Halloween

Halloween

Starring Scout Taylor-Compton, Daeg Faerch, Tyler Mane, Sheri Moon Zombie

Directed by Rob Zombie

The Story:
In Haddonfield, Illinois, young Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) grows up in the not-so-ideal home: his father is a crippled pervert, his sister is uncaring, and his mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) works as a stripper, but she also has a heart of gold.  He exhibits signs of a psycho, killing animals before turning his eyes on humans.  On Halloween night he kills his family, except youngest sister Laurie and his mother.

Myers is sent to a psychiatric institution under the care of Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), who learns that Michael is pure evil, and nothing will change it.  Fifteen years in the asylum, and a now adult Michael (Tyler Mane) breaks out and makes his way back home to Haddonfield.

In Haddonfield, Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) and her friends are planning Halloween activities, unaware that the Boogeyman himself is making his way home for a family reunion.

The Synopsis:
John Carpenter invented the modern day slasher with Michael Myers and "Halloween" in 1978.  Since then, the franchise has gone through several sequels (some way better than others), and made a household name of the original Scream Queen, Jamie Lee Curtis.  Michael is an iconic killer, donning a plain white mask, accompanied by Carpenter's sinister music that many people use as their ring tones during Halloween.

So when Rob Zombie - the former frontman for the rock band White Zombie - wanted to completely revamp the franchise, it was a daunting task to say the least.  Not only did he want to totally change the mythos of Michael, but focus the film almost entirely on him.  What made "Halloween" so good was its focus on the shy, virginal Laurie Strode, while Michael (just known as The Shape) loomed mysteriously in the distance.  We're not given a lot of backstory on him, and he was that uncertain catalyst that made him all the more terrifying.

Thankfully, Zombie decided against a shot-for-shot remake that would've doomed his directing career (he's well-known in the horror community for producing such cringe-inducing films like "House of 1,000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects"), but instead turned the focus away from Laurie and onto Michael himself.  In fact, Scout Taylor-Compton's Laurie doesn't appear until halfway through the movie. Essentially, this "Halloween" can be split into two eras: pre-adult Michael and adult Michael.

Zombie, who also stated he much preferred delving into Michael's then-unknown backstory, spends a majority of the film with young Michael and the reasons he turned into a relentless killing machine.  Young Daeg Faerch has the daunting task of playing young Michael Myers, and he delivers the goods.  He's quite the unnerving child, in both action and appearance.  You can see a kid like that being a sociopathic killer someday.

After Michael kills his sister, we're treated to his time at Smith's Grove Sanitarium, and it's there we meet Dr. Samuel Loomis - played by Malcolm McDowell, taking over the part from the late Donald Pleasence.  McDowell does admirably, but Pleasence created Loomis, and no one else could take his place.  Seeing Michael in the sanitarium was an interesting viewpoint, seeing how he went from a talkative kid to a silent assassin.  It's also during that time we get the older Michael, played by former WCW wrestler Tyler Mane.  While the casting seemed to be appropriate - Mane is 6'8" an enormous - it takes away from the "everyman" Michael portrayed.  In all his other incarnations, Michael was an average man with average height and weight, and could easily blend into the crowd.  Mane's Michael would stick out like a sore thumb, but what he lacks in stealth he gains in pure raw power.

Once he escapes the sanitarium, we enter the second phase of the film, and that's with the introduction of Laurie Strode.  Zombie has his own unique way to tell a story, and this Laurie is a lot different from Curtis's Laurie (which is alright, since it's a re-imagining and not a reboot, but it's still impossible to not make correlations).  This Laurie has a foul mouth, and makes numerous sexual references that would make Jamie Leigh blush.  She doesn't give off the same vibe as Curtis did, and serves as the biggest flaw in the film - Zombie made all his characters rather similar, so it's hard to distinguish between them or even care.

The casting stroke of genius comes with the character of Annie.  In the original, she was Laurie's best friend, and is in this film as well.  However, here she is portrayed by Danielle Harris, and if that name sounds familiar then you're a true "Halloween" fan.  She played young Jamie Lloyd in "Halloween 4" and "Halloween 5," and was the star of the show.  She was Michael's niece, whom was relentlessly stalked by her uncle.  Harris left an indelible print in the "Halloween" franchise, and seeing her again all grown up (albeit as a different character) and appearing in another "Halloween" movie was exciting.

To round out the casting, there's another horror mainstay in Brad Dourif, who plays Annie's father, the sheriff of the town.  He's better known as the voice of Chucky in all the "Child's Play" films.  Then there's the Zombie crew, the actors who've appeared in several of Rob Zombie's films including Sheri Moon Zombie (his wife, who plays an excellent mother to Michael), Lew Temple, Bill Moseley, Leslie Easterbrook, Dee Wallace, Ken Foree and Sid Haig.

As far as the story goes, after we learn about Michael's early years, it pretty much becomes a nearly shot-for-shot remake of the original, but a more modern feel and a lot more foul language and gore.  Zombie is well-known for both, and fully delivers them here.  Michael isn't a silent stalker in the shadows, but he bursts through the screen with every slash and kill, with gallons of blood to spare.  While gore is a horror staple, here it seems very gratuitous and unnecessary, a way to draw some emotions from the audience.  Michael isn't a killer who hides in the shadows anymore, he's now as silent as a bulldozer.

The Summary:
While a re-imagining more than a remake, Rob Zombie's take on "Halloween" looses a lot of the emotional oomph the original had, replacing it with cursing, over-abundance of gore and a Michael Myers character the size of a building.

The Score: C+