Being a big fan of John Carpenter's Halloween, I was curious about this new rendition of Halloween which seemed to fill its own niche in the horror genre. Rob Zombie, evidently a horror fan (I don't know him well enough to call him a "buff"), offers his own take on the Halloween story and that of Michael Myers. Having seen this film yesterday I could not help but comment on it.

Before I go into my own thoughts, I ran through all of the comments (well, most of them), on Amazon to see what the general concensus was. Overall it was well received, but seemed overall a love/hate thing. Fans who are dismayed that someone would touch the original hated the film, while those who are willing to see it for what it is enjoyed it. But those who thought it sacrelige to remake the original were bombarded by comments who felt they were too busy comparing it to the original to recognize that it is essentially not a remake of John Carpenter's film, but a "retelling" of the original. It was at one point titled "Halloween 9", which is not necessarily a remake, but, as I a said, a retelling of the story of Michael Myers. So many people felt it was needed to point this fact out to those who did not like the film. While this may be so, the film should speak for itself and need no justification from Rob Zombie or his unofficial spokespersons on Amazon.

Its always hard for me to figure out where to start when writing a type of review (which is less of a review, but more just opinions upon cricitsisms). Do I really need to tell you the story? Do I just go into the parts that I disliked and hated about the film, or start with the good qualities of the film? Or should I discuss the little things that irk me more than the film itself?

Well, I will shoot from the hip on this one: It was a boring movie. I actually fell asleep on it. It was not riveting, scary or moving in any way. It is soooooo hard not to compare it to the original, even with what I know about why the film was made. That should not really play a part in whether I like it or not - and it doesn't. To give you a little background of where I am coming from, I have worked in mental facilities for over 7 years and so when movies are placed in settings of these types of places, I tend to get a little over critical. Not in any justification of the humanization of mental patients or that they are treated badly, etc, etc., but more that they are so far removed from reality that I cant imagine how the writers thought it could be so. With todays health care and mental health care being fairly publicized and that mental hospitals are not only for the crazy insane, but seem to be an accepted part of the culture, so it would see to me that some knowledge that hospitals are high on confidentiality and security of the safety and treatment of patients that to see a girl get raped by two security guards in another patients room seems ludicrous. AND!!! the fact that Michael Myers, a known killer, both in and out of the hospital is allowed to have paints, masks, anything sharp just lying about in his room is also a complete wash of what reality might consist of in that type of setting.

Why am I making such a big deal of small details? I mean, after all, it is a horror movie which is mostly a dark fantasy of our own nightmares. The reason being is because in this film, Zombie attempts to explore in more detail the psyche of the killer at large by spending more time in the childhood of young Michael and seeing how he becomes the deranged lunatic. Unfortunately, even the psychology is fantasy as well. If Zombie has done even a little bit of research on basic psychology, he might find himself re-writing the script altogether. Zombie tries to pin it on the relationship with his worthless father and the fact that he likes to kill animals and take pictures of them dead. I cannot say for sure that this formula equates to a 7-foot giant who kills for pleasure, as it seems he is not looking for any revenge.

Like his two previous films, House of a 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, apparently Zombie finds a home in the land of rednecks and white trash. Halloween is no exception in this. The father is portrayed as a complete waste of a life, while the mother, a hot stripper (played by real life wife Sherri Moon), is doting to the young Michael. His sister seems to be following close to her moms footsteps who is slutty in her own ways. The pivotal scene where mommy has to work the stage on Halloween, so Mikey has to rely on his sister to go trick'r'treatin'. Big Sis cares less about her brother, but would rather hop in the sack with her boyfriend. Being left alone curbside while all the other kids get to get their candy, Mike is pretty pissed off he missed out on a great night (hate to see what Christmas would have done to him, wait for my upcoming thoughts on Silent Night, Deadly Night).  

I am not convinced that Mike missing out on Halloween candy is enough to provoke him to kill his sister, boyfriend and daddy. Why did not Mike just go off on his own? I mean, he already proves he is a loner and can manage, more or less, by himself. Why does sis have to babysit on this one? He is relatively older than the original Michael, so it seemed out of the confines of this imagined reality.

