Halloween (2007)

Some film makers live in a world where all men are sadistic rapists, all women are sado-masochistic tramps, violent murder is abundant and perceived as funny, and everyone uses F$#& every other word. Hey, to each their own reality, whatever...

First, let's take a short jog back in time... John Carpenter's Halloween is a film considered by many to be one of, if not the best horror films of all time. For me, what made Carpenter's 1978 classic so frightening was the not-knowing why a 10-year old kid, who came from a middle-class, two-parent family living in a nice home in a nice suburban neighborhood, would don a clown mask, and proceed to savagely butcher his older teenage sister. Why would he then remove his mask and stand outside the front of his home with an expressionless look on his face, waiting for Mom and Dad to return? What made this even more disturbing was how the perspective of the viewer was shot through the eyes of the mask so that the audience sees what Michael sees. That, and of course the fact that it all happens on a Halloween night and in cadence to a magnificently, creepy musical score. Insane asylums always conjure up unease intensifying the scene where Michael escapes from the mental institution and seizes the two doctors' station wagon amidst ghostly, mentally-disturbed patients wandering around outside. Why does Michael want to kill his sweet, younger, teenage sister Laurie Strode? Why does he wear a mask? Why can't he be killed? What, if any, is the method to his murderous madness? Why does he arrange the corpses that certain way? These questions we want to know, but at the same time, the not knowing is what makes us pause the film and check that all the windows and doors are locked.

Now let's jump to Zombie's version. Not comparing it to the original and letting it stand on its own two feet, it's just a lousy film. What kept it from "straight to DVD"? Two titles: Rob Zombie and Halloween. Zombie seems to have felt it necessary to humanize "his" Michael Meyers and attempt to provide a sympathetic explanation for Meyers' future murderous behavior, so Zombie has painted a new picture of Meyers' home. The father (William Forsythe) is an unemployed, abusive husband who has incestuous thoughts about his teenage daughter. The mom (Sheri Moon Zombie) is an attractive, but weathered, stripper. The teenage daughter (Hannah Hall) is promiscuous and cruel. There's little baby Laurie. Finally, there is 10-year old Mikey (Daeg Faerch) who is a long-haired, animal-torturing, juvenile delinquent (who looks 14). On Halloween, Meyers' snaps when two older schoolmates harass him and make sexually explicit, derogatory comments about his older sister and mother. Later, Michael, wearing a mask, beats one of the boys to death with a tree branch. Michael goes home where his father degrades him sexually. His mother leaves to strip, and worst of all, his older sister chooses a roll in the hay in lieu of taking him trick-or-treating (that warrants murder and mayhem!) So, he duck-tapes his father to his chair (managing to miraculously accomplish this while his father sleeps) and slices his throat. He then takes a baseball bat to his sister's boyfriend, and finally, after she awakes and catches him feeling her up, he slices up his older sister. Meyers' is institutionalized. After he murders a nurse with a fork his distraught mother blows her brains out. Fifteen years pass and Meyers' gets a break, escapes and proceeds to follow the plot points of the '78 original. Meyers' sister Laurie has been raised by adoptive parents in Haddonfield and Meyers' comes to hunt her down.

What did work for me, not so surprisingly, was where Zombie follows and mimics scenes from the original film. I mean, why re-invent the wheel, right? (ahem!) Meyers (Tyler Mane) portrayed as a tall, dark, and hulking Leatherface-like menace, who seems more deliberate in his behaviors in this film, was a nice tweak. No one could ever replace Donald Pleasance as Dr. Loomis, but Malcolm McDowell was a comfortable second. The connection between Meyers and his younger sister Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) was defined intriguingly, too, I thought. Unfortunately, the more critical connection, that being the character of Laurie with the audience, is non-existent. (Just an ironic coincidence to make my point, I had to click on "MORE" on this film's IMDb.com main page to even find Strode in the Cast listing!)***10/29/2008 (Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie has since been added) But aside from these, the film is just another House of 10,000 Devil's Rejects. Knowing why Meyers becomes a monster isn't scary with Zombie's textbook serial killer explanation. I don't want to understand Meyers' inner-child. Also, this Meyers, unlike John Carpenter's original, murders with senseless abandon with no attention to suspense. A "re-imagining"? Where's the imagination? I am not anti-remakes. But when you're going to tackle an original masterpiece like Halloween, you need an adept film maker. Zombie, who seems obsessed with incest, rape, flaunting his wife on screen, gratuitous sadistic torture, and words that begin with the letter F and end with the letter K, is not such a film maker. He seems (pardon the pun) "hell-bent" on offending his audiences for the mere purpose of being offensive. What is sad is, these days offensive means controversial and controversial has become synonymous with art.

Some might say I've missed the point. My point in seeing the film was to be entertained and scared. What was your point?