Halloween, Rob Zombie, 2007

Hmmm. Where to start?

Rob Zombie is a shock rocker. He is a niche artist who, I feel, has a musical talent(of course my internet wife also says I have no taste so take that with a hefty grain of salt). He had some interesting videos as he was coming up through the ranks of MTV(you know when they actually played videos as opposed to reality TV). This, of course, led to his directorial debut with House of a 1000 Corpses. I was not fond of that movie. That movie had a sequel which I was even less fond of. That is impressive. The Devils Rejects actually has a unique place with me. I purchased it on pay per view through my local cable provider. I then did not complete the movie. Perhaps, there is some unbelievable nuance that I missed in the last half hour. I know this is unlikely. My God(goddess, shrub, whatever) you might say. What kind of movie person are you to cast aspersions at a film without watching all of it? Well, frankly, I am an asshole. Deal with it. I can cast judgement faster than a wink of an eye if I feel like it. Secondly, I have watch some shitty movies in my days. I watched Uwe Bolls House of the Dead(Uwe is going to be a special review) 3 times. The later 2 times were because I couldn't believe what I watched the first time. For me to turn off a movie it must touch me in a special way. Devils Rejects did this by making me not care in the slightest about any of the characters. They were all scumbags, even the good guys. I hated everything associated with the Devils Rejects. From Ginger Lynn Allen to Sheri Moon Zombie(A to Z get it?) I couldn't stand any character in the film.

Where is this long winded exposition going, you god amongst men? you might ask. Simple. Imagine my look when it was announced that the man who had gone 0 for 2 in his last at bats was going to be writing and directing Halloween. As I had said in my last post, Halloween was my first Horror movie. It was that special person that you lost your innocence with(though to be fair I remember the name of the movie). It was a special friend. As I said, it is a comfy life preserver. A favorite pair of jeans. A number of other similes and metaphors. The man who had decided that putting Diamond Dallas Page in a movie was a good idea was going to be writing and directing a remake made my skin crawl. Oh...and I hate remakes. This is almost without fail. Very rarely does a remake actually improve on the original. I like the new Dawn of the Dead...it did improve look wise on the original but it did lose some of the social impact. I thought 1982s"The Thing" was much better than the original The Thing from Another World. We now live in a world of remakes. That rant will be for another time, however. So...anyhow... Rob Zombie was going to take my first and favorite and remake it. He was going to WRITE it... how you might ask? Why you might ask? I actually asked these things repeatedly and loudly.

Mr. Zombie thought that the first movie was to short I guess. He decided to go into something that I have read is a bad idea. He decided to tell the story of why Michael Myers was such a bad guy. Like most of the bad things that happen in Mr. Zombie's films, it is because of white trash. I believe that Mr. Zombie has a serious issue with white trash. Both House and Rejects focused heavily on the evils that are white trash. This movie hammers it home.

A quick summary so that you do not need to watch it(or you have drank the memories away). Mom is a stripper. Step dad is an unemployed drunk. Big sis is a whore(or slut...I can never tell the two apart). Mikey is at that tender age when his mind is on only one thing(homicide to quote Wednesday Addams). He has started by torturing animals(as this was obviously researched heavily by Mr. Zombie...all good serial killers kill animals first). He then gets bullied and abused by all of the fam except momma who loves her special boy. This leads him to offing everyone. The first Halloween had a body count of 4. By the time Mikey is put away for killing his sister he has met this goal and will keep going. Yes ladies and gentleman...he kills 4 people before becoming the hulking slow walking mass murder(hell he was only 12 I think). We get introduced to Doctor Loomis(played by Malcolm Mcdowell, I feel for Malcolm, he really has let himself go since the Wing Commander video game). Needless to say the special boy is locked away in an asylum for adults(because that is logical as hell) where he is befriended by a nice staff person played by Danny Trejo(who needs to run the next time Mr. Zombie approaches with a script). Eventually, we see the snapping point and Michael is able to break out to kill his baby sister.

Now, I wish to do an aside right about here. In the original, we had a 8 year old in a clown mask kill one person then get locked up. The escape for Michael was never shown other than him stealing the car and getting back to Haddonfield(oh and he offed one person on the road that would be 2, 2 deaths Ah ha ha ha). Here we have 45 or so minutes of "why is Mikey such a broken person...poor Mikey". Yes...I typed that correctly. We are being allowed to feel compasion for the creature that the original Doctor Loomis called EVIL. Another bit is the gratuitous use of stuff. An associate said there are lots of things that can be gratuitous. Nudity, I am pro gratuitous nudity. Violence, sure in the right movie or context, gratuitous violence is good. Rape, no no no no no. There is no movie where someone should say, "hey we need a good rape scene to liven this movie up." Some movies require rape(the Accused, Once Were Warriors, hell I will even give it to Tears of the Sun) as it shows the horror or progresses the story. Halloween actually has a gratuitous forced sex scene. It was at this moment that I was screaming at my computer monitor "you have got to be fucking kidding me!!!"

Ok..sorry got a little carried away. Where was I? Oh yes, we had spent 45-60 minutes showing why Mikey was so bad. Then the movie Halloween begins. Yes...the original though heavily edited with more twists and deaths and boobs. Because, as anyone knows, the original just wasn't spicy enough. They killed Loomis. They beat the shit out of Laurie Strode. They killed EVERYONE. Lauries mom and dad...dead. Lauries bestest friends in the world...dead. Doctor Loomis...FUCKING DEAD. The rewrite was just unbelievable.

So what do I feel about Halloween ala Zombie. I was going to attempt to sum up my feelings using Mr. Zombies own works. It was A Great American Nightmare. He is Scum of the Earth. I will stop. I really wished to drive to Connecticut and express my views to the director. He took my old friend and beat him. He then sodomized him with a grizzly bear(yes that was not the bear doing the deed. It was Zombie using the bear as the implement). Zombie got drunk and then smacked my old friend on the ass and walked away giggling at the prospect of perhaps doing Halloween 2-10. The amount of hate I have for this movie is palpable. I can honestly say that it is one of the worst pieces of Horror ever. It wasn't scary. It wasn't funny. Zombie took the mystery that was Michael Myers and turned it into awe...poor Mikey. If Hollywood does read blogs, please pay attention to this. You must not allow Mr. Zombie to write another movie.

Oh sure...there were actors and performances. There was plot. You know what? I don't care. I hated this movie.

Thank you.

(Rating -50 out of 50. This is not a sliding scale and it is not negotiable. This is for entertainment value only. Not valid in 48 out of 50 states or scoring tables.)