Movie 69: Halloween(2007)

Starring: Scout Taylor-Compton, Tyler Mane, Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Daeg Faerch. Sheri Moon Zombie, William Forsythe.

Director: Rob Zombie.

The time has come for me to revisit these dreaded films.  The true reality is that, every so often, I wonder if my hatred for Rob Zombie films is born out of some sort of honest desire to hate Rob Zombie.  Like, I don't hate the works because they're bad but because I want to hate them.  Usually I end up hating the work anyway when I do give it another try, but the worry that I'm not being honest or academic about inevitably makes it's way inside my head and I come back to it like an abused spouse.  

On that note, I would be remiss in adding the caveat(as I try to do anytime I watch a remake) that I also do my damnedest to keep my affections and opinions on the original out of mind and take this remake for what it is: an adaptation(no different than more versions of Dracula), and its own movie.

So that's the goal: I'm going to try to give Rob Zombie an honest and fair shake.  I'm not saying this will be easy or effective, but I'm going to work real hard at it.

Real, real hard, as it turns out.  There's a scene where Sheri Moon Zombie does a stripper dance to "Love Hurts" and I couldn't help but think "This film hurts."  Zombie's dialogue style shows it's inherent weakness by being seventy-five-percent made up of the word "Fuck."  You might argue "But that's how these characters would talk" but I would argue "It's just bad writing."  Profanity, while sometimes needed or effectively used, generally is the mark of a writer trying to kill time or generally being ignorant.  

The funny thing is, at least compared to his previous works (the dreadful House of a 1,000 Corpses in particular), Zombie is developing a half-way decent visual eye, actually utilizing some interesting camera angles and editing choices that do show that he, at the very least, has learned something.  The real essential problem is that he is not, and probably never will be, much of a writer.  His affection for the source material is incredibly present, though, even if his own indulgences actually do more to undermine Carpenter's classic than honor it.  

Zombie's influences are far more exploitation slasher than suspense-thriller, which makes him an odd choice for Halloween, and it shows with Young Michael's aggressive but mostly emotionless and flat butchering of three people.  There's no shortage of blood and carnage, but considering the general lack of sympathy for Zombie's cast (a problem that has plagued all of Zombie's productions: Zombie being another modern director who seems to find the "it's fun to watch people we don't like die" school of thought) there isn't an awful lot of weight to any of it.

The decision to focus a large amount of story on Michael's childhood is an incredibly odd choice, and probably not a good one.  Many other critics have accused it of attempting to create "a sympathetic backstory and a reason for Micheal Myers." The latter is certainly true, I just don't know if I agree with sympathy.  While Zombie's strange obsession with "poor white trash" archetypes are incredibly present, that alone doesn't entirely engender sympathy, neither does his being bullied by kids at school.  While his relationship with his Mother offers an attempt at sympathy, it's not pronounced enough to be effective: there are shots of her smiling at him, visiting him at the hospital, and the like but none of it is lingered on for more than a few seconds.  It's another odd and detrimental choice, almost as if Zombie wanted to rush through all of the character-building to get to the "good stuff." What is particularly odd about this is that Zombie opened that door when he probably didn't have to.

That leads me to the former part of the usual criticisms: the "reason."  Zombie clearly wants us to somehow have an understanding of Myers, which runs counter to anything that was ever needed.  It doesn't make a lot of sense.  I'm not sure if it occurred to Zombie (but I think it probably did) that all it really does is make Michael into an ordinary serial killer instead of the strange, unexplained force of nature he was designed to be.  In fact, the story mimics the story of real-life serial killer Ed Gein almost exactly, except for maybe the using human skin to make stuff.

Y'know, I'm glad Zombie chose to include a graphic rape scene.  It was certainly needed, right?  Couldn't have just been the guys going in to mess with Myers, it had to involve a Woman being raped by rednecks.  Terrible, unnecessary writing.