I feel that getting to know Mike on a more personal basis leaves little room for imagination and more room for criticism. The whole 2 chapters on Young Mike is ultimately irrelevant once he is grown up and in a psych ward for years making masks (another dumb idea). When we see him don his first homemade mask in the psych ward, he puts it on for mommy to see, explaining that "It hides my face, it hides my ugliness." Something to that effect. But really! Does a kid who is a killer have that much insight to their own psyche and is able to explain it in those terms? I would guess not. While it may be evident that he feels as worthless as his dad on the inside, it would be sublimated and explained on a behavioral level, not an intellectual one. Also I think this insults the audience that they cant figure things out for themselves, which is why the original works so much better. In the original, all of the psychology is placed in the audiences lap to consider and Carpenter does not waste time pretending to have knowledge of why this kid is a killer, but the simple fact that he did and there is some inner demons at work.

One of the Amazon reviews remarked that he liked the fact that this new Myers is just really strong rather than having any supernatural strength. Thats probably smart to do considering this version wants to place more reality in the story. But its long gone by this time that it really does not matter how strong he is or why. In fact, it looks off-putting to see him struggle against others that are just as big as him (like the dude who was trying to let one loose in the toilet). Which brings me to another criticism that he was just a plot device so Mike can get the gas service man's suit. If this were a video game, it would be a quest in getting all of the materials of the uniform to turn him into the classical Michael Myers. You get points for killing along the way, but the real quest is getting the mask and the suit. Then you get your super powers. I have still yet to figure out why the boyfriend got the mask before Mike did. It seems less special to Mike and so there would be no reason for him to use that mask especially for the killing, seeing as the boyfriend was incidental. 

Back to the hospital scene for a minute, at the time before Myers breaks out and the rape scene is about to happen. I forgot to mention that, as was the case in Halloween 2, we are in a hospital where no other staff is present. Part of my own work at the hospital involved working the night shift. Yes, hospitals needs 24 hour security/treatment for patients, whether of the medical or mental kinds. So I dont know how these two got away with this. But, there is the psychological phenomena of 'suspension of disbelief' that are relegated to most horror films and, more generally, all films. But we are in an age where we want realism, reality, psychological motivations. A time where even science fiction needs to have some scientific theory to base its story ideas from, so there is less and less room for the imagination (you can credit Michael Crichton for this problem). But if you start with "realism", you cant end in fantasy. You just cant! The story needs to be lived in its own realm, not in your backyard and then later you find you are jolted into an alternate reality. The whole story needs to take place in the alternate world so that the rules of the land are consistent, not convenient.

Oh, and I did mention about the casting of Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Lumis? No, I didn't. 

In sum I felt the movie was nothing great and a lopsided effort. As I was watching this, I had considered the fact that Zombie liked the Halloween film enough to make his own movie. I think thats cool. I mean, anyone that has a fetish for filmmaking and loves classic movies always has an idea of how they might have approached their favorite films. So it does not seem ridiculous that this film is made. Consider Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or even Gus Van Sant's version of Psycho who much less created his own, but shot directly from the original Hitchcock shooting script and still managed to fail. So there is almost no point in making a scene by scene comparison. What I thought would be a great idea (Hollywood, are you listening on this one?), I think there should be a creative exercise in recreating films based on personal visions of one film. So in this instance, have a series of like 5 directors to remake Halloween (do a small festival). This would take away from the fact that there is a need to compare to Carpenter's version, but rather compare each other's works and how they approach a subject on a classical piece of cinema. Halloween does not need to be singled out, but whatever film they want to do - be it Casablanca, Citizen Kane or Midnight Cowboy, for that matter. Yes, thats what I think they should do. It could create benchmarks of creativity, and spawn new ways of approaching old ideas. 

Hollywood is at the point of re-inventing the wheel, but the wheel seems to be turning very slowly as we are all subjected to less than interesting sequels, prequels, remakes, rehashes and anything else with the prefix of "re-".  Rob Zombie's Halloween is nothing short of falling into the same category of "been there, done that" genre and if you miss seeing the film, it would not be of great consequence.

The DVD comes complete with commentary by Zombie, alternate ending, bloopers(!?), some featurettes and theatrical trailers. I am not hip on most extra features of big budget Hollywood films, so I usually ignore stuff like this. In this case, I did the usual and ignored it all.