Film Review: Rob Zombie’s Halloween

By: DThompson | in: Movies |

Rob Zombies Halloween

Let’s get two things straight right away. One, Rob Zombie’s new remake of Halloween is not a reinvention of the slasher genre, more a heightening of the form. Two, this film is SCARY, and I don’t mean throw a lot of gore around scary. I mean twisting in your seat, blood pressure going through the roof scary.
After five films, you’d expect the Michael Meyers character to be completely incapable of generating so much as a shiver. Zombie’s take is to ground his film in reality. From the opening bars of heavy metal music and a visual of a house sorely in need of a coat of paint, you know this is not your dad’s Halloween. A screaming family of wrong-side-of-the-tracks grotesques surround little Michael in an extended introduction that re-casts him as a preternaturally strong, but no longer superhuman, serial killer. This version, with its acres of greasy hair, dirty clothes and lewd behavior, makes the first movie seem like fantasy land.

Rob Zombies Halloween

Most of the elements of John Carpenter’s original remain, but are changed in either order or place, and certainly in level of violence. Halloween (2007) is a cuisinart cut and paste of Carpenter’s classic as filtered through Zombie’s two virtual remakes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: House Of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects . Rob has taken this deck and shuffled it, adding in a few extra cards just to keep you on your toes, and on the edge of your seat as well.
Originally, Michael Meyers was played by Nick Castle, who was a dancer by profession. What he didn’t have in sheer bulk he made up for in grace and speed of movement. The 2007 model, played by six foot eight Tyler Mane, is more like a bulldozer, still retaining the quiet eerieness of blank eyes staring out of a blank mask but now a mamoth hulking monstrosity smashing and rending everything in his path.

Rob Zombies Halloween

I’m a fan of the original, and I hate the concept of “re-imagining”, but this is a worthy effort. Apparently the word out on this film is it’s not as good as the first. Well, it’s a different film, and if you want to see the original its not like Zombie’s film is raiding your collection and chopping up your old Anchor Bay DVD. What can I say? You can’t go back again, nothing will return you to that theater in 1978, shaking in your Keds. But, Zombie’s film gives it one hell of a shot. John Carpenter claimed that when he made Halloween all he did was think of a list of genre conventions, then subvert them all. Zombie does much the same, figuring out all your expectations from the first film then giving you a movie that takes you places you don’t expect to go, casting you adrift in unchartable mayhem.
Let me repeat, this film is SCARY. Even though you know how this story goes, you do not know how this movie goes.

VERDICT: You bet your ass that was the boogey man!

Listen to the updated theme!

Halloween (2007) opened nationwide August 31st, 2007. Why not on Halloween? Because Lionsgate also makes the insano profitable Saw films and Saw IV is opening on Halloween. One more for you to write on your calendar.

TRAILER

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsAU0w_88KY

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Posted on September 2, 2007

Comments

20 Responses to “Film Review: Rob Zombie’s Halloween”

Donna on September 2nd, 2007 2:26 pm

I went to see the film today. I thought it was awesome. There have been so many remakes of the older hoor flicks in the past few years but I really think that Rob Zombie done a great job with this one. I think that he showed a side of Michael Myers that no one has ever seen before, a gore to the film that in 1978 could not have been there, and a terrific terror that only comes with the most intense horror flicks of our time. I think that Halloween has just recieved it’s ultimate remake that could not have been done in a better way.

Donna
Fayetteville, NC

Tibi Puiu on September 2nd, 2007 2:26 pm

i head saw 4 will be a prequel to the events in saw 1-3. Should be interesting to see how jigsaw came to be :D. As for zombie i haven’t seen it yet, but have heard mixt reviews. Will definetly see it this week and share afterwards

DThompson on September 2nd, 2007 6:49 pm

The superior horror fan site, Bloody Disgusting.Com gave this film a mixed, mostly bad review but at close to 9,000 votes, the viewer rating for Rob Zombie’s version was about 4.75 out of 5 stars.

Charbarred on September 3rd, 2007 2:05 am

If it managed to scare you D, I guess it’s bloody terrifying…

Ryan of the RSL Music Blog on September 3rd, 2007 8:45 am

I am frightened by that musical theme!

mozzer on September 3rd, 2007 3:58 pm

Not a fan of horror, but this film and DThompson’s review has pique my interest considerably.

ekko on September 3rd, 2007 4:21 pm

I dug the movie, too. Nothing like the original, but really good in its own way.

Peety on September 3rd, 2007 10:28 pm

The movie was very well done. However, it could not live up to the the original Halloween’s 1-3.

It is not just the special effects that brings a horror film alive but the actors.

In my opinion, that could be what is lacking in the newer generation of horror films, great performances…

HorrorFanatic on September 5th, 2007 2:16 am

I was majorly dissapointed in this movie. Michael Meyers is my favorite horror characther of all times. Rob Zombie had me luving the whole movie all the way untill the end. How the hell can you kill Michael Meyers. He never dies. If he would have done his homework he would have known this yeah I admit the other Halloweens werent as good as one or two also but still you cant Kill Michael Meyers!!!! I was so pissed at the end when the movie just ends like that. I was like how can Rob Zombie take me through such a great beginning even better build up then just kill the conclusion. Its okay though cause this movie taught me to appreciate the classics more and in my honest opinion you will never catch this one as a part of my collection when the DVD comes out. Rob Zombie stick to your music cause you were better at that!!!!!

