of psycopathic, angelic child murderers, I always think of Macauly Culkin in The Good Son. No one has beaten him yet on that one. Tyler Mane did a great job as Micheal Myers. I loved the body language and GODS that guy is huge. I remember him from X-Men, but damn. I didn't realize that he really is actually 6'8". DUDE!! He was a monster in the movie, just massive. I kept thinking, how the fuck do you stop someone that big AND that crazy?!
Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob's wife, did a solid job as Deborah Myers, Michael's mother.
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no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 12:46 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 05:03 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 01:41 am (UTC)From:There were other audio elements that stood out for me. There is a point when young Micheal Myers kills a nurse in the Sanitarium. The scene cuts from his hand on a fork (another stupid wtf moment because considering his violence there is no way that he would be allowed anything besides plastic silverware) to a view of the room seen through a survelliance camera to Dr. Loomis and Deborah Myers talking in the hall as they prepare to enter an elevator. It then cuts to security guys running down the hallway and then an alarm sounds. We cut back to the room and loads of blood and watch as these security guys wrestle Micheal off the nurse, tearing his mask off in the process. The entire time this alarm is blaring and I remember thinking, this is the moment of irrevocable change. Here is the point from which there is no return. It was our signal that Micheal Myers was a monster, no if's and or buts. As I mentioned, Zombie attempts to humanize him for us, tries to make him likeable or to make him appear misunderstood, but I think that alarm signals the moment that everything that came before, all the understanding and empathy you may have had for him, becomes irrelevant because the kid's a monster.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 01:29 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2008-03-05 05:02 pm (UTC)From:Sometimes, as in the case of Peeping Tom (probably my favorite psychokiller film) the understanding is all and remains the core of the horror. In others, the sheer "unknowableness" of the villain's motives makes it all the more effective.
Still, while I'm usually not interested in remaking brilliant films (I totally didn't see the point of the shot-for-shot Psycho remake), the re-envisioning of this one sounds interesting, even if just as an exercise in comparison.
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 01:49 am (UTC)From:But, I totally agree with you about the type of killer that Micheal Myers is and the things that make him scary. I mean it really does come down to the mask and the blank face that gives away absolutely nothing. We know there's rage there, but the lack of insight makes him particulary monstrous because you cannot qualify any of his behaviours. You can't say that Oh, he had a bad childhood or he lacked a father figure or he hated women or whatever. It's impossible in that first one to really make a supposition as to why he does what he does and I find that really disturbing.
Zombie never lets the viewer see Micheal's adult face, so in a way we're making a shift from the attempt at knowing the child to the "unknowableness" of the adult and with that shift from the prequel to the re-make, but it loses something in the translation. What did impress me and what I did find scary was Tyler Mane's massiveness. There were some great scenes of Micheal following Laurie and her friends home and the whole time my brother and I kept saying: wtf?! No one sees that Big Ass Guy walking around in the middle of the day with a mask on? Even if it is Halloween, he is WAY too big to just go strolling around the neighborhood looking like that without attracting attention from the neighborhood watch.
But then again, maybe we're just overly suspicious. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-03-06 04:26 pm (UTC)From:I've always liked comparing films and remakes back to back--when I get a chance, I'm going to do more of that. I remember when I was in high school, once, my dad and I rented both versions of Cape Fear and watched them together. Very illuminating.