Rob Zombie's Halloween: A Review

Straight away, the biggest problem with Rob Zombie's Halloween is that it is a remake of Halloween. That is, it has to deal with the expectations and entrenched beliefs of the preexisting fans. It is actually well made, a relatively high quality film, though fairly conventional, especially for Zombie. Also, Zombie knows what he is doing behind a camera, and clearly has tremendous respect for the material. Therefore, while an excellent effort, I think the Halloween remake falls a bit short. There is a spoiler alert for everyone who hasn't seen the movie, as the rest of this post is rife with information sure to spoil your surprise.

The new Halloween falls short because the main difference is the time spent adding flesh to the childhood of Michael Myers, and in that endeavor I think Zombie fails in his intent, which is to explain why Michael Myers does what he does and add to his story. In so doing, the family life in the Myer's home is revealed to be dysfunctional, yet inexplicable. The loser-drunk step dad somehow manages to keep the apparently loving mother of young Michael in his gravitational field while doing nothing but being a drunk slob and abusing her almost feminine blonde little boy.

Michael is about twice the age he was in Carpenter's original, old enough to beat a much older and larger bully to death with a stick and his sister's boyfriend with a bat, as well as able to duct tape down a grown man tight enough that he cannot move. Perhaps this is foreshadowing of his titanic physical attributes to come. Perhaps his rage is the dynamic force behind his strength, even at the age of ten.

But in humanizing Michael, Zombie has taken away the mystery, the abject horrific wonder of the original, where Michael was six, and apparently acted for no reason, killing his older sister out of nowhere. It is the lack of motive behind the opening scene in the original that sets the stage for the soulless stalking killer to follow. That he kills animals in the remake, and gets caught, makes Michael more normal, more of this Earth, less mysterious, a human being; a killer that we have already known and documented a million times. By making him a sympathetic character, some of the sting is taken out of Michael; the gutteral "Why?!?!" of the shocked voyeur is partly muted when the contents of the charnel house are discovered.

In the original, when the six year old kid inexplicable stabs his much older sister to death for no reason, it does not feel like much of a stretch for him to become the invincible stalking killer, at least in movie reality. Yet the transition from sorry little blonde abuse case to confused inmate into hulking, inhumanly powerful, I Can Snap Chains With A Flick Of My Wrist psychokiller feels uneven, abrupt, notwithstanding the bodycount he amasses in his tender years.

In short, as they have learned in the comic book business, if you have a mysterious origin to an important character, have a care when you reveal it, as it probably looked better on paper than it sounds out loud.

On the other hand, as said before, it is a better than average movie, and Zombie goes about his business well. The score is faithful, if not exact. Once the action sequences get going, they move at a quick pace. There are a few surprises, like when Michael only roughs up one of the young ladies committing the mortal sin of the horror flick, [having sex], instead of killing her. Also, the Dr. Loomis for the 21st Century does not choose his own fate [and is actually of less gravity than the original played to the hilt by Donald Pleasance].

And there are a few tasty tidbits here and there, like when Laurie's adoptive father muses that a rotting corporate monster is destroying their town [a little commentary about the movie and character, or Hollywood?], or when Blue Oyster Cult's Don't Fear the Reaper is playing behind Michael's first kill in his old house.

And in the very end, there appears to be a bit of a twist, something I had to see it twice to confirm. After chasing long lost sister Laurie through more than a few walls, and doing his best to kill her, and even telling her why he is there [via a tattered photograph of her and his prior, blonder self], the brother and sister fall from a height, and she, face bloodied, ends up on top of him. Thinking quickly, she produces the revolver she retrieved from the corpse of Loomis, and attempts to shoot Michael in the face point blank. After trembling and flinching through the first 3 [or four] empty chambers, Michael comes to and grabs her wrist. At first this looks like he is struggling, but upon a closer review, it is more as if he is steadying her hand, so that the shot counts. Perhaps this was the surcease of pain Michael required - he stalked his sister so that either would force her to end his existence, and perhaps give him peace.

See the problem with humanizing your stalking psychokillers? They become so needy!

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[Be sure to visit RayRay's political blog, Non-Partisan Witch Hunt!]

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