Halloween (2007, Unrated)

The Film

You know the plot by now. Seventeen years ago, 10-year-old Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) slashed his older sister Judith (Hanna Hall) to death and was committed to a mental asylum. Years later, the now-adult Michael (Tyler Mane) escapes and, as October 31st approaches, heads with all speed towards his hometown of Haddonfield, where the unsuspecting Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is in for a Halloween she'll never forget.

There are sacred cows and there are sacred cows: many would consider remaking John Carpenter's seminal 1978 Halloween to be the slasher equivalent of attempting to update Casablanca or Citizen Kane to make them more "relevant" to a modern audience. How strange, then, that the director who stepped up to this less than auspicious task was none other than Rob Zombie, the musician turned filmmaker whose previous film, the gung-ho exploitation romp The Devil's Rejects, constituted a considerable step up from his debut, the flawed but strangely fascinating House of 1000 Corpses, and more successfully evoked the atmosphere of 70s splatterfests than any other so-called throwback to that period. Zombie at one point publicly stated that he considered remaking the likes of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Dawn of the Dead to be "the worst thing any filmmaker can do",* so it was quite an about-turn for this self-styled renegade to suddenly jump headlong into re-envisioning one of the genre's all-time classics. This was a project that couldn't fail to enrage genre fans, whether or not they actually bothered to see it for themselves.


Regardless of any fan outcry, however, a remake by the director of House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects (both films that, whatever you might think of them, are clearly the work of a distinctive mind) had to be more worthwhile than another faceless update turned out by Michael Bay's crowd of Platinum Dunes music video makers turned filmmakers. Castigated though they usually are, there is nothing inherently wrong with remakes, provided they do something that their predecessors did not (John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly being two examples of popular, critically acclaimed horror remakes that actually bring something fresh to the table). Therefore, it would be not unreasonable to suggest that much of the horror community had high hopes for Zombie's personal take on the legend of the bogeyman.

Only somehow, somewhere, something went wrong. Perhaps not coincidentally under the watchful eyes of Bob and Harvey Weinstein, whose dubious reputation among horror fans precedes itself, Zombie, arguably against all the odds, turned in a bland, faceless, dumbed-down reiteration of the tale. Essentially a film of two halves, neither of which works on its own and which fail to gel together as a single cohesive whole, Zombie's version of Halloween falls somewhere between a crass, ass-backwards attempt to shoehorn the more superficial elements of his style into an origin story, and a soulless, slavish copy of the original.


It's as if the film wants to both have its cake and eat it, but ends up with neither. The first half is comprised mostly of new material, purporting to show the making of a killer, while, in the second half, Zombie seems to lose all interest in doing anything new and essentially offers an accelerated retread of Carpenter's original, with added blood and nudity, and a slightly different ending, but otherwise nothing we didn't see years ago when the slew of Halloween imitators (or should that be Torso imitators filtered through Halloween?) first began to do the rounds. Back in the 1980s, it quickly became tiresome. In 2007, given that we've already been there countless times before, it's tragic.

The sad part is that the first half of the film, which contains almost all of Zombie's new material, as weak as it is, is by far the better of the two. His cod-psychological claptrap fails to convince, working hard to give evil a sense of humanity by portraying Michael Myers as an outcast picked on by a violent stepfather and largely neglected by a pole-dancer mother. There's some fun to be had in spotting all the genre icons on parade (most of whom previously appeared in Zombie's earlier films), but it's only slightly removed from the nudge-nudge wink-wink self-referentiality of Scream and its clones - in other words, the sort of self-satisfied smugness that Zombie's previous films seemed to go out of their way to reject in favour of straightforward, old fashioned nastiness. There's some fun to be had from the performances of Sheri Moon Zombie and William Forsythe as the aforementioned parents, and the increased body count leads to some fairly inventive death scenes, but all this goes to prove is that the original Halloween achieved much more with much less. Carpenter didn't need to convince us that Michael was deranged by showing him killing his pet rat - we were able to take it for granted.


