For his third film, director Rob Zombie has ambitiously chosen
to remake the original Halloween. After having devolved over the years--thanks
to countless air-headed sequels that never knew when to quit--Halloween had
become something of a cinematic joke. Tyler Mane, who played Sabertooth in the
first X-Men film, is well-cast here as the adult Michael Myers. His hulking
frame easily makes him a lot more threatening and intimidating than the original
lanky dude. But Zombie takes a different tack this time by first showing us the
origins of Michael Myers, the serial killer--by spending the first forty minutes
of the film’s running time dealing with Michael as a boy. And this entire
boyhood sequence can be neatly summed up in one catch-phrase: too much information.
The movie feels like a bad soap opera--or an episode of COPs, just without the
cops--as we are introduced to Michael’s less than ideal home life with his
stripper mother (played by Sherri Moon Zombie, the director’s wife) and her
loser boyfriend (William Forsythe) in their extremely dysfunctional family
setting. Malcolm McDowell plays Dr. Loomis this time out, who becomes the
Cassandra figure that tries to warn everybody once Michael makes his great
escape from the mental institution. Zombie shows a real flair for casting by
having horror genre vets Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Danny Trejo and Richard Lynch
appear--and with a crew like this hanging around, is it any wonder how little
Michael became so twisted?
By the time Michael finally shows up in Haddonfield to celebrate Halloween in
his own very special way--A.K.A. The Night HE Came Home!--the movie is already
halfway through its running time. Laurie Strode, A.K.A. the babysitter who kicks
righteous butt, is played by the affable Scout Taylor Compton, and while she’s
very good, it’s hard for her to compete with Jamie Lee Curtis in her original,
career-making role. The second half of the film is more predictable, following
the basic plot of the original film, with plenty of gore and screaming. One of
the best performances given by the always sturdy Brad Dourif as the sheriff.
Also, look for Sid Haig, Captain Spaulding himself, in a cameo as a graveyard
worker.
I must admit that I was never a huge fan of the original Halloween to begin with.
It started out as a great thriller about a psychopath on the loose--which, in
the late seventies, was a real novelty--but then got very silly when Michael
suddenly developed superhuman powers. While Zombie wisely avoids that pitfall
here, it wasn’t enough to really make the picture work for me. Despite the flaws
of the original, director John Carpenter still managed to make Michael Myers a
truly frightening menace, whereas Zombie’s version is nothing more than a
pathetic man-child, thanks to the opening that only served to create mixed-signals. --SF