Evil Has A Destiny
After reviewing the not so spectacular "Nightmare on Elmstreet" Remake and the absolutely magnificent remake of "Friday the 13th" I thought I might as well hit the 3-Peat on the big three Horror movie remakes. Whether your a Nightmare, a Friday, or a Halloween guy you know who the big three are. Freddy, Jason, and Micheal. Freddy did a great job in a film that floundered in a sea of nothingness, Jason made everyone proud out at Crystal Lake, and we are about to take a trip to Haddonfield Illinois to meet one of the man who changed the name "Halloween" forever. Since 1978 Halloween fans have been obsessed with Micheal Myers the white faced invincible serial killer. John Carpenter's "Halloween" was a b-list movie budget and became a blockbuster hit, and a Horror Classic for all time. This time around Rob Zombie is at the helm for the re-imagining of John Carpenter's Halloween. Will it fall flat on its face like Freddy? Or impress us all like Jason? Only one way to find out, lets do a review! So...Here.. WE.. GO!
The movie plays out as both part Prequel and part remake. Zombie spends a great deal of time in the beginning of the film establishing Micheal as a child, not an invincible killing machine but a real flesh and blood killer, which is nice for the realism of today's modern horror flicks. I love the quote that starts the film.
"The darkest souls are not those which choose to exist within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us." -- Dr. Samuel Loomis
I love this because it from the very starting seconds into the film establishes Dr. Loomis, using a quote from a fictional character shows us not even ten seconds into the film just what and who are dealing with, and it's done by using a quote from a character in the move. I thought that was great. The film starts out in the dump of house, the Myers house. It's not the nice little quite "Leave it to beaver" type house from Carpenter's film. Zombie paints a picture far more realistic, and gives a little light as to why Micheal became the killing machine we know him to be. The house is dirty, broken down, and there is evidence of domestic abuse in the home, yup... it's the model of stability in the modern American home. Micheal is joined by his mother played by Mrs. Rob Zombie, his older sister who we all know had about ten seconds of camera time in Carpenter's film, a baby sister, and Ronny... the good for nothing free loading boy...friend? Of the Myers Mother. The relationship is never fully explained but there really is no need to. We learn right off the bat that little Micheal is hurting animals... and by hurting animals we mean killing them, that's apparently a bad sign for a twelve year old. And ever since his childhood days he always enjoyed covering up his face with some sort of Mask, this gives more insight as to why the mask is so important to him as he get's older.
Ronny... everyone's favorite douche bag clingon wastes no time in breaking down the psyche of little Mikey Myers. Telling Mrs. Myers that he needs some serious discipline, she responds with "You leave him alone" Now I know we all hate Ronny here, but the guy has a point, perhaps if Micheal had a more stable homelife and a tad more discipline he might have grown up knowing it's wrong to go out on a murderspree. Mrs. Myers does tend to baby Micheal more than she should, but this is more than likely because Ronny is overly aggressive to young Micheal. Normally, I wouldn't break the movie down scene by scene, but this is important. The following scene, shows two bullies beating up on young Micheal, only to drop the F Bomb on the Principle for saving him. Micheal seems to be overly aggressive toward everyone other than his mother and his young baby sister. We are quickly introduced to Dr. Loomis who wants to evaluate Micheal. We are back to the bully again, and Micheal is about to go from the thrill of killing animals to his biggest thrill yet... killing a human being. The very same bully from the bathroom not five minutes ago. I find all this extremely important while it's all coming very quickly we are getting a glimpse into the young mind of Micheal Myers with a big old dose of reality. The scene is one you could see in any school in America, and is all too real when kid's snap. Keeping this Halloween grounded in reality I find makes it all the more scary, and all the more real.
The murder scene of the bully is longer and more brutal than you would care to see, but is important to show where Micheal is at this point in his life. He beats the bully so mercilessly that you find yourself feeling bad for the bully who is beaten to death with a large branch by the young Micheal Myers. If we are keeping score at home that kill number one for Micheal, we'll keep a body count for later. Halloween typically isnt as known for its many tit scene's but we'll keep a count of that for you too just to see how Micheal stacks up against Jason. We could have done a body count for Freddy, but that's pretty much all that movie was good for was watching Freddy do what he does. Ironically enough, Micheal's first human kill comes on Halloween, a day that will always seem to have such an impact on him. Trick or Treat baby! Judith, his older sister was supposed to take Micheal Trick or Treating but ditches for some bedtime fun with her not so hate-able boyfriend. Bad move, Micheal loves Halloween, he loves his trick or treating! Micheal's mom is a stripper but that's hardly important to anything. Micheal comes back and Ronny is well... Ronny passed out drunk in the chair. Who hasn't been there a time or two? I'm in AA now and I'm glad, because after you see what Micheal does to Ronny, you will never want to pass out in a chair drunk ever again.