Also, Myers is seven feet tall and obviously made of bricks. Why would a couple of idiot rednecks even ATTEMPT to fuck with this guy?!  It makes absolutely no sense.

I think I really hate the rendition of Dr.Sam Loomis.  I know that Zombie obviously wants to portray a world with no good guys or even any hope of a better life for anyone, but do we need the Psychiatrist to be a smug, self-serving dickhole?  McDowell really seems to be doing very little with it, any rate...pretty much like every other actor in this film.  I'm not sure it's McDowell's fault, really, due to this story giving each character little more than a few seconds at a time to present themselves to the audience in any significant way.

Oh, lord, I had forgotten Scout Taylor-Compton.  Shrill, obnoxious, marginally talented Scout Taylor-Compton.  She can't seem to deliver a line without over-doing it.

Why are Udo Kier and Dee Wallace here?  Did they not have a real movie to do that week?
I'm sorry...I think my bitterness and hatred for this movie is kicking in.  I'm really trying to be objective.

Ha ha, I get it, he cast Danielle Harris as Annie.  Get it?  'Cause she was Jamie Lloyd in the original franchise?  GET IT.  But, seriously, she's a fine actress and doesn't get enough to do in this film.  With perhaps the notable exception of Brad Dourif(who is doing a great job playing against type, even though he falls victim to the same exact "no time for love, Dr.Jones" approach to every single actor in this film), she might be the best actress in this thing.

McDowell's Loomis rants are not Donald Pleasence.  Not even close.  They also seem out of character for this approach to the character.  His sudden feelings of alarm seem to come out of left field-or, perhaps more specifically, because it was a big part of the original film-and feels dishonest.

The film has now just become a complete imitation of the original film, which feels like pandering a bit, except with a considerable more trashy behavior from the ladies.  Because reasons.  Zombie has no ability for character, or even tone.  This film has one mode, pretty much chugging along in first gear for an impossibly long two-hours.  He uses the same grainy lighting for a nice walk along a pretty suburban street that he does for a horrible murder in an asylum.  Shouldn't Laurie's happy life, about to be sundered by the arrival of her brother, at least look happy?  Does Zombie really not understand mood, dramatic tension, visual metaphor or narrative dissonance?  I'm not sure why I thought he might: he was a musician, and he wasn't even terribly good at that, either.

Shit...I'm actively TRYING not to hate this film.  Really, really hard.

What was the point of developing Myers as a character(so to speak) when you were just going to literally copy the original film beat-by-beat?  You could have spent that time making these victims have a personality instead of "sex."  I mean....JUST ONE CHARACTER ZOMBIE!  DEVELOP ONE CHARACTER!

The murder sequence of Laurie's adopted parents has a raw sense of home invasion tropes.  It's actually a decent sequence. Unfortunately, like every other scene in this movie, it lasts all of a minute before the film barrels onto the next thing that happens with no sense of logical and thematic transition or cohesion.  It's like a movie made by a guy who only heard about film-making by vague description.

Zombie seems to have no other move than to push ahead with exploitation values.  More boobs.  Don't get me wrong-I like boobs as much as the next cis gender male- but I also like good taste and storytelling.  It's just trashy here.  

There are some interesting subversive choices made when it comes to deviating from the source material-the survival of Annie, for instance, assuming you've a meta-understanding of the original film and the character of Annie-that shows at least a little creativity on Zombie's part.  

Shut up, Scout Taylor-Compton.

I feel like I've zoned out entirely in this last act...it's devoid of value.  It's Compton shrieking, messy blocking, and confusing camera work.  Meh.

Final Thoughts: It's not a completely terrible film.  Early on there is some halfway decent camerawork and creative displays...it's just that Zombie is a terrible writer, obsessed with trashy and exploitative imagery and values and generally not much of a film-maker.  There are some so-so performances that are obviously hampered by the baffling decision to give them a few seconds at a time to actually present themselves in any meaningful way..

Final rating: Two Stars.