So, it seems like all I've been doing lately, as opposed to writing, is watching shit and then talking about it obsessively for hours afterwards... I could be turning into my friend, Rich (hi Rich!), all-round movie buff and filmmaker man. So it hit me, I should review. I love it and it's fun and...yeah.
That's what this is for, but it is going to be predominantly focused on the horror genre, because it's my favourite, although I do go to a lot of gigs and shit, so I'll probably write about all of those too.
Anyway! What better, or more debate-inducing, film to begin with, than Rob Zombie's Halloween remake, which I finally forced myself to watch a week ago (I'd feared it for a really long time, because Zombie's movies, or the thought of them, make me quiver in fear).
Before I start, let's get one thing straight - I adore John Carpenter's Halloween. It's a masterpiece of the horror genre, and one of the only movies that has genuinely scared me as an adult. Furthermore, I hate torture porn, and overuse of gore. I have a pretty strong stomach, and nothing scares me less than watching somebody being pulled to pieces by a madman/machine. Michael Myers was terrifying because he stabbed people, with his emotionless masked face staring back at them, like it was nothing. So, the thought of Rob Zombie coming up with some sort of motivation for him left me feeling a bit ill, and that was before it even occurred to me that anything he did with his remake was going to involve blood and guts in abundance, as is his way. But I love him and he is brilliant, and I saw him only a few months ago and he blew me away, and, and...I had to give it a go.
He really likes his movie...
So, Rob Zombie's remake of this horror classic is split into three distinct parts. The first one is all about Michael Myers' childhood, with his hideous, trailer-trash family (all of whom have weird Southern accents, despite living in Illinois), all leading up to the point where he beats a school bully to death with a stick (no, really) and then kills...most of his family. The second part entails his growth into an adult, who more than slightly resembles Mick Thompson, the huge, tank of a guitarist from Slipknot, in a mental asylum, under the watchful eye of Malcolm Mc Dowell's hammy Dr. Loomis (complete with 70s-style wig!). The final act is like a retelling of Carpenter's original, except with more gore and very few scares. An extended scene in Myers' childhood home is fairly unsettling, but it was probably the only time I was properly scared, and not just asking inane questions. And then...it ends, with a blood-curdling scream from Scout-Taylor Compton, which would've been more effective had I not been thinking about Mick from Slipknot at the time.
Let's face it, Rob Zombie is not known for his subtlety (hello, House of 1,000 Corpses), so I wasn't expecting the same low-maintenance gore that peppered Carpenter's original and gave me proper chills, leaving me to look behind me as I walked towards my house in the dark. I was expecting blood, cries for mercy, and a lot of crawling to get away while the killer trailed behind with a huge knife. And Zombie delivered in abundance. The scene in which Myers kills his sister is particularly over-the-top. Why have him stab her and leave her to bleed out when she can crawl down the hallway, weeping silently, until he pounces and stabs her some more...
A question popped into my mind, one that never even occurred to me while watching the original - is a little boy really capable of such force? And, could she not overpower him? Michael Myers, as a child, in Carpenter's Halloween, was so terrifying because he said nothing and just stabbed his sister to death, afterwards standing there silently, with a blank look on his face, and a bloody knife in his hand. The new Myers is pudgy, doe-eyed, and adorable, not to mention bullied into submission, but somehow he possesses the strength to stab his sister repeatedly, and beat her boyfriend to death with a metal baseball bat. Maybe it's just because little kids don't scare me...who knows. While the background stuff was effective, it made me empathise with Myers a bit too much, and once one empathises with the villain, the scare element is all but lost.
The second and third acts of the film are fairly enthralling, but not life-changing. A rape scene is wholly unnecessary, especially since it shows Myers looking like a giant simpleton, making masks in his cell out of papier mache, when it ought to show him as some sort of savage, bloodthirst beast. Luckily, he kills his only mate in the asylum, so that establishes some fear once again.
Eek! He's behind you! Er, and in front..
And then Laurie shows up. Cue major moans and groans from my unfortunate film-watching partner (and not in a good way). In the original, she was a quiet, mousey, somewhat nerdy, virgin, who was turned off by her friends' dirty talk. In this version, she wears glasses and screams a lot, while simulating sex not once but twice within about fifteen minutes. Her friends are so obnoxious and loud that I was counting down the seconds till Mick showed up and slaughtered them all. But i kept wondering aloud, how come nobody noticed the giant man, standing opposite the school, looking threateningly at the library in which Laurie and her friends are situated? And why didn't she react to such a bizarre sight!? The reason this scene worked in Carpenter's version was because Myers looked like a normal dude, just standing about being weird. Mick is HUGE and fairly dishevelled. Surely he wouldn't go unnoticed.
RZH (Rob Zombie's Halloween, for the uninitiated, or those with lives) is clearly a horror fanboy's love song to one of his favourite movies. Zombie probably spent years of his teenage life wondering what drove Michael Myers to do the horrible things he did in Halloween, so as an adult, he decided to explain. This doesn't work on several levels; first off, Michael Myers isn't scary if we feel sorry for him. Furthermore, Michael Myers isn't scary if he thrusts a crumpled up photo of him and his sister as children towards a terrified teenage girl...after removing his mask...(seriously Zombie, I love you, but what the fuck). He doesn't need to be explained. He isn't complex, he's a sociopath.
Strangely enough, I really, really liked RZH, because towards the end, it did scare me a little. And overall, it was well-made, gory but not disgracefully so, frightening in parts, and peppered with inside jokes. Zombie tried to do something different, to breathe new life into a classic character and to update the story for the new generation. Although flawed, he managed to do all of those things.
Plus he looks like Mick! Stay tuned for when I properly compare the original and the remake...it's probably going to get ugly... And coming soon...RZH2!
No comments:
Post a Comment