Micheal spares no expense in binding Passed out Ronny down to the chair he is sleeping in with duct tape, pulls his mask on to do his thing, cuz we've already established the importance of Micheal and his masks. And without warning he slices open Ronny's throat and that's bye bye Ronny. With no way to struggle, being tapped down to the chair he can do nothing but just sit and die looking Micheal in the eyes, creepy. This whole thing as a degree of realism that makes the whole thing a lot more scary than your typical slash and gash. The realism makes you care about each and everyone of the characters, they dont seem like "deaders" that dont matter, they seem like real people and Zombie does a wonderful job and setting this whole thing up. Doesn't matter who is killed you have this sense that you feel bad for that person, even douche bag Ronny, who had no chance but to sit there and die. That's kill number two, but like I said we'll have a body count for you at the end. Next it's batter up when Micheal stumbles in to find the very likable boyfriend (who is nameless because he dies before we ever learn his name) and with one swing to the back of the head knocks dude unconscious, then beats him mercilessly, he probably didn't feel any of it the blow to the back of the head probably did him in right away. Then we move to the sister, who was the first to die moments into the film in the Carpenter version of the film, the killings are so violent and brutal and realistic it sends a chill up your spine. Micheal discovers the "infamous" mask and wears it to kill his sister. (The mask is the best one to be created since the original 'White Faced Captain Kirk" mask from one and two) The only person Micheal doesn't kill is his baby sister, he seemed to be in a sort of zombie (no pun intended) like trance and he came out of it when he saw his baby sister. Mrs. Myers finds Micheal sitting out front of the house and boom! We are ready to jump ahead to Adult Micheal right? Oh...Oh contrare-monfrare... There is more! Much more as we see Micheal grow up in the sanitarium.
Dr. Loomis was played by Donald Pleasence in every installment in the series up until part 6 and he died shortly there after. Malcolm Mcdowell does a wonderful job of portraying the infamous Dr. Loomis and was the absolute best man for the job. He had very large shoes to fill behind Donald Pleasence and he did as good of job as anyone could ask for. Throughout the next few years we see Micheal grow more and more distant, becoming silent for two weeks, and then as he grows older he becomes silent for fifteen years. He spends his years making masks, hundreds of masks out of papermache. He gets some advice from the "WISE" Janitor who tells him to live inside his head because there is no walls that can stop him there. Little did he know that Micheal would take that advice all too literal. Micheal finds a way to kill a nurse with a fork who was just left to sit with him. I find it very interesting to watch Loomis as a child psychiatrist working with Micheal, as it becomes all too clear that Micheal as he grows into this giant mammoth of a man never learned to truly grow up, his mind became stuck in it's child like state, and then becomes locked up inside the trance that made him kill all those years back when he was just a boy.
Mrs. Myers cant deal with what her son has become and kills herself long before Micheal ever escapes from the sanitarium. We wont count this as a Micheal kill on account she took her own life. Loomis then backs out on Micheal too, telling him he has done all he can possibly do for him. So with his mother dead and his only friend he's ever really known gone. Halloween Night, fifteen years after the murders that landed him in the sanitarium the powers that be decide now would be a good time to "move" Micheal. Where are they moving him to? Why are they moving him? Don't know, this scene is really only here to explain Micheal's escape. Upon finding Micheal having gone on a killing spree the wise janitor thinks it would be a good time to "get Mikey back in his own bed" ...But...I thought they were moving him? Yeah here is one little hiccup in the film here, none of this makes sense, and while the kills still seem far more important than most "Deaders" and the film is set up differently than most without the typical horror movie cast (for now anyway) the scene is really nothing more than a kill fest so we can see Micheal as the mass murderer he truly is, any sympathy we used to have for him is gone as he kills Danny Treho the wise janitor. Then we get just the simple explanation that "Micheal escaped and its a fucking Massacre". You would expect that a sanitarium that is used to house the most violent and mentally ill would have better security. Micheal kills four people, then walks out the front door.
We move on to a truck stop where we are introduced to "Joe Grizzly" Bitch! His only purpose is to die so that Micheal can get his trademark jumpsuit and boots. Grizzly is pretty entertaining in the small scene he has and probably saves the scene from being completely pointless all together. Joe Grizzly as to DIE BITCH! From there we are now to where the Carpenter Halloween began, Micheal returning to HaddonField, the night HE came home. Now, as we are introduced to a new cast of characters it becomes abundantly clear that Laurie Strode's home (Micheal's Baby Sister) is the complete opposite of the type Micheal grew up in. Laurie is a pretty innocent young girl in highschool. First impressions are that I'm not too impressed with Laurie I immediately lose the realism we had at the beginning but maybe she will grow on me. However the new cast has arrived, and the "deaders" are here. Mr. and Mrs. Strode are obviously deaders right off the bat. It appears Zombie is far more adapt at creating a realistic view of the world in its darkest days, rather than in daylight hours. Micheal's scenes seem to flow flawlessly from one to the next while the others that are set up to show a utopian side of the world seem very forced.
