'Halloween' remake bloodier, not better
Published Sept. 7, 2007
The year was 1978. Jimmy Carter was two years into his tenure as president, the New York Yankees had just won the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Jamie Lee Curtis' sex was generally accepted as female. That year, Curtis also starred in John Carpenter's "Halloween." The low-budget flick became a hit among audiences, and from it grew Hollywood's new obsession with indestructible ogres hacking up horny teens. Twenty-nine years later, director Rob Zombie has released his "reinvention" of the horror classic.
Zombie decided his first step in reinventing the franchise would be to delve into the inner psyche of Michael Myers as a child. Finally! Now audiences can understand the truth behind the man in the white mask. Why did he kill his older sister? Why does he have an obsession with the remaining Strode family? Why can't that motherfucker ever die? All of the world will finally know, thanks to Rob Zombie.
But, as I sat watching the young Michael Myers' psychological trip into the inner bowels of hell, all I could ask myself was, "Are you kidding me?"
The mute, behemoth-killing machine was a Kiss fan when he was 6 years old? He pouted around all day and was bullied at school for being different? He hated his mom's boyfriend? I'm pretty sure that is everyone who shops at Hot Topic.
So the kid had family issues and was interested in dead animals. So what? I poked a run-over squirrel with a stick once, and I have not killed anyone.
Although Zombie has good intentions in trying to show the origins of Myers, the image of Zombie's younger Myers and the older Myers just do not seem to match. The character of Michael Myers might just be too fucked up for explanation.
With the exception of some tweaks, Zombie's movie basically follows the original. Myers kills his family and is put under the eye of Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) in a mental institution. Fifteen years later, Myers escapes to track down his baby sister, Laurie. Essentially, Zombie then follows the three Bs required for a crappy slasher flick: blood, butcher knives and boobies.
The casting in the movie is also way off. McDowell just can't pull off Dr. Loomis. Scout-Taylor Compton plays Laurie so annoyingly that you are begging for her to die, not by Myers, but by a flesh-eating disease. But fans of the "Halloween" series will be excited that Danielle Harris (who played Laurie Strode's daughter in the fourth and fifth "Halloween" movies) returns to the series as Laurie's friend, Annie.
"Halloween" as a movie in itself is not that bad. It is a welcome break from all those Japanese-turned-American movies about the ghosts of pissed-off dead kids cursing everyone else. But, when compared to Carpenter's original, it is bloodier, not better.