"Michael Meyers was created by interior and exterior factors gone violently wrong. A perfect storm,if you will."
Added 11/13/2009
I rented Rob Zombie's Halloween sort of not really knowing if it was going to completely suck or if he hit one out of the park? Well, after seeing it...I have to tell ya, Rob didn't hit a home run but his new vision and re-telling of Carpenter's "classic" Halloween is a solid hit. He stuck to the basic story and plot (rearranged some things) and completely re-vamped Halloween into something much better (he got rid of allot of the hokeyness that was in the original). While not perfect (I had an issue with the "time line") I can look past that one discrepancy, it played out much smoother and with less down time.
Zombie's version of Halloween is far more violent and shows much more graphic detail. I liked the back story that gave you a better glimpse to how Michael Meyers came to be and the meaning behind "the mask". Halloween purists will argue that Zombie revealed too much by giving too much away and spending too much time on other details. Those are the minute minority that are just hung up on Carpenter's classic and are unwilling to accept a new version of the film.
You can't compare the two films. While similar in character and plot, they are completely two different animals. Carpenter's Halloween will always be the "cult classic" and what Zombie was attempting to do (and executed well) was make it "his film". Doing a complete carbon copy of the original would have been pointless and an insult to the original. I'm glad that Zombie manned up and took the reins on this one giving it quite a different look and feel. Dirty, gritty, cruel and ferocious to the end. Zombie's vision of Halloween will keep your attention from start to finish. I liked it so much that I broke down and bought the DVD, it is well worth watching and owning and great film for a Halloween night tradition.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Starts well then turns into a standard remake
Added 10/24/2009
Remakes often fail, especially when based on classic material, as they are constantly compared to the original. It may be unfair, but it is inevitable. So, with the remake of a movie as good and as well known as Halloween, Rob Zombie was stepping into some very big shoes. What was interesting to me, is how the portions of the movie that had nothing to do with the original were far more interesting to me than those which were a remake. While nothing necessarily unique, watching Mike Myers as a young boy, with all sorts of problems, mental and social, was rather interesting. In some ways, leaving this movie as a prequel rather than a prequel/remake would have been advised. Once the movie decided to become a remake I largely lost interest, knowing who was going to die, and constantly feeling that it had been done before dragged the movie down a notch. When Laurie finally asks "Was that the boogie man?" I cringed, as it felt so out of place, and a forced nod to the original.
It's a shame really that the remake portion detracted from the what could have otherwise been something interesting. I think Rob Zombie had shown some real darkness and great film making in the dark and sadistic devil's rejects, and was hoping for more from this. While I got some interesting moments, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe his sequel will cure the defects of the remake, and stick to being its own entity. Its worth seeing, if you're not expecting too much.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Zombie Misses The Point!!
Added 10/17/2009
After reading the dead-on "Needless Look Behind The Curtain" review (good job Miles!), I just wanted to add that Zombie not only missed the point but took too many cheap liberties. There are alot of swearing just for the sake of swearing moments that leave me underwhelmed. Usually when theres a lack of any real substance in a movie (typically in horror or "gangsta") foul language can be used as "padding", kind of like puddy to fill the cracks in an otherwise spotty stretch of dialogue. Many of Michael's murder sequences are very dark and confusing and continue for lengthy periods. While I like this effect when used in restraint (a key concept lacking in Zombie's movies), it is actually distracting to the point of leaving these dramatic moments ineffectual. Nothing is ever dramatic in a Zombie film because the man has no RESTRAINT. Like "Full Metal Jacket", this movie has 2 parts: childhood/incarceration; adulthood/escape. This first part is wonderfully done but relies too much on schlocky sex angles and that language. I do like the retro 70's vibe of the first part and I can go with the Michael Myers childhood storyline if need be. Michael's new history seemed plausible and made Michael more human. Like Miles said in his review, this human element ruins the 2nd part where he takes on those immortal qualities we've all grown up with. Another complaint about the darkness of many scenes is I can't tell if Laurie shoots Michael in the head at the end or what. Why was she able to recover from the balcony fall with Michael faster than him? HUH?? There are a few grey areas in this movie to say the least.
Zombie, nontheless, comes up with a stellar cast (Malcolm MacDowell, Mickey Dolenz, and even Richard Lynch "Seven-Ups") and their bright performances all but save this movie. Halloween fans may be divided and some I'm sure will like this movie. As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Loomis has nothing to apologize to Michael over!
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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A (needless) look behind the curtain...
Added 10/16/2009
My first reaction to Rob Zombie's remake of HALLOWEEN was: "Why?" The film is near-perfect as it is, and didn't need to be remade or, as the idiotic studio-suit buzzword goes, "re-imagined." But what the hell. Since Hollywood isn't interested in new ideas, and Zombie has apparently run out of such ideas as he has, I guess it was inevitable. This leads me to my second reaction, post-watching-the-film, which is, "Is Rob Zombie a f-ing idiot or what? Doesn't he get why this was a good movie in the first place?"
I don't say this to be abusive. I do believe Zombie has some talent and aesthetic style. The problem is that his style - at least as it pertains to HALLOWEEN -- is the wrong one. You don't use a sledgehammer to do a flyswatter's job, and you don't let a sadistic, gore-infatuated fanboy direct a horror masterpiece. The original HALLOWEEN was great for a lot of reasons, but chief among them, it didn't overanalyze its villain. And this is the real point that needs to be made here, because what Zombie does to his HALLOWEEN is part of an much wider and sillier trend in modern horror - the need to provide a reason why its killers do what they do.
If I had to sum up the original, John Carpenter-directed version of the film in one phrase, it would be this: "Yes, Virginia, there really is a Boogeyman." That's basically it. The motivations of the film's masked, mouth-breathing murderer, Michael Myers, are never explained to any meaningful degree, because - gasp! - they don't have a rational explanation. Michael doesn't get an "origin story"; no insight is provided as to why he murdered his sister Judith as a young boy, or why he's re-enacting the crime on a much larger scale as an adult. He's killing Because. Just BECAUSE. That's as much why as you get. It's almost Biblical. ("Who are you?" Moses asks the burning bush. "Who I AM." God replies. "I Am Who I AM.") As Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) explains to the Sheriff, Michael is not so much a human being as an embodiment of Evil itself, a Bad Thing that Happens to Good People. He's the Book of Job in a William Shatner mask. (That's why, incidentally, he's credited at the end of the film not as Michael Myers, but as "The Shape": he's taken the shape of your fears, whatever they might be.) But HALLOWEEN is not less scary for this lack of information. Quite the contrary. It's scarier precisely because we don't get the satisfaction. There is no "Why?" where Michael is concerned. He just Is.
Zombie isn't satisfied with that answer, and so he's approached the film from a different angle - the angle of the "origin story." Here, Michael's origin is that as a child, he was abused, neglected, picked-on, and basically f'd from birth. As a result, he developed into an unspeaking, sadistic, remorseless killer. Very neat. Very plausible. And completely missing the point. Because by reducing Michael to a set of influences, mere cause and effect, he's also taking away nearly all his power as a villain. There's a reason we don't look behind the curtain in Oz; we might discover the Wizard is a sweaty dwarf on a treadmill. That's not cool. That's boring. And so is this film. Because not only does Zombie ruin the best aspect of HALLOWEEN - the almost-supernatural Boogeyman angle - he also viciously stomps the other aspect that made the original special - its sense of restraint. Carpenter had enough sense to understand that what is left out of a movie is often just as important as what is left in. Instead of a few perfectly set-up and executed murders, we get a gigantic massacre that quickly numbs. Instead of a few drops of blood, we get buckets of steaming gore (always the first refuge of the hack who can't actually scare his audience). Instead of long cat-and-mouse games with totally unsuspecting victims that rack up the tension to an unbearable degree, climaxing in sudden death, we get drawn-out bludgeonings, followed by nonfatal stabbings, followed by near-escapes, followed by more bludgeonings and finally, fatal stabbings. Zombie's complete lack of subtlety, his refusal to leave anything to the imagination, isn't just bad film-making in and of itself; it's completely unsuited to the telling of this particular tale. Using him to do a HALLOWEEN remake is like using a rusty chainsaw to perform eye surgery.
I suppose you could make an argument that since this is a remake (excuse me, a "re-imagining"), Zombie was entitled, even obligated, to go in a different direction than Carpenter, one which has Dr. Loomis actually apologizing to Michael for "failing" him instead of blasting him with a .38, 'cause tha's what you do with Pure Evil when you find it. But even here the film falls down, because if Michael is a pure sociopath, as Malcom McDowell's version of Loomis maintains, Loomis has little to apologize for. See, while the jury's still out about whether a psychopath/sociopath can be actually be "made" in childhood (as opposed to simply "born wrong") there is universal agreement that neither sociopathy nor psychopathy are actually curable. How can a doctor fail the incurable? And this brings us back to the whole idea that made Carpenter's flick scary: that pure Evil is something outside of human influence, happening on its own terms for its own reasons and not subject to psychological analysis or treatment. (Donald Pleasance's Loomis ultimately got that Michael couldn't be "reached" - except by bullets.) Put simply, the genius of the original HALLOWEEN is that it ducked all the moral-psychological elements Zombie embraces and concentrated on one simple idea, best summed up by the last two lines of dialogue in the film:
LAURIE STRODE: (sobbing) Was that the Boogeyman?
DR. LOOMIS: As a matter of fact...it was.
7 out of 7 people found this helpful.
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Unable to live up to the original
Added 10/15/2009
I am an avid Halloween fan and loved the origianl movies. So, when I heard that they were remaking this movie I was excited, but a little aprehensive as well. How can you live up to the origianl or make it better? This movie did reveal more about what makes Michael tick, but it also focused too much on the sex which not all horror movies need to revolve around. It would have been better to keep the focus on Michael and what drove him into madness and mayham.
2 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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"Michael Meyers was created by interior and exterior factors gone violently wrong. A perfect storm,if you will."
Added 11/13/2009
I rented Rob Zombie's Halloween sort of not really knowing if it was going to completely suck or if he hit one out of the park? Well, after seeing it...I have to tell ya, Rob didn't hit a home run but his new vision and re-telling of Carpenter's "classic" Halloween is a solid hit. He stuck to the basic story and plot (rearranged some things) and completely re-vamped Halloween into something much better (he got rid of allot of the hokeyness that was in the original). While not perfect (I had an issue with the "time line") I can look past that one discrepancy, it played out much smoother and with less down time.
Zombie's version of Halloween is far more violent and shows much more graphic detail. I liked the back story that gave you a better glimpse to how Michael Meyers came to be and the meaning behind "the mask". Halloween purists will argue that Zombie revealed too much by giving too much away and spending too much time on other details. Those are the minute minority that are just hung up on Carpenter's classic and are unwilling to accept a new version of the film.
You can't compare the two films. While similar in character and plot, they are completely two different animals. Carpenter's Halloween will always be the "cult classic" and what Zombie was attempting to do (and executed well) was make it "his film". Doing a complete carbon copy of the original would have been pointless and an insult to the original. I'm glad that Zombie manned up and took the reins on this one giving it quite a different look and feel. Dirty, gritty, cruel and ferocious to the end. Zombie's vision of Halloween will keep your attention from start to finish. I liked it so much that I broke down and bought the DVD, it is well worth watching and owning and great film for a Halloween night tradition.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
|
Starts well then turns into a standard remake
Added 10/24/2009
Remakes often fail, especially when based on classic material, as they are constantly compared to the original. It may be unfair, but it is inevitable. So, with the remake of a movie as good and as well known as Halloween, Rob Zombie was stepping into some very big shoes. What was interesting to me, is how the portions of the movie that had nothing to do with the original were far more interesting to me than those which were a remake. While nothing necessarily unique, watching Mike Myers as a young boy, with all sorts of problems, mental and social, was rather interesting. In some ways, leaving this movie as a prequel rather than a prequel/remake would have been advised. Once the movie decided to become a remake I largely lost interest, knowing who was going to die, and constantly feeling that it had been done before dragged the movie down a notch. When Laurie finally asks "Was that the boogie man?" I cringed, as it felt so out of place, and a forced nod to the original.
It's a shame really that the remake portion detracted from the what could have otherwise been something interesting. I think Rob Zombie had shown some real darkness and great film making in the dark and sadistic devil's rejects, and was hoping for more from this. While I got some interesting moments, I was left with a bad taste in my mouth. Maybe his sequel will cure the defects of the remake, and stick to being its own entity. Its worth seeing, if you're not expecting too much.
1 out of 1 people found this helpful.
|
Zombie Misses The Point!!
Added 10/17/2009
After reading the dead-on "Needless Look Behind The Curtain" review (good job Miles!), I just wanted to add that Zombie not only missed the point but took too many cheap liberties. There are alot of swearing just for the sake of swearing moments that leave me underwhelmed. Usually when theres a lack of any real substance in a movie (typically in horror or "gangsta") foul language can be used as "padding", kind of like puddy to fill the cracks in an otherwise spotty stretch of dialogue. Many of Michael's murder sequences are very dark and confusing and continue for lengthy periods. While I like this effect when used in restraint (a key concept lacking in Zombie's movies), it is actually distracting to the point of leaving these dramatic moments ineffectual. Nothing is ever dramatic in a Zombie film because the man has no RESTRAINT. Like "Full Metal Jacket", this movie has 2 parts: childhood/incarceration; adulthood/escape. This first part is wonderfully done but relies too much on schlocky sex angles and that language. I do like the retro 70's vibe of the first part and I can go with the Michael Myers childhood storyline if need be. Michael's new history seemed plausible and made Michael more human. Like Miles said in his review, this human element ruins the 2nd part where he takes on those immortal qualities we've all grown up with. Another complaint about the darkness of many scenes is I can't tell if Laurie shoots Michael in the head at the end or what. Why was she able to recover from the balcony fall with Michael faster than him? HUH?? There are a few grey areas in this movie to say the least.
Zombie, nontheless, comes up with a stellar cast (Malcolm MacDowell, Mickey Dolenz, and even Richard Lynch "Seven-Ups") and their bright performances all but save this movie. Halloween fans may be divided and some I'm sure will like this movie. As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Loomis has nothing to apologize to Michael over!
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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