Before we move on I have another problem here. Micheal has returned back to his childhood home, here see Micheal retrieve the knife and the infamous Mask from... beneath the floor boards in the attic in the old house. Now, while this is a very nice visual are we to believe that little Mikey had the time to bury his knife and his mask in the attic floor boards before he was taken away to the sanitarium later that night? Little Mikey was quite the carpenter to remove the floor boards place them under and then replace the floor boards so that he could find and remove his toys fifteen years later. I'm getting a tad of Freddy's "Scenes for the sake of Freddy Scenes" from the remake of Nightmare going on here with Micheal. Laurie drops off the reality papers at the Myers house just like in the original, only difference is Laurie taunts little Tommy Doyal while she does it. Now as we are being introduced to our new cast of characters we find TWO slutty girls double trouble in Halloween, but that was the same as Carpenter's. Now that we are in adult Micheal Ville we are seeing remake incarnate as it's nearly scene for scene with the original just a little mixed up here and there. Little lazy on Zombie's part but Halloween fanatics will like this updated version of Carpenter's scenes.
Another fun little note is that Annie (Laurie's Slut Friend Number 1) is played by the now grown up Danielle Harris who played Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4 & 5 as a little girl. Fans of the series will be happy to see her back, she was beloved by Halloween fans as a child. As the film progresses we continue get just an updated version of Carpenter's film with more slash and gash. Zombie's own vision of his childhood was fresh and realistic. This, while fun to see new and updated is simply just Carpenter's film redone in 2012. I do want to note that Zombie's Halloween 2 was a completely original story, and that *Spoiler Alert* Things do take a small twitch in it's own direction here in Halloween 1, but not enough to call this a re-imagining really, it's basically a re-telling of the same story for the most part. So much so that Its, hard for me to find anything to write about in this film until a little bit later on. If you want some insight on this particular story, I will give the story it's own review next Halloween when I review Carpenter's film. There is a HUGE gap where nothing new happens, its scene for scene with the original for the next half hour of the movie or so, even as much as the characters and the names. Remember Ben Tramer? No? Well Annie tries to set Laurie up with Ben Tramer, in Carpenter's film, care to guess who Annie tries to set Laurie up with in Zombie's film? Yup you guessed it... Ben Tramer.
They reveal that Laurie is Micheals sister in this film, something they didnt do in Carpenter's till Halloween 2 but it hardly makes any difference. The only thing it does is sets it up for a small and I mean a SMALL little twist later on where we learn Micheal's true motives in trying to find Laurie. Here in Zombie's film he just wanted to reunite with his baby sister and had no intention of killing her... till she stabs him in shoulder, well that just pisses him off and now we get our little brother Sister Sibling rivalry going on...only they are playing for keeps. Micheal then loses his freakin mind... An institutionalized mental patient loosing his freakin mind? Well that's just crazy, apparently no one in Haddonfield cares at all about all the blood curdling screams going on. This was a tad more believable in Carpenter's because most of the screaming took place inside a house, and there actually was very little screaming going on. But no one seems to care as Laurie runs all over the place screaming her head off.
Now while Laurie and Micheal are playing who gets to die, we end up on the balcony just like in the original, accept at this point, it's just Laurie and Micheal Loomis doesn't save the day like he did in the original. It's Laurie who shoots Micheal square in the face, as we roll to credits seeing flashes back of young Mikey Myers and baby boo. Whether or not Micheal survives is left up to your imagination... until Zombie's Halloween 2 came out. (I'll give that a go probably here soon too since we are doing remakes and Zombie's H2 is entirely his own story)
Tittie Count: 8
Micheal's Body count: 14
Final Thoughts
Zombie's Halloween started off fresh and realistic with a degree of realism that is hard to find in the horror genre. The first half of the film that follows him as a youngster and a young adult is completely fresh and original, but once we get to current day it becomes literally scene for scene just updated from the original. The ONLY twist comes when we find out Micheal's true motive was only to reunite with Laurie his "Baby Boo" from his childhood, but once Laurie stabs him it's all over and we are back to Carpenter's film again. What Carpenter did though that Zombie didn't as his degree of suspense. Zombie's Halloween was more prequel then remake and when we got to the remake it was far more slash and gash than suspense. Not that there is anything wrong with slash and gash, but this is Halloween... Not Friday the 13th, you need to stay true to what your core audience is going to expect. Now where the Friday remake succeeded where Halloween failed was it's story. The second half of the movie was not anything new, there were not throw backs to the originals, it was scene with the original. (However he does vastly improve upon this in his version of Halloween 2) Halloween 2012 is a fun slasher that will make Halloween fans happy, but offers nothing new when we get to where it really counts. It's not a bad film like the "Nightmare" remake but its no where near the great film that the "Friday" remake was it's somewhere in between.
Final Rating: 3.5 outa 5
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