Let me preface this review of Rob Zombie’s Halloween by saying that, like a lot of people, I was pretty appalled by the idea of anyone tampering with John Carpenter’s classic; what I consider to be the greatest horror film of all time. Still, a remake/reimagining (or, at the very least, another lousy sequel) was fairly inevitable with this franchise, so horror fans could do worse than having the project fall into the hands of someone like Rob Zombie, both a talented director and a hardcore horror purist.
Zombie’s Halloween is best described as the rise and fall of Michael Myers in three acts. We are introduced to Michael at ten years old (played by the cherubic Daeg Faerch), and immediately bear witness to the young boy’s penchant for killing small animals – something he does as casually as one would brush their teeth – before being thrust into his Jerry Springer Show existence. Michael’s mom. Deborah (Moon-Zombie), is a stripper with a heart of gold; her boyfriend, Ronny (Forsythe), is an abusive drunk; while his sister, Judith, looks like she’s just sprung from the pages of a Li’l Abner comic, in her short-shorts and grease-stained t-shirts. It’s the holy trinity of White Trash stereotypes, with everyone looking like they need a shower, and spouting dialogue that reads like a pissing contest between Tennessee Williams, David Mamet, and Quentin Tarantino. It’s no wonder that, on Halloween, Michael is driven to kill half of his family, if only to spare his loving mother and his baby sister, Boo, from another minute in this hell hole.
The second act focuses on Michael’s life in Smith’s Grove, and his relationship with Samuel Loomis (McDowell). These are some of the film’s most accomplished moments, as the interplay between Faerch and McDowell is quite convincing, while Moon-Zombie proves she’s more than just a pretty face during Deborah’s heartbreaking visits with Michael. Zombie shoots these scenes against Spartan white backgrounds,with gauzy, dreamlike lighting, that lends them a surreal, Kubrickian quality. At first, Michael is chatty and has completely blocked out all memory of his crimes, but, as the months pass, and it becomes apparent that he’s not leaving Smith’s Grove anytime soon, he withdraws behind his collection of homemade masks, and ceases to speak entirely.
Fifteen years later, we meet Michael as a hulking adult (played by ex-wrestler, Tyler Mane), sequestered in a cell decorated with hundreds of paper masks. Loomis, who has written a best-selling book about his patient, informs Michael that he will no longer be treating him as he has done all he can. Michael’s eyes show no reaction to this statement, but, somehow, we know it has had an effect, and, when Michael suddenly finds himself being transferred to another facility in the middle of the night, he takes advantage of the situation and escapes, cutting a swathe of violence all the way back to Haddonfield.
The final act is the “remake” portion of the film, in which Michael seeks out his little sister, Boo, who is now a less-bookish but still comparatively well-mannered young girl named Laurie Strode (Taylor-Compton). Zombie adheres to much of Carpenter’s original setup, here, with Laurie serving as the perpetual innocent in Michael’s childlike eyes, while her friends Annie and Lynda (Harris and Klebe) are the living embodiments of the sexually promiscuous Judith. Despite a few changes (as well a higher body count), these last forty minutes or so serve as a condensed version of the original, and is, in my opinion, the weakest part of this film. The final act lacks genuine suspense, but, then again, Zombie’s films tend to rely more on shock and viscera than jumps and tension. Sadly, it seems that Zombie was forced to try and inject more suspense into the final cut of the film, which results in an unnecessarily protracted denouement that felt out of place in the context of the rest of the film, and actually served to do little more than slow things down.
Other minor gripes I had with Halloween revolved around a few of the performances. It still seems as though some of Zombie’s actors, especially amongst his “stable” of regulars (almost everyone from The Devils Rejects is in this film), occasionally get the best of him. William Forsythe, in particular, chews up scenery like Augustus Gloop in a house made of Toblerone, while the parade of B-movie stalwarts – ranging from Dee Wallace to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance from Udo Kier – show why they’re…well…B-movie stalwarts. However, Scout Taylor-Compton does an admirable job as Laurie Strode, and the aformentioned Daeg Faerch is fantastic as young Michael. I also have to give props to Tyler Mane, who, faced with the unenviable task of having to perform masked, or with a face obscured by a mop of tangled hair, (and without a single line of dialogue) still manages to turn in an emotional performance through graceful and menacing body language alone.
I must confess, here, that, being the impatient sort, I’d seen the workprint of this film a few days before its theatrical release (and I must add that I didn’t download the film, as I wouldn’t even begin to know where to look for it. My seeing this alternate cut was purely a case of "right place/right time"). I was already well aware of the significant differences between both versions of the movie, but needed to see those differences with my own eyes, as I’m both a hardcore fan of the Halloween franchise (yes, warts and all), as well as a fan of Rob Zombie’s work. The two versions of this film are so different from one another that fans would be doing themselves a tremendous disservice by downloading the unofficial film in lieu of seeing the finished product, as it is literally like seeing two different movies, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, I felt that the well-publicized rape scene that originally led to Myers escape in the workprint, while abhorrent, worked better than the somewhat clumsily handled “late night transfer” in the theatrical cut. However, I found some of the killings in the theatrical cut to be more brutally effective than their counterparts in the workprint. Ultimately, I’m hoping Zombie is able to cobble together elements from both versions of this film (especially the workprint’s ending, which is far more satisfying) into a director’s cut down the line, or, at the very least, that Dimension offers both versions of the film on DVD.
Despite its shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed Zombie’s Halloween. The first two acts not only added welcome depth and insight into the character of Michael Myers, but also offered a fresh and exciting perspective on a beloved horror icon whose best years were clearly behind him. Like Zombie’s previous films, the soundtrack is absolutely perfect, with seventies and early 80’s classics from everyone from Blue Oyster Cult (whose “Don’t Fear the Reaper” featured in Carpenter’s film) to Rush, as well as a hypnotic new rendition of Mr. Sandman, courtesy of Nan Vernon. The classic score is faithfully recreated here, as well, albeit with some modern industrial embellishments. Visually, the film is a blast from the past, as Zombie stays away from the post-production Avid-vomit that mars much of today’s horror films (including his own), and, instead, delivers a straightforward shock-fest punctuated by some truly elegant moments (the fantastic “frozen time” sequence outside the Myers house following young Michael’s killings is breathtaking) that show how much Zombie has matured as a filmmaker over the span of just three films.
While this certainly isn't a better film than the original, Rob Zombie's Halloween is better than any of the franchise's other offerings, and makes for a great companion piece to Carpenter's classic.
Of course, being a Halloween fanatic, anything that breathes new life into this series is going to win favor with me, but Zombie and company have risen above my wildest expectations and delivered a film I'll be sure to watch again and again when it hits DVD.
