**1/2
Little Michael Meyers is the product of a dysfunctional household - stripper mom, mom's abusive sister, etc. Match this with a penchant for mutilating small animals, and we are given a snapshot of what life as a future serial killer are like. The first 40 minutes of the film are spent on this snapshot, which include Michael's first kill, his impending incarceration in an asylum, and his growing fondness for masks, before we fast-forward fifteen years to his escape. Upon escaping, he decides to hunt down many other victims in his hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois.
This re-make of the 1978 classic is not without its charm. The extensive background of Michael Meyers and his family fills in some gaps that complement the saga well. The kills in this film are accentuated with lots of loud starts and quick shots that help the "jump" factor. Overall though, this film ends up being much more an exploration of Rob Zombie's (the writer/director) particular talents rather than a re-make. Again there are pluses and minuses to this. The re-imagining of Dr. Samuel Loomis as a hippy/fame-seeking Dr. rather than savior provides much more depth to the story. Really, both Loomis and Meyers have more fleshed out characters than in the original. This is overshadowed though by the shock-value dysfunction that Zombie likes to portray. You know, stuff like asylum orderlies raping a patient in front of Meyers - just grisly. If you can make it past the first five minutes of the film, you'll be alright, but, really, this is much less a horror film than a "shock" film.
This re-make of the 1978 classic is not without its charm. The extensive background of Michael Meyers and his family fills in some gaps that complement the saga well. The kills in this film are accentuated with lots of loud starts and quick shots that help the "jump" factor. Overall though, this film ends up being much more an exploration of Rob Zombie's (the writer/director) particular talents rather than a re-make. Again there are pluses and minuses to this. The re-imagining of Dr. Samuel Loomis as a hippy/fame-seeking Dr. rather than savior provides much more depth to the story. Really, both Loomis and Meyers have more fleshed out characters than in the original. This is overshadowed though by the shock-value dysfunction that Zombie likes to portray. You know, stuff like asylum orderlies raping a patient in front of Meyers - just grisly. If you can make it past the first five minutes of the film, you'll be alright, but, really, this is much less a horror film than a "shock" film.
7 comments:
I thought the first 45 minutes were perfect. Zombie really "gets" the grittiness of 70s horror. Surprisingly the film starts to go downhill the moment Michael dons the famous mask. I absolutely loathed the new Laurie Strode! Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Laurie as sweet and vulnerable. The new Laurie is about as smug as they come and she just thinks that she's so precious. There is nothing scary about Michael's slice and dice rampage, it was almost as if Zombie made this a "greatest hits" Halloween film and he felt it necessary to copy many of Carpenter's ideas rather than create his own vision. I too hated the way Loomis was re-imagined.
This is really interesting, because I had no idea that so many liberties were taken with the original movie (which I just love to death). My only complaint with Halloween (the original) is that Myers' madness is basically a conceit; it's just a given from the opening shot of the movie (literally). If the Zombie version tries to straighten that out, well, that's cool, I guess, but it goes into "be careful what you wish for" territory in that it removes some of the elegant simplicity ("It was the boogeyman" etc.) that makes the original so powerful. Anyway, good review. I'm sold! I'll queue it.
remakes have been a big topic of discussion recently. one thing that hasn't been mentioned, but which is nonetheless a really essential point, is that it's not like a remake makes the original disappear. we get to have both of them.
if the remake (or the original and not the remake) is bad, the good version is still there to be watched, and the bad, tolerated or ignored (or clawed to shreds by us, which is rad).
if it's good, we get to use one to reflect off of the other. when you watch a tv series all the way through and then you go back to an earlier episode you watch the characters thinking, "this is what this character was like before X went down."
or a better example would be comic books with multiple continuities. when i read straczyinski's spider-man, i'm adding on to him a depth of the character that i've picked up from other spider-man stories.
i think we have a case of that here. zombie's halloween is a good movie. it's shot and edited and acted well, whatever issues may be found with what's been changed.
this is little consolation if you're a purist about it, like jordan, and really think the original was perfect giving us only the information that it did. perfectly valid point of view.
i don't mind knowing more about the character. i liked the back story and found it very well written (the suicide scene is excellent and depressing).
(ps - jordan, i read your last comment on manchurian candidate. all good points.)
i don't really read straczynski's spider-man.
No, I'm not being a purist at all! I'm totally down with what you're saying. I love the original and I'm intrigued by the new one. I'm simply saying that I hope it makes for a good movie.
oh, i missed the last part about you being sold. oops!
I've only seen this in chunks, and I need to give it the proper watch. But I disliked the fleshing out of Michael Myers's childhood. I like Michael Myers as an abstract horror, so I preferred it when he was just this kid. I'm especially "meh" about the whole stripper mom/drunk mom's boyfriend/trailer-trash boilerplate, but my impression is that Rob Zombie's in love with the "gritty undercurrent of America" thing. Yawn.
Like I said, however, I need to watch it in full before I render a qualified judgement.
Good pick, Trevor! Way to show some solid reviewing out of the gate.
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