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clayhornikI went into the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween with one thought: don't screw it up like The Fog.
I don't think he screwed it up.
There's a trend now in comics- expanded or exploded- I can't remember the correct term but it's a decompression of action; a recent re-conceptualization of the Fantastic Four took five issues to tell the same story Stan Lee and Jack Kirby told in one issue. Not a bad thing or a good thing, just a different thing. Zombie brings this decompressed sensibility to his take on the Michael Meyers story.
Like the John Carpenter original, it starts with Michael Meyers as a child, but it gives us the context of his life- single mother with an abusive boyfriend, picked on at school, and he's got a bit of a screw loose.
There's a bloodbath on Halloween night, after which he's incarcerated under the care of Sam Loomis, played by Michael McDowell this time out.
McDowell's Loomis lacks the manic bug-eyedness of Donald Pleasence, and seems much more grounded, almost empathizing with his charge.
Until, of course, Meyers escapes- which is given more screentime in the remake over the original's escape scene.
Played by Tyler Mane, Meyers is a big hulking piece of menace. Mane does looming menace quite well, having played Sabretooth in the X-Men.
Then the movie pretty much becomes an update of the original. Teenagers have sex and die. The virgin lives.
A nice touch is one of the teenaged girls, played by PJ Soles in the original, using the word totally the way most people would use a comma. Totally.
Unfortunately, there's a tonal shift of sorts that becomes apparent. Prior to the escape, when it's pretty much Zombies project, there was a feel to the movie, Zombie-vision if you will. It was there in House of A Thousand Corpses and the Devils Rejects. You can feel it because people who'd normally chatter during a movie- and they were there at the matinee yesterday- shut up because they're reacting on a visceral level to the What Have I Let Myself Watch-ness of a Zombie movie. Terror Incognita, if you will, where the "horror" isn't with a knife, but waiting for something bad to happen at the breakfast table as a babyscreams in the background, or watching young Michael take abuse from classmates because his mother's a stripper.
I dunno.
I'm rambling now.
There's a visual texture to Zombies movies I like. I don't know if it's the film stock or a filter he uses, but there's a look and feel to all of his movies that screams Seventies DriveIn.
Oh yeah, the score... yes, Zombie uses Carpenter's original theme. Major points for that.
Anyway- Halloween isn't the standard remake crap. It's not art by any standard, but it was a fun afternoon distraction.
But... Why don't they just re-release the originals? I watched the John Carpenter version a couple of weeks ago and it still holds up.
I don't think he screwed it up.
There's a trend now in comics- expanded or exploded- I can't remember the correct term but it's a decompression of action; a recent re-conceptualization of the Fantastic Four took five issues to tell the same story Stan Lee and Jack Kirby told in one issue. Not a bad thing or a good thing, just a different thing. Zombie brings this decompressed sensibility to his take on the Michael Meyers story.
Like the John Carpenter original, it starts with Michael Meyers as a child, but it gives us the context of his life- single mother with an abusive boyfriend, picked on at school, and he's got a bit of a screw loose.
There's a bloodbath on Halloween night, after which he's incarcerated under the care of Sam Loomis, played by Michael McDowell this time out.
McDowell's Loomis lacks the manic bug-eyedness of Donald Pleasence, and seems much more grounded, almost empathizing with his charge.
Until, of course, Meyers escapes- which is given more screentime in the remake over the original's escape scene.
Played by Tyler Mane, Meyers is a big hulking piece of menace. Mane does looming menace quite well, having played Sabretooth in the X-Men.
Then the movie pretty much becomes an update of the original. Teenagers have sex and die. The virgin lives.
A nice touch is one of the teenaged girls, played by PJ Soles in the original, using the word totally the way most people would use a comma. Totally.
Unfortunately, there's a tonal shift of sorts that becomes apparent. Prior to the escape, when it's pretty much Zombies project, there was a feel to the movie, Zombie-vision if you will. It was there in House of A Thousand Corpses and the Devils Rejects. You can feel it because people who'd normally chatter during a movie- and they were there at the matinee yesterday- shut up because they're reacting on a visceral level to the What Have I Let Myself Watch-ness of a Zombie movie. Terror Incognita, if you will, where the "horror" isn't with a knife, but waiting for something bad to happen at the breakfast table as a babyscreams in the background, or watching young Michael take abuse from classmates because his mother's a stripper.
I dunno.
I'm rambling now.
There's a visual texture to Zombies movies I like. I don't know if it's the film stock or a filter he uses, but there's a look and feel to all of his movies that screams Seventies DriveIn.
Oh yeah, the score... yes, Zombie uses Carpenter's original theme. Major points for that.
Anyway- Halloween isn't the standard remake crap. It's not art by any standard, but it was a fun afternoon distraction.
But... Why don't they just re-release the originals? I watched the John Carpenter version a couple of weeks ago and it still holds up.
