Trashy characters, buckets of gore, Rob Zombie? When you think these three elements you don't really think classic horror. John Carpenter's legendary Halloween set the foundation for new age horror films and is incomparable to this farce. However, I did enjoy this movie despite it's many, many flaws.
Rob Zombie takes this classic story to epic levels -- in all the wrong ways. Adding a trailer park backstory and many one-dimensional characters. From what I have learned, if you absolutely adored the original (like myself, and millions of others), you will hate this film. If you are among the new generation who love nothing but gore and tits, you will probably love this one. You cannot replicate great art, instead you make it your own, and I think this is why I am split on this movie. Rob Zombie's eye for detail and atmosphere, I believe, is genius, however, his vision doesn't belong in the Michael Myers world.
The movie, though, is cleverly split into three acts. The fist act consisting of Michael Myers' childhood and how he became the legendary slasher villain he is today. Zombie's wife Sheri Moon Zombie plays Mikey's mom, who isn't a very good actress but made the part believable (also, was nice to see her in a more conventional role than what we saw her in The Devils Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses). The first act, however, is a fine mess. It would have been more creepier if Mike came from a nice, suburban family rather than a redneck one. I don't know about you, but Mike coming from an already hostile family shatters his creepy mythos. Zombie throws us into an unknown timeline, which looks like the 70's (with music to convince us it is the 70's) but is never officially stated which makes the movie more jarring (in a good, but also bad way).
The second act takes us to Mike in the asylum and we are introduced to his doctor, The Van Helsing-esque Dr. Loomis (played brilliantly but oddly by Malcolm McDowell). We see numerous deaths, awkward dialouge, and a suicide scene (one of the better scenes of the movie). Now, what Zombie does to Myers was probably the biggest mistake in the movie -- making him mammoth. What was so frightening about the original was that Myers looked like your average joe (which is scarier to me by far) but Zombie threw that out the window and turned Myers into a seven foot Jason-like monster -- which, is why I could see this might work but it just doesn't.
The third act is a brash recycling of the original just taking the 90 minute masterpiece rushed into about 45 minutes. The characters we all loved are turned into annoying, dumb teenagers and our heroine, Laurie Strode, is someone the audience would never care about. The atmosphere from the original is gone and even though the remake is thoroughly entertaining, we are not on edge at all. Although it was nice to see Danielle Harris (little Jamie from Halloween 4 and 5) back running from Michael Myers.
I did enjoy this movie despite some harsh words. Zombie did take this story to a whole 'nother level. The production design was unbelievable and the music was spot on. The biggest flaw of this movie is the screenplay. Zombie may be an adequate director but he is a horrible dialouge writer. Some of the dialouge in this movie was outrageous and ridiculous, even laughable. I'm not a hater of profanity, but seriously do we need to hear "fuck" ever other word?
Despite it's flaws, I do own this movie and will pop it in if I'm ever bored and it is interesting to see how such a simple story is transformed or "Zombie"fied, if you will. This is an awesome movie to watch with friends and I recommend watching it once autumn rolls around, but never forget what inspired this movie -- the original. I'm sure no one will.
2 stars out of 5
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