Halloween (2007, Review)
Director: Rob Zombie
Cast: Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Tyler Mane, Daeg Faerch, Sheri Moon Zombie
Weinstein Company / Unrated / NTSC R1 / Widescreen 2.35:1 Color (Anamorphic) / ENGLISH: Dolby Digital 5.1 [CC] / 121 minutes / PURCHASE
Let me preface this review by saying that I have no pretense or hate toward the onslaught of recent re-makes. In fact I liked quite a few of them. I love a good retelling. How many times has Dracula or Frankenstein been retold? Too many to count. Some were good, others horrible. With that being said, on with the review.
Ten year-old Michael Myers (played by the badass Daeg Faerch) grew up with a stripper mom (Sheri Moon Zombie), an abusive asshole step-dad, and whore of a big sister and an angelic baby sister. The kids at school pick on him and beat his ass. He has an all-around shitty life. So, or course, he starts to act out. So while getting his ass kicked by 2 dudes in the school bathroom, the dean walks in and singles out Michael and calls his “parents” and child psychologist, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). Michael hears them talking about him and how he mutilates and kills animals, so he runs out of the building in a rage and finds one of the kids from the bathroom and begins his murderous path.
After getting caught “red-handed” after killing his big sister, her boyfriend and his step-dad after a rather depressing night of trick-or-treating, the film follows him through 15 years of being locked away, his escape and his premeditated return to his hometown to find his remaining family; his baby sister who is now a teenage hottie.
In this Rob Zombie “retelling” of the classic John Carpenter/Debra Hill screenplay, Zombie doesn’t stray much from the original story but embellishes it. We get more personal with the boy/man behind the mask and learn why he turns into the lumbering killing machine we know and love. But somehow it doesn’t work for me. I guess I really don’t care how or why my Michael Myers kills. I just want him to kill. I don’t really want to know that he has adolescent angst. I mean, didn’t we all? And I surely don’t need it dumbed down for the sake of the clueless masses. Leave me guessing on things. Let my mind go places your camera never could. And when you explain things away so simply, how can you justify the killer getting up over and over again after being stabbed and shot repeatedly? If we don’t know everything, we can fill in the blank ourselves.
I will give Mr. Zombie this much, he knows how to make a film look very, very violent and gritty. I like that about House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects. But I do have a little problem with the use of the word “fuck” every 2 minutes to make it seem more hardcore. I love the word, but it seemed a little too gratuitous. And the camera work in this one was awful. Half of the time most of the picture was cut off at the top and no one ever seemed to be completely in frame. My initial thought was the projectionist was fucking up, but I don’t think that was it. I think it was the way it was shot. I’m no movie maker, but this just seemed weird.
And finally the end…oh, the end. The last 20-30 minute of the movie was one of the longest, most drawn-out messes I’ve ever seen. I was bored to tears when I should have been on the edge of my seat. The Loomis/Michael/Baby Sister showdown was so anti-climatic I just wanted it to be over with so I could leave. I could write so much more, but I don’t want to spoil it too much because, contrary to most of this review, there are some cool surprises and cameos that will pacify genre fans for a couple seconds. I really wanted to like this movie because I like Rob and the incredible cast he put together, but this one was just…not good. Not good at all.
