Halloween - A Second Look at Rob Zombie’s Remake

I caught the film in theatres back in 2007 when it came out and thought it was a pretty damn good remake — my friend (who generally doesn’t care for horror movies) and I had a brief conversation afterwards that wound up with us agreeing that it was obvious a lot of care had gone into making the film.  And now, two years later, I still agree. From the music to the way the scenes are set up, while this film contains a very different Michael Myers, the spirit is still the same.

(Here there be spoilers)

To me, it still seems like Michael is still doing the same routine, but for different reasons.  In the original, he had ALMOST supernatural like strength when he killed, but in this one, his power comes from his very large physique that life has granted him.  And he still kills in his methodical ways — duct tape/throat slash, the still infamous ghost with eye glasses, and even the ripping out of the lady’s throat seemed well synchronized.  And where the original concluded that Michael was purely (and simply) evil personified, I think this film pretty well concludes the same.  Even though we see Michael’s screwed up household, we do see that he loves his mother very much, and has a great affection for her, and then, finally, one day at Smith’s Grove he snaps completely and even tries to attack HER, and from then on he became pretty well the same silent “evil” we always knew him to be (also seen when he murders the man who always looked after him).

And one thing I did like about the newer version, too, was that while there was a fair amount of blood in this film, there wasn’t necessarily that much gore.  For the majority of murders, Zombie would only linger on the deaths for a short period, never quite enough for us to see anything too goretastic.  Like, say, Laurie’s stepfather’s throat-ripping scene — it happens so fast and then cuts away that it takes you a second to realize what he just did; then there’s also the subsequent murder of her stepmother, which Zombie does linger on, but only while she is still alive, immediately cutting away after Michael cracks her neck.  Then, of course, there are the deaths that are replications of the original films that are handled with the same amount of care as I remember from Carpenter’s.  I guess it should also be of note that the only time we really linger on a death scene is Ronnie’s death, which I personally think was put to good use because Michael was still this small and vulnerable kid that we couldn’t quite see the full monster in — noting of course the first death scene with the school bully which we mostly just saw the after effects of, and the actual hits mostly done off-screen.  And while the first half of the movie does provide A LOT of exposition, I think it’s the perfect set-up for the continuous string of terror in the last half.

As for the ending, I thought it was insanely well done.  In the original Halloween, Carpenter ended his film with a string of location shots — locations where Michael had visited throughout the night — and in the background we hear his heavy breaths and we know that he’s still out there somewhere and he’s now more of a monster than we thought.  Back when that film was released, that ending was nothing short of genius.  It made you afraid of Michael all over again as the credits rolled (”He’s still out there!”).  In this day and age, though, that ending has been played and replayed and copied and Xeroxed Christ knows how many times:  It just doesn’t work anymore.  Zombie knows this, which is why his film finds its own horrific ending.  Laurie’s friend Annie seems to have survived despite massive injuries and so we get a bit of hope there.  Shortly after, though, Michael is back again, chasing down Laurie.  There’s a bit of a dramatic scene after Laurie is captured where Michael tries to communicate with her to let her know who he is… It doesn’t last long as Laurie, not understanding, rejects his notion and Michael is on the hunt once again, literally tearing the house apart to find her.  Loomis comes to the rescue, the infamous “bogeyman line” is repeated, and Michael comes back once more.  Loomis calls out to Michael, admits his own failure to help him and is subsequently murdered.  Laurie escapes, Michael chases, and they both wind up thrown out of the window of the second story house.

All very intense, yes, and Zombie could have easily taken the same ending from Carpenter’s classic and recreated here without much fuss.  But then, Michael isn’t the same supernatural being he was in the original.  Sure, Zombie could have made it so and just added the ending, but it would’ve been forced and uneven and completely out of tone with the rest of the movie.  And as we see, there’s a different horror to be found.  Laurie, disoriented but still conscious (unlike Michael), finds Loomis’ gun and takes aim at Michael’s head.  She clicks it several times, finding only empty chambers, and just as Michael regains consciousness to stop her, the gun goes off and instead of being left with a more heroic Laurie, having slain the monster, we’re left with the more realistic Laurie and the movie ends with her screaming her lungs out, pretty well left insane by everything that she’s gone through.  I found this ending so much smarter and better than anything most recent horror movies have contrived for their endings.  If Zombie had opted for the original ending, all the horror he had created up until that point would have been in vain.  A sane Laurie would have conveyed a very unrealistic tone to the film, as if all of the murders were tolerable as long as Michael is dead.  The film ending with Laurie, soaked in hers and Michael’s blood, screaming from her own insanity as the credits began to roll really gave the film the final horrific spin it needed for a proper conclusion.

As for the technical aspects, Zombie once again exceeded my expectations. I’ve seen The Devil’s Rejects and I’ve seen House of 1000 Corpses and for the most part, I enjoyed both for what they were — though the former is obviously the better film by far.  With both movies, Zombie’s direction was very raw and very intense; the photography was gritty and CGI effects were next to none (thinking back I can’t even remember a particular moment in either movie where CGI was even necessary).  Whether these direction choices were deliberate or made because of lack of budget, one can’t be sure — I suspect it was a mix of both.  Whatever the case, that direction worked for those films.  It grounded it I guess you could say, working for the films rather than against them.  With Halloween, however, Zombie switched directions.  Instead of gritty, we mostly have nice, crisp photography, and like Carpenter, Zombie makes good use shadows and low lighting.  Like his previous efforts, though, Zombie again brings his trademark intensiveness and shoves it right in our face.  We’re no longer afraid of the bogeyman lurking in the shadows, we’re afraid of this powerhouse of evil that will break though doors and walls alike to get to us, and there’s very little that can get in its way.

And one more thing: Laurie! Scout Taylor-Compton was perfect in her role.  There was never a moment where you really thought she was reaching for sympathy, yet at the same time she put off a high level of vulnerability.  She was cute, spunky, and, most important, very likable.  She brought respect to the part that indeed was also a crucial role to make in the original.

Be sure, though, that if you’ve yet to check out this film, to watch ONLY the Theatrical Cut.  In my humble opinion, the “Unrated Director’s Cut” gave us more of a Rob Zombie Devil’s Rejects kind of film than an actual Halloween film.  For one thing, Michael’s escape really goes into a direction that just doesn’t seem to belong in the movie — it simply takes the audience out of the film.  I’m speaking of course about the rape scene in which two orderlies bring a female mental patient into Michael’s room and begin to have their way with her — when they try to get Michael in on it, he snaps on them, kills them, and escapes.  Okay, A) The scene is just kind of silly, and B) Not for a second, after everything we’ve seen, do we believe these orderlies would be able get away with such a thing.  Then there’s the ending.  If I remember correctly (I’ve only seen the Unrated Cut once), instead of Laurie killing Michael, the police show up and Loomis (not dead) is able to get Michael to hand Laurie over.  As they walk away, Michael takes a step or two towards them and is then gunned down by the police.  Where’s the horror in that?  It just doesn’t fit within the context of the movie.  Very anticlimactic.  (Sorry Zombie, but sometimes it’s best to go with the advice from the studio producers than your own.)

Halloween (the original) is always the film that I HAVE to watch every Halloween (it’s kind of a necessity, IMO) but now it’s also nice to have Zombie’s film as well (the Theatrical Cut, of course).  Like Carpenter’s original, Zombie never goes for the cheap scare (”the cat in the closet”) and always makes it completely clear what the real fear is.  Haters say what they may (and will), but Zombie succeeded admirably where most other directors would have failed miserably.