HALLOWEEN
Reviewed by Sam Hatch
Long live Ben Tramer!
If you know who I'm talking about, then you're probably just as big a Halloween fanatic as I am. But more on Mr. Tramer later, let me clear the air first. I am a huge fan of John Carpenter's groundbreaking low-budget horror opus Halloween, but I am not exactly a fan of the Halloween series. The second film wasn't horrible per se, and I kind of liked the bizarre third film as its own entity, but beyond that I could care less. It began as something more than the hack and slash silliness of Friday the 13th and then slowly devolved into that same emotionally void miasma.
Some have recently slated Carpenter's original version for being highly overrated, but I disagree. I think it's a masterpiece, and even its flaws (stilted acting etc.) seem to add to its overall perfection. I first saw Halloween at a far too young age, during the beginning of the VHS revolution. I was at my father's place for the weekend, and everyone was gone except for me and his new girlfriend – who had better things to do than baby-sit. So she turned the lights off (her kids had convinced her that I loved horror films after I sat traumatized through Don Coscarelli's Phantasm) and left me with a video double feature of Halloween and The Rose. I still don't know which was scarier.
I kid. Halloween scared the pants off of me, and I watched most of it through the narrow gaps between my trembling fingers. I generally feel like a hypocrite regarding my attitudes towards young people watching horror films, for I often look down upon parents dragging their offspring to see violent, disturbing films. On the other hand, I wouldn't trade in that experience for anything, and find that those early skirmishes with celluloid nightmares have given me a reservoir of terror that I can still tap into today. In a way it enhances my enjoyment of modern horror films, since I can try watching them through the eyes of that scared little kid buried somewhere within me.
I suppose it's no different than the generation of kids who snuck into screenings of the old Universal classics, and have since had the resultant terror burned into their psyches forever. It's no wonder plenty of those kids grew up to be horror directors and makeup artists, since the wounds suffered by such cinematic trauma usually transform into an undying love for the genre. I'm from a different era, but we're all the same – forever chasing that elusive moment, desperately trying to recapture that feeling of sheer dread experienced as a kid. It's a mirroring of abused children seeking out abusive partners as adults, but in this case it's actually rewarding.
I'm sure you weren't reading this for four paragraphs about my twisted childhood, but in a way I needed to set the stage for this review. Rob Zombie's redux of Halloween is yet another in a string of recent 70s horror remakes, but it's a new version of a film that is dear to me like a beat up old stuffed animal or my childhood blanky. I watch Halloween at least once a year (Anchor Bay has been great to the film on DVD, even if they have a tendency to rerelease it every five days), and the characters and events within it are part of my extended, dysfunctional family. Every frame is a cherished picture from my demented little mental scrapbook. Annie's improvised "Oh, Paul" song still sucks wind, but I love it.
Rob Zombie happens to be a person I've always liked. I went to plenty of White Zombie concerts in my day, and met him after a show way back in 1993. His music (and accompanying artwork) was a Frankenstein's monster stitched together from a plethora of comic book and horror movie influences. By 1995 White Zombie shows were being introduced by a half-hour mix tape of audio from old and obscure horror film trailers. It was only a matter of time before he made his own feature films, following a string of bizarre music videos featuring giant robots and other cult film staples. His debut, House of 1000 Corpses, was one of those delicious teases that sounded better in concept than in execution. For years I followed details of its tortured production, and how studio after studio rejected it for being the most violent, intense film of all time.
That was ultimately much ado about nothing, for while I enjoy that film more now than I did at the time of release, it's still a warmed over, music video version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I have much atoning to do for still having never seen his follow-up The Devil's Rejects, but I knew enough about Zombie's style to question his decision to redo Halloween. The film had been tarnished enough by the reputation of its uninspired offspring, so the last thing I wanted to see was the still worthy parent product destroyed as well.
Rob Zombie and 'new cool' filmmaker Quentin Tarantino are kindred spirits. They're both the products of the pop culture they voraciously ingested as kids, and are fueled by a love for films that most people don't even know exist. They both craft films that are essentially homages stitched together from countless obscure b-films from days long past, and have a distinctively quirky dialogue style. I love Quentin Tarantino films, but I cringed at the thought of him doing a James Bond film (back when he was jockeying to direct Casino Royale). Likewise, I was unconvinced that the Rob Zombie style could equal or better John Carpenter's original slasher nightmare.
And to be sure, Rob Zombie's Halloween is a completely different animal. It's also a very capable one, and he has shown considerable growth (and restraint) in his filmmaking abilities. His version is Michael Myers' “he said” versus the original's Laurie Strode oriented “she said”. He is now the main character, and if we're to side with boogieman in any way, he needed to be fleshed out as a character. Rob elongates the childhood origins of the killer by delving into a realistic portrayal of serial killer psychology (little Mikey tortures animals and comes from an abusive home) that feels more akin to Bad Ronald than Halloween.
The Myers family is now examined in full, and while his mother Deborah (portrayed by Rob's wife Sheryl Moon Zombie, giving a surprisingly nuanced and haunted performance) and sister are both examples of the 'virgin whore', his stepfather Ronnie (played a bit cartoonishly by William Forsythe) is a wholly irredeemable beast. He's foul mouthed, foul looking, and indulges in lascivious thoughts towards his step daughter when he's not verbally dressing down and emasculating the mask-obsessed (mainly a familiar clown disguise) youth Michael. The young murderer-in-training is played to perfection by Daeg Faerch, who masterfully exudes creepiness through his droopy eyes.
