Rob Zombie's Halloween


I feel like taking a shower.  Not because the movie I watched stunk.  I feel like having a shower because Rob Zombie’s direction always makes me feel dirty.  Yes, I finally got around to the remake of Halloween.  Why don’t you stick around and see what I have to say about it?

Rob Zombie’s Halloween is basically two films put together.  The first half tells the story of how Michael Myers became the way we know him.  The second half was about Michael Myers going after Laurie Strode.  It all felt like a 1970s exploitation film and makes me want to shower.  Oh, I already said it made me want to shower.  I’m sorry for repeating that this movie made me want to shower.

The remake is much different than the original film.  As I said, there is a lot of backstory to Michael Myers in this version.  Another addition is the use of non-score music.  Yes, yes, I know that Don’t Fear the Reaper was used in the original.  Wasn’t that the only non-score song in the movie?  This one had Kiss, Peter Frampton, Rush, and much more.  This movie was...well, it was like a Rob Zombie movie.  Go figure.

Oh, and there is a large portion of this movie where Michael Myers does not have a mask.  Quite a very large portion.  About half of the time where he’s a kid, plus a couple of scenes where he was an adult.  I don’t know what to think about this.  In my mind, Michael Myers is all about being a set of hallow eyes behind a mask.  It makes him more terrifying when he is emotionless.  This movie makes him sympathetic and removes the mask a few times.  I do not want to sympathise with Michael Myers.  I want to sympathise with those who he is attacking.

I did like all of the supporting people that popped up.  Brad Dourif as the Sheriff is probably my favourite because he’s great in everything.  Whenever he said “Doc” I kept having flashbacks to how great he was in Deadwood.  Danny Trejo is also in here and is solid as well.  Trejo played the character I sympathised for the most.

I’m not going to bash Sheri Moon Zombie.  That’s been done to death.  The one cast member that bugged me the most was Danielle Harris.  This had nothing to do with her acting.  This had to do with me having recently seen Halloween 4 and 5, where she plays an eight year old girl.  Then I see her in this remake and she has her boobs out.  I was weirded out by these boobs since I still think of her as the eight year old I watched last week.  Maybe if I had waited another week before watching this one, I could have appreciated the boobs a little bit more.

I’m not completely sure how I feel about Rob Zombie’s Halloween.  It’s an alright look into the mind of a serial killer but it lacks the tension that the original had.  You don’t attach yourself to the characters but you watch the movie in a sort of wonder.  It promotes hygiene so it might be more successful than some of the other Halloweens, I guess.  Which reminds me, it’s time for me to go shower.

Comments

  1. Brittani BurnhamOctober 13, 2011 at 9:18 AM

    That's funny what you said about Danielle Harris. I can appreciate her and Scout Taylor-Compton because they obviously love horror movies and they are good when they are in them.

    I'm not a Zombie fan, he can't write a screenplay to save himself. Every other word is a swear word or something sexual. I guess I liked how he tried to go in to Michael's back story, but I think Michael Myers is more frightening when you don't know where he came from or what he's about.

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  2. JurassicGriffinOctober 13, 2011 at 5:57 PM

    It seems as though I forgot to say that. It ties in with the mask thing. Without the mask and with the backstory, it is as if the movie is trying to make us sympathize with Michael Myers. That is not how any of the other films were made, and with reason. You shouldn't sympathize with a murderer without feeling kind of ashamed for it. This is the case with Psycho which forces you to see things through Norman Bates's eyes, yet does not make you feel for his character as people are murdered.

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