DThompson on September 5th, 2007 12:10 pm

Chill HorrorFanatic, just because you saw what you saw doesn’t mean MIchael’s dead. After all, he pulled a twelve inch butcher knife out of the side of his throat with no problem. And, if you recall, at the end of Halloween 2 it was John Carpenter’s intent that Michael was dead. It was only the greed of film producers hungry for an easy buck that resurrected him for a string of (mostly) awful sequels.

Megan on September 5th, 2007 6:47 pm

HorrorFanatic, Jamie Lee chopped Michael’s head off in H20 and they still thought of a plot to bring him back to life, it will be alright. And you never saw what happened to him, you just heard the gun shot and her screaming. He had his hands on her, possibly he positioned the gun to miss him.

Oh, and I’m really sad that there were people out there who did not like this movie. I don’t get scared, DO not get scared by movies, and this movie had me on the edge of my seat the entire time, I had to call and talk to someone on my drive home because I felt freaked driving home by myself. Granted, Michael Myers was my childhood nightmare character, but I’ve long since grown out of that. I have read a lot of people disappointed in Zombie’s decision to spend 45 minutes of the movie showing you MM’s childhood, I thought it was wicked. You say there aren’t good actors anymore, that kid FREAKED me out. He was fantastic. And hello, the original came out in 78, it’s not like we were viewing him for the first time and he was full of mystery. We’ve been familiar with the character for decades, there’s not much mystery. It was extremely interesting to see all the elaboration. And you GOTTA love, if you’re a 1000 Corpses/Devil’s Rejects fan, all the actors incorporated into little cameos. Sid Haig being the cemetary groundskeeper, and the like. There wasn’t a bit of this movie that disappointed me, I loved it so much I went back to see it a second time.

brice on September 5th, 2007 9:34 pm

Tony Moran???? what in the hell are you talking about???? Grace in movement???? have you seen the original halloween?

DThompson on September 5th, 2007 11:56 pm

OK brice, it’s Nick Castle, isn’t it. IMDB threw me by listing Tony Moran as “Michael Meyers (age 23)” when I should have been looking for who was credited as The Shape. Thanks for pointing out my error.
However, I do stand by my comment that Mr. Castle shows grace of movement. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that you’re a fan of the original, you’ve seen it many times, you own the DVD. Have YOU, brice, ever bothered to listen to the John Carpenter, Deborah Hill, Jamie Lee Curtis commentary track on your DVD?
If you had at 17:22 you would have heard John Carpenter say, and I quote, “…and he [Nick Castle] has a certain stance and move that I think was never captured in the other films. Those movies used actors or stuntmen that didn’t have quite the grace of movement that I felt Nick did.”
Wow. I guess I stand by my remark! Perhaps you’d like to ask John Carpenter if HE’S ever seen the original Halloween.

daniel on September 6th, 2007 5:15 am

Someone posted an interesting poll about the new Halloween vs the old one on pollsb.com (click on my name to get there).

Charbarred on September 6th, 2007 6:44 am

OK, I have to admit it - I never really liked the original Halloween movie. I liked the sequels (and probably saw them before the original), but by the time I got to see Halloween, it wasn’t all that. The remake is planned to be released in the UK just in time for my unborn son’s Bar Mitzvah, so hopefully it will stand its ground.

DThompson on September 6th, 2007 11:03 am

You…you never liked the original?…but you liked Halloween 5?

brice on September 6th, 2007 8:49 pm

Dthompson
sorry, no haven’t listened to that commentary, I’ll have to go back. Seems like i hit a nerve though, sorry, in the commentary didn’t they mention the shape was nick castle? and that Tony Moran is in the film for like a minute and a half (actually less)i’m not trying to be an ass but short of Carpenter I doubt many people would see a difference between Castle in 1 and Warlock in 2, and graceful seems less appropriate of an adjective than perhaps methodical, i agree after 2 there is a big difference but i’ve actually met a few of those guys, George Wilbur and Don Shanks, who seemed to want to put there mark on the shape, Dick Warlock, whom by the way is a very nice man (while I’m name dropping) seemed to want to portray the shape as close to the first movie as possible. But if you hadn’t listened to the commentary, honestly, would you have used the word graceful… really.

DThompson on September 7th, 2007 9:29 am

I’ll let this be my last word on the subject, brice. I’ve already admitted to having made an error as far as the Tony Moran / Nick Castle thing goes. What can I say? I’m only human and I made a mistake. You got me and frankly, I’m glad you pointed out the error. If you feel the need to keep getting me and getting me that’s your deal, not mine.
As for whether or not you can tell the difference between Nick Castle and Dick Warlock, I don’t understand what that has to do with anything I wrote in my review since I never mentioned Halloween 2. However, it must be fun to meet these guys, and even more fun to get to tell people about it.
So, since I’ve admitted to my Tony Moran error the way I see it is you have an insurmountable difficulty with my choice of descriptive words. What can I say? I used the words “grace and speed of movement” to describe him as opposed to Tyler Mane’s / Rob Zombie’s smash everything in sight approach. They’re diametrically opposed styles and those were the words that came to my head. These seem to me to be perfectly acceptable words as far as Nick Castle’s approach goes, certainly as his performance compares to the new one.
Actually, it’s a small concern isn’t it? I’m not really sure why you care.

The Plugg: Best Moments in Film 2007 : Maor Ezer on December 8th, 2007 6:13 am

[…] • Fat little Michael Meyers ruthlessly beats a bully, and we’re all for it… Until the bully starts to cry and reveals himself to be just a scared little boy… and Michael continues the beating, revealing himself to be something entirely different. Halloween (2007). […]