Then, at the half-way mark, it all goes even further south, as Zombie suddenly seems to reject the raison d'être of the first part, deciding that, in actual fact, Michael is just evil incarnate and always has been. Suddenly, he's not an abused child or victim of circumstance any more - he's just the Bogeyman, and the question becomes what precisely Zombie thought he could bring to the table that we hadn't seen before. It's as if he got cold feet and decided that what his audience really wanted was a bog standard slasher in which moronic teenagers get mowed down by a cardboard cut-out serial killer. As a straight slasher movie, the second half is weak; as an attempt to update and re-energise Carpenter's classic, it's little more than an insult, mixing banal shot-for-shot reproductions of the original with snatches of Zombie's usual brand of potty humour, particularly in Laurie Strode's conversations with her parents (Dee Wallace and Pat Skipper) and friends (Danielle Harris and Kristina Klebe). I'm not sure whether we're meant to be shocked or amused: in The Devil's Rejects, Zombie often managed to achieve both in the banter between his anti-heroes; here, he achieves neither. That's not to say that the banter between the girls in the original was particularly convincing, either, but, in comparison to this, it seems almost Shakespearian in retrospect.

To her credit, Scout Taylor-Compton makes a fairly effective Laurie, and she has a decent pair of lungs, but she's made up to be another of those "cute girl hiding behind glasses" clichés that are a staple in everything from teen horror movies to teen comedies. In the original, the then-unknown Jamie Lee Curtis seemed natural and believable; here, Taylor-Compton is obviously playing a role, and a paper-thin one at that. The less said about Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis, meanwhile, the better. It's the sort of performance that leaves you praying that the actor realised how bad the script was and simply decided to have some fun and ham it up something rotten.


It's not even a particularly well-made film. For all the lavish and effectively executed grue, the whole thing is filled with so many framing flubs that I couldn't shake off the impression that it had originally been shot with a 1.85:1 ratio in mind and then matted to 2.39:1 at the last minute. So often, actors' foreheads end up being chopped off the screen in a manner that can't have been intentional, while the overuse of shakeycam, particularly during the various murders, leaves you in no doubt that this is a product of the 21st century, more's the pity. I still can't get over how amateur this film looks - in every respect, from framing to lighting, it looks thrown together. This may have been the aesthetic Zombie was going for (he claims to have wanted to borrow the visual style of 21 Grams or The Constant Gardener), but it lacks the authenticity of The Devil's Rejects, which had a definite guerrilla look to its photography that suited both the subject matter and the period it was trying to evoke. Here, you're constantly reminded of what Carpenter and Dean Cundey achieved with the original on a substantially smaller budget.

Halloween 2007 is ultimately a shallow, dull, badly made shadow of its source material. I wouldn't call the John Carpenter original one of my favourite horror films by any stretch (my taste in slashers tends to lean towards those of European rather than American origin), but, after watching Zombie's take on the matter, I found myself left feeling insulted, cheated and violated. It's not a film that has anything worthwhile to offer, nor any truly legitimate reason to exist. Zombie has fumbled good and proper and will have some way to go in order to rekindle my faith in him as a director. The Devil's Rejects looks more and more like a lucky fluke every day.


* The full quote, from Issue 3 of Are You Going? magazine, 2002:

Q: How do you feel about big budget remakes of Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre?

Zombie: I feel it's the worst thing any filmmaker can do. I actually got a call from my agent and they asked me if I wanted to be involved with the remake of Chain Saw. I said no fucking way! Those movies are perfect - you're only going to make yourself look like an asshole by remaking them. Go remake something that's a piece of shit and make it good. Like with my movie (House of 1000 Corpses) I have elements of Chain Saw in it because I love that movie so much, but I wouldn't dare want to "remake" it. It's like a band trying to be another band. You can sound like The Beatles, but you can't be The Beatles.