This segment is a prime example of Zombie's world, in which the seventies never ended and the dirtiest, grimiest white trash element of that era gets exploded to extreme proportions. All families are dysfunctional. All men are unkempt and violent. All women are whores or strippers. Even the nice ones dress like streetwalkers. This Myers family exposé also reminded me a lot of the opening material in Rob's unproduced script for the Crow series, which was another franchise product that felt like an odd match with his fingerprints on it. The copious dropping of f-bombs and verbal abuse can feel a little forced at first, but once he settles in the goofier elements of the script are pared away.
Everyone in Zombie-land has long, greasy matted hair – and even feeble attempts at taste have a low class twist (a painting of JFK on the wall is on black velvet). This segment is at odds with anything from the eye of John Carpenter, for while he exposed some nastiness on screen this film looks like a vintage snuff flick. The ensuing massacres are a grindhouse tour de force, for Michael kills far more people than just his sister this time out. He begins with a brutal trial assault on a local bully (beautifully shot in the woods - it could have been lifted straight out of an old Romero flick) before taking on his own household. When he does finally snap, it's a surprisingly effective segment that bleeds tension. I could complain that Zombie jettisoned the subtler 'what you don't see is more effective' tack of the original in favor of lavishing loving detail on every brutal killing, but I won't.
The reason people so often bemoan the gratuitous nature of splatter films is that it's so hard to do right. It's not easy to show a bloody, violent mess and make the viewer connect with anything beyond base shock. He does later show a capability for a 'less is more' outlook, since one character's suicide is rendered infinitely more potent by happening off screen while we stare at old grainy home movies. But in the case of the gore, Zombie hits the mark. By creating an interesting (if not wholly sympathetic) character, there is an element of feeling to the grisliness on display. Not to mention the remarkable score (by 300 composer Tyler Bates) filled with creepy bells punctuating moments of uncomfortable silence. It's a tour de force sequence of unbridled fury and viscera, and probably the best section of the film.
From there we enter Smith's Grove Sanitarium and the realm of the off-kilter Dr. Samuel Loomis (smartly recast with droog Malcom McDowell in the role Donald Pleasance popularized), whom we initially meet as a bit of an unkempt hippie. His attempts at healing Michael are in vain, for while initially the youth fractures off from the killer inside, he later shuts off from the world entirely following some sage advice from one of the workers (cult favorite Danny Trejo!). He turns to a hobby of creating demented looking masks, until his cell walls are covered with them.
Sheryl Moon Zombie is at her best during this piece, since she has to try again and again to reconnect with her psychopathic son while holding back an ever-swelling wave of despair. Michael cannot be saved. Following a vicious attack on an unwary nurse (cult film legend Sybil Danning!) he embraces the killer persona for all time, silently awaiting the day when he can break free and take out his anger on the entire planet.
Zombie has retooled Michael as a pumped-up version of himself, and while this bit of cinematic wish-fulfillment yields an imposing, hulking villain, he nonetheless looks a bit too much like a pro-wrestler (He is. He's played by ex-WCW star Tyler Mane, better known as Sabretooth in the X-Men films) He also looks like he's escaped not from a sanitarium but from a Slipknot concert, but I suppose those Iowan nu-metallers owe quite a bit of their masked, jumpsuited appearance to the original Michael Myers anyhow. There's no one right way to portray him (much as James Cameron originally envisioned the scrawny Lance Henrikson as The Terminator instead of Schwarzenegger), but I feel that someone with a smaller physique would have suited the more realistic focus this film was aiming for.
Even the opening quote (a scrap of text from Dr. Loomis' true-crime book “The Devil's Eyes”) points out that the scariest evil is the one that silently walks among us. Yet there's nothing inconspicuous about a twelve foot tall, mega-muscled juggernaut. I think Michael could have been scarier as more of a redneck everyman – a creepy version of the mechanic down the street. It also would have tied in with the notion of his malnourishment following incarceration, and would have helped the audience relate the silent monster to the kid from the opening. A scrappy, withering psychopath can be every bit as scary as a gargantuan one. Instead, there's a bit of a disconnect at work.
Of course as a remake we have to move events back to Michael's home town of Haddonfield, Illinois on the October 31st anniversary of his original meltdown. We also have to see the triumvirate of female victims led by the bookish Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). I must say it's initially jarring to hear reused dialogue coming from the mouths of actresses who are not Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Kyes and P.J. Soles, but the sensation passes.
At last we are introduced to one environment in the film that isn't a refracted, hellish variant on our own. Laurie's Haddonfield is a cozier, leaf-strewn realm of smiles and gentle behavior. Her parents aren't damaged goods at all (look for Cujo / Critters star Dee Wallace who is simply delightful as Mrs. Strode), and her friends (including Annie, the sheriff's daughter as played by Danielle Harris) are more wholesome than anything seen during the opening. Even the slutty one, Lynda the cheerleader (Kristina Klebe) - who still uses the word 'totally' too much.
While these young girls are a necessary element of retelling the story, Zombie is not at all interested