#8 in my ranking of the Halloween franchise.
With the death of Moustapha Akkad at the hands of terrorists in Jordan, Dimension was able to give more control to the Weinsteins who brought in Rob Zombie to direct a remake. Makes sense, I guess. Having made a couple of well-received horror films that were nothing like the Halloween franchise, but having an obvious affinity for the material and film in general, Zombie wasn’t the worst choice. He’s at least trying to make an interesting series of decisions, even if I think the core of it is somewhat wrong-headed.
Halloween (2007) - Full Trailer [HD]
The thing about Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) that no one who makes these movies wants to admit is that he’s not actually a character. He’s a symbol of evil and fear, and there’s nothing else to him. And yet, people (including John Carpenter, admittedly drunk while writing II) kept trying to give him motivation. It was always terribly done and kind of poorly thought out, making the dilution of this symbol all the worse. Well, Zombie heads straight into that by spending the first thirty minutes of his remake in Myers’ childhood (Daeg Faerch). You see, he came from the worst white trash you can imagine. His mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) was a stripper. His dad is gone, replaced by mom’s boyfriend Ronnie (William Forsythe), who doesn’t work and screams at her and her infant child all day. Michael’s older sister Judith (Hanna Hall) dumps him on Halloween night to have sex with her boyfriend instead. He’s also bullied at school, a situation he himself fixes by beating the bully to death with a stick in the woods. It all culminates in Michael killing Ronnie, Judith’s boyfriend, and Judith herself that Halloween night, preserving his little sister for when his mother comes home to find the situation.
Demythologization is a drag, man. That being said, Zombie isn’t really trying to find an excuse for Michael or even to establish much sympathy. Before we really see much of this, we get the implication that he kills his own pets for no reason along with pictures he’s taken of dead cats. He’s a psychopath from the beginning which…calls into question the entire portrait of his childhood we just saw. Is it necessary? Or is it just a way for Zombie to find a role for his wife in a movie again?
Anyway, Michael gets locked up in a sanitarium under the watchful eye of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) who tries to help in the first year until Michael randomly stabs a nurse with a fork. He gives up, we skip ahead fifteen years, and we get our remake.
Suddenly, we’re focusing on Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) going through the same motions as she had in the original except with a thin Zombie-skin over everything (she wears a sweater with skulls, something original Laurie would never have done). Her friends Annie (Danielle Harris) and Lynda (Kristina Klebe) have boyfriends, problems with boys, and appointments to babysit. Michael escapes from the sanitarium, heading straight towards Haddonfield to find Laurie because Zombie has included the sister subplot from the beginning here.
And that’s where we have Myer’s motivation. Myers shouldn’t have motivation. The scary thing about him in the first one was the unexplained nature of his stalking and violence. He was just there doing evil things for no reason, not because he wanted to remake his family with his long-lost sister whom he knew was Laurie…somehow (deleted scene, I assume).
And, it’s fine. The remake part is just kind of fine. It’s that grungy 00’s horror remake vibe shared with the Friday the 13th remake that I’ve never found appealing. Zombie films far too closely in normal situations, and horror sequences end up feeling cut to almost nonsense while the emphasis is on action rather than tension. He’s best when he’s making these small moments that ape Carpenter, like the few long shots down the roads of Haddonfield that see Michael in the background while the girls walk in the foreground.
So, it’s an unnecessary remake that doesn’t stand terribly well on its own. I mean…disconnected from everything that came before (not the worst thing in the world), Halloween is fine as a horror film. It’s not terribly engaging or scary or even titillating. However, it’s got an interesting, if completely unnecessary and kind of annoying, look at the childhood of a serial killer and the horror moments, while not my cup of tea, function well enough with loud noises and screams to keep things moving. It’s ugly, mean, and not much fun, which isn’t that far off from most slashers, but it’s so much dirtier in the process. Maybe Zombie took the material too seriously.
Originally published here
English (US) · 