DVD Presentation

Halloween's transfer can basically be summed up as serviceable but underwhelming. Presented anamorphically in its original ratio of 2.39:1, the tell-tale signs of filtering - namely, unsightly ringing and a lack of detail - are present from beginning to end. Phil Parmet's cinematography is not exactly breathtaking, but anyone can tell that it is not being allowed to look its best here.

The 448 Kbps Dolby Digital 5.1 track, meanwhile, and the disc's only audio option, is good, although strangely front-focused given the number of opportunities for creeping the audience out with rear channel effects. The surrounds do kick in on occasions, but generally only to accentuate the score or the odd crash and bang.

Barring the commentary, all of the extras are subtitled in English. The film itself, meanwhile, is subtitled in English and Spanish.

As a side note, the version of the film presented in this release is the unrated cut. My understanding is that the key differences are to Michael's escape from the asylum and the ending (particular with regard to whether certain character survive or not).

Extras

The Weinstein Company have prepared a lavish array of special features for this release. Spread across two DVDs, the bulk appear on the second disc, with the first featuring only an audio commentary by Rob Zombie. Zombie proves, as ever, to be an intelligent and engaging speaker, talking from the beginning of the film through to the final credits roll and seemingly not pausing once. He covers a lot of ground, discussing the usual technical problems when shooting, as well as explaining some of his creative choices and detailing the alterations made during the lengthy reshooting process. It's a very good track, and dare I say it a shame it didn't accompany a better film.

The second disc kicks off with a collection of seventeen deleted scenes, again with optional commentary by Zombie. It's perhaps an indication of how problematic the film's production was that so much material ended up being abandoned, although, if rumours are to be believed, par for the course with films overseen by the Weinstein brothers. There is just under 22 minutes of material here, and Zombie's commentary is more sporadic and less focused than on the film itself. Zombie also shows up once more to comment on the alternate ending, which, as Zombie rightly points out, sidelines the Laurie character too much to be satisfying (although whether or not the reshot ending improves matters at all is debatable).

10 minutes' worth of bloopers, many of them quite amusing on account of Malcolm McDowell's irascible penchant for profanity, are also included. Interestingly, they are presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, and broadly speaking appear to be far better framed than the film itself.

What follows are three separate featurettes, with a total running time of around 45 minutes and focusing on a variety of different topics. The title of the first, The Many Masks of Michael Myers, is rather self-explanatory, exploring the various disguises that Michael wears throughout the course of the movie and their importance. Somewhat better is Re-imagining Halloween, which, at 19 minutes, is split into three sections and essentially serves as an overview of the making of the film. It's not as in-depth as the feature length documentary provided for The Devils' Rejects, but its brevity works in its favour, covering such issues as Zombie's desire to make a film with a completely different style from Carpenter's original, and the issues associated with make-up and costume design, in a quick, coherent manner before moving on to the next point of interest. The final piece, Meet the Cast, runs for 18 minutes and is more pat than the other featurettes, descending fairly quickly into name-dropping the various horror icons who appear and with all those involved going on and on about how brilliant everyone else was. It's the most EPK-style piece on the disc and really doesn't achieve anything particularly noteworthy.

Half an hour's worth of camcorder footage from the casting sessions has also been thrown in, covering just about every significant and not so significant character in the film, with the notable exceptions of Malcolm McDowell and the various cast members whom Zombie had already worked with on his previous films. There is also a more lengthy screen test for Scout Taylor-Compton, covering three scenes: a discussion between Laurie and Annie, Laurie finding one of her friends on the verge of death, and an outdoor conversation between Laurie and her friends.

Sneak peeks for Death Proof, Planet Terror, 1408 and The Furnace, and the Halloween theatrical trailer, complete the package.

Overall

I don't often find myself wishing I could wind back the clock after watching a film, but in this case, Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween has stolen two hours of my life that I dearly wish I could get back. The Weinstein Company have arguably given the film better treatment than it deserves, and those who actually managed to get something out of this dull and cack-handed "update" are unlikely to be disappointed by the 2-disc release.

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