HALLOWEEN (2007)
Starring Malcolm McDowell and Scout Taylor-Compton
Rob Zombie's Halloween is an artistic failure. One can only
say that because Zombie showed himself to be nearly a horror film
genius with "Devil's Rejects," a flawless and terrifying horror movie
that captures and ratchets up the spirit of '70s horrors like Texas
Chainsaw and Last House on the Left. So expectations were
understandably high when Zombie agreed to do the unthinkable: remake a
masterpiece and make it his own.
The result is a film that, at its best moments, echoes some of the
themes we saw in
"Devil's Rejects" and, in its worst moments, feels
like a bad
"Halloween" movie in the spirit of
"Halloween 6."
We're all very familiar with the basic "Halloween" storyline. For this
remix, Zombie takes a more sympathetic view toward Myers, who
wears a Kiss T-shirt at 10 and kills off the class bully the same day he offs (now) his entire family
along with his now annoying sister.
The first third of the film, focusing on Myers' abusive family led by
stipper mom Sherri Moon Zombie, has some of the spirit of "Rejects"
and you can tell this is the kind of world Zombie likes to film about
-- one of drunks, derelicts, abusers and (finally) long-haired serial killers.
But things start getting ridiculous when Zombie starts shoe-horning
elements from Carpenter's universe: Dr. Loomis (now played by Malcolm McDowell,
who seemed like an inspired choice but is just going through the motions in the
role) seems like a forced,
almost unnecessary character. He was the protagonist of the original
movie. Not here. Laurie Strode (playeds irritatingly now by Stout Taylor-Compton)
doesn't show up until halfway through the movie, after we watch
Michael grow up from a normal looking and acting (aside from the fact
that he kills people) kid to a silent hulk in an asylum obsessed with
making masks.
The killings are more brutal this time around, more graphic, and
sleazier, but they also feel stunted -- like Zombie didn't have the
creative freedom to make the movie he really wanted to make. John
Carpenter's music is back too, and it doesn't gel with this vision of
the story -- and constantly reminds us that this is a remake. Good
remakes should make us forget about the original, not inject the
original into its mix every chance it gets.
Brutality in horror works if it increases the realism of the film. But
by definition a "Halloween" movie can't be realistic. Here's where
Zombie failed in his mission: Attempting to inject a gritty realism to a film
that is, by definition, too fantastic to be real. There is much that is
unbelievable in this film, from the dialogue of the high school girls to the
weird lack of any real police presence when Meyers shows back up in town. Come
on. A mass murderer escapes from an asylum and the police in his hometown
doesn't care? In the first film, he wasn't a mass murderer by the time he broke
out. And some of the lapses in logic didn't really matter that much. In that
film, Meyers was a borderline supernatural being. He was the Boogey Man. Zombie
tries to humanize him here and, no, it doesn't work at all.
Fans will recognize Danielle Harris, who played Laurie Strode's daughter
in the infinitely superior "Halloween 4" and now returns as her doomed friend. There's some genuine
tension at the end of the film when Strode confronts Meyers, and at the
beginning, when young Daeg Faerch portrays an unsilent, psychotic
10-year-old Meyers. He's good in the role as a creepy long-haired kid. There's some good
Rob Zombie horror here, and plenty of cameos from the likes of Udo Kier,
Clint Howard, Ken Foree and many others. But all in all
"Halloween 2007" was a big mistake and something Zombie is going to
have to live down.
In short, it's about as good as "Halloween 5"
(i.e., not good).
Directed by Rob Zombie