Review: Halloween (2007)

[Jerry Saravia]

HALLOWEEN (2007)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: One star and a half

Rob Zombie's "Halloween" re-imagining is a perversely violent and
dishonest piece of trash that never comes close to the spirit and
sheer horror of the John Carpenter classic. At once histrionic and
mind-numbingly violent to the point of outdoing bloody mayhem in even
"Saw" or its slew of torture porn counterparts, this Halloween movie
is a pointless disgrace.

Rob Zombie's "Halloween" brings back Michael Myers as the unstoppable
killer with the William Shatner mask who preys on his victims on
Halloween. That is fine with me since that is what John Carpenter's
film and its infinite sequels showed. But Zombie also wants to show
Michael's family life which consists of an obnoxious sister (Hanna
Hall), a disabled, lecherous and loud stepfather (William Forsythe),
and a caring mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) who works at a strip joint (I
dislike the phrase but this is white trash hell). Michael also likes
to kill cats, dogs and hamsters, thus paving the way for humans to be
his next victims. These include a vile school bully and Michael's
family, with the exception of his mother and his little baby sister
whom he loves. How nice.

Flash forward to fifteen years later where Michael is held at Smith's
Grove Institute where his patient psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis
(Malcolm McDowell), has given up on Michael. Michael eventually
escapes Smith's Grove but not before he kills a few security guards
and a janitor. Then he finds a truck he can use to go to back to his
hometown of Haddonfield, but he has to kill the truck driver first.
Then he finds his long-lost sister Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) and
kills her parents and, yes, the slaughter continues.

Rob Zombie aims to be ambitious but the attempt at psychoanalyzing
Michael Myers doesn't wash. For one, when you show Michael as a kid
who tortures and kills animals and humans, and has no memory of what
he had done, you are asking the audience to see Michael Myers as some
latter-day serial killer. Of course, Michael is no ordinary serial
killer, as we plainly see in the only intense and frightening scenes
in the film where young Michael is interviewed by Dr. Loomis. There is
a quiet unease about those scenes. But then Zombie lingers on every
single murder with such a perverse attention to detail that you might
want to gag. This movie has a bigger mortality rate than most movies
and Zombie seems to punish us with extreme slicing and dicing (only
the school bully murder works since we feel the bully didn't fully
deserve to die). Beyond that, Zombie never lets up for showing how
many ways a knife can be thrusted into someone's body, or how a
baseball bat or a wooden log can be used to crush bones and break
bodies.

I am not a prude when it comes to violence but after enduring one
grisly murder after another, I grew weary of this "Halloween" movie.
I've seen the sequels and none of them come close to this torturous
display of brutality. And when Michael returns to Haddonfield, we meet
Laurie's teenage friends and, before you can say who Danielle Harris
is playing, they are all slaughtered without much human interest or a
care in the world. This leaves Laurie who hides and hides from Michael
long past the point of caring, screaming at the highest pitch while
Michael tears down the basement and the attic looking for her. Yawn.

The acting is also high-pitched consisting of actors who spend a lot
of time hollering and screaming. I don't expect great subtlety in a
"Halloween" movie but give me the subdued Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald
Pleasance any day. Overall in terms of actors, McDowell is an
uncomfortable fit as the good doctor, Dee Wallace and Brad Dourif give
largely blink-and-you'll-miss performances, and the teens are too
bland and dare I say anonymous, including Scout Taylor-Compton as the
disarming Laurie who makes sexual comments galore (again, where is the
timidness of Jamie Lee Curtis's Laurie?)

John Carpenter's "Halloween" is a machine-like supernatural thriller
with the machine-like precision of its monstrous Michael Myers. It was
atmospheric and scary as hell, but it also did not dwell on grisliness
and dementia. There was violence in the film but it was fairly limited
and imaginatively done with shadows and haunting compositions (I can't
forget Michael's white mask suddenly appearing behind Laurie or the
way his fist finally bursts through a door). I am not going to say
that Rob Zombie shouldn't make a film where we get insight on Michael
and his murderous impulses. But the movie only tells us that Michael
kills without provocation necessarily and without remorse, and he will
kill those who nurture him except his mother and his baby sister. And
then we are back in Haddonfield for mayhem as usual.


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