HALLOWEEN (2007)
Halloween - Unrated Director's Cut (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition)
Directed by: Rob Zombie
Starring: Tyler Mane, Scout Taylor-Compton, Danielle Harris, Malcolm McDowell, the entire cast of The Devil’s Rejects
Once upon a time there was a little boy named Michael Myers, on Halloween night that young boy took up a big ass kitchen knife and sliced and diced his own sister before being locked away.
Fifteen years later Michael Myers broke out and wreaked havoc on the town of Haddonfield, leaving a slew of bodies in his wake.
John Carpenter’s Halloween is still acknowledged as being a suspense filled, full on, ass kicking movie which became a global phenomena, destined for greatness….Rob Zombie’s is not.
Zombie’s so called “Re-imagining” of said horror classic begins more like a Halloween prequel meets Cops with just a hint of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, we see Michael before he becomes notorious, he lives at home with his hot yet rather trashy looking stripper mum (played by the booty-icious Sheri-Moon Zombie), his even hotter and hornier sister, and his foulmouthed, crippled, red-necked, skull-fucking father (Forsyth) so needless to say things are less then ideal for the chubby little psychopath in the making.
Then on Halloween night young Mickey Myers decides he’s had enough and BAM just like that he goes postal on his family’s ass.
Dr. Loomis is put on the case of trying to understand Michael’s state of mind, a better idea would have been for someone to try and understand Zombie’s state of mind!
You see there is no real point in continuing with the movies plot synopsis as from here on in its pretty much your average rehash remake, this is Halloweens biggest failure, and in turn, Zombie’s also. When remaking a straight forwards story like Halloweens it’s a good idea to bring something new to the table, which Zombie only does for the first half of the film, the second half is in turn truncated and much less effective then before.
So sad, too bad, let’s move on, because we have much to talk about.
Of all Halloweens problems, acting is high on the list, some of it is plain, some of it is bad but most of it is just so out of place it takes you out of place.
Scout, who as one of the most central roles is little more then mediocre at best, she sounds more like a whiney little bitch then the strong willed and determined gal we used to know, she resembles nothing of the Laurie Strode character, hell, if she hadn’t been named Laurie she might as well have been victim #12 or someone else forgettable, the same can be said about the other girls (including a P.J Soles wannabe) whom we are given absolutely no reason to care about, it’s called ‘character development’ Rob.
In fact the only character development that takes place is Michaels in the first half, but by the second half what we learn about Michael becomes meaningless when he ceases to be a character.
The only good acting comes from Ken Foree as Joe Grizzly (“I’m Joe Grizzly bitch”) who is an absolute badass, and Danielle Harris, sadly she gets very little screen time but she was great in what she was in, that and she looks fucking great with black hair.
It’s too bad that nobody else came close to being good. And what the fuck is with the endless stream of out of place cameos? It’s like Zombie is trying to distract us from the poor characters and even poorer dialogue, with a game of horror celebrity where’s waldo!
That brings me to yet another point on the ever growing list of reasons why this movie should have never been. There’s no easy way to put it…it sucks!
Some of the stuff that spews from the mouths of the characters sounds like quotes from a movie I’d put in the next write up of Schlock Value, the very worst of it comes from Malcolm McDowell’s rendition of Sam Loomis, it’s so misplaced it’s embarrassing, don’t get me wrong, McDowell isn’t a bad actor I love A Clockwork Orange, but the dialogue written is terrible, that plus it’s over saturated with profanity.
I’m not prudish, but maybe, just maybe, Mr. Zombie should’ve blow the dust of his dictionary when writing this one because there’s not enough bleeps in the world to censor the oh so very naughty words that continuously spew from the mouths of each and ever single character in this god forsaken movie.
Strangely enough I found myself really happy with the ending, I know, I know, shout blasphemer as much as you want, maybe it was that I was so unhappy with the rest of the movie but I loved the bleak ending, in the shot of Scout before she’s tackled by Michael out the window she looks so fucked up and beaten down that it hooked me, the finally scene of her with the gun (I won’t spoil anything for you readers) felt chaotic and shocking, it’s a shame the rest of the movie sucked to bad.
Let’s set things straight, I am a Rob Zombie fan, I was entertained by his rather poor first feature House of 1000 Corpses (boy am I going to get shit for that), and it goes without saying that The Devil’s Rejects kicked some major ass, and I’ve got to respect Zombie because it takes some major balls to take a beloved horror movie like the original Halloween and at least try to make something original, as opposed to some of the appalling remakes that are being pumped out on an almost daily basis by Producers who don’t give a flying fuck about the original, its fan base or even staying true to the original in some way shape or from, they’re just out to make a quick buck or two (*cough* Michael Bay *cough*) so I don’t hate Zombie for making this, it’s just to bad the movie didn’t live up to all that it could have and should have been, Halloween defiantly has a few hits, but for every hit there are two misses.
If this review seems long, it’s because I have had a very hard time reviewing it, I don’t know why, maybe it was because it was such a mediocre movie with nothing special that stood it out from the rest of the horror remakes of the last century.
Zombie didn’t do the original any justice, save for giving us a topless Danielle Harris (ha, ha, guy’s I’m young enough to see that wondrous scene and not thing of a six year old Danielle), but hey, maybe he can still do it with C.H.U.D!!
2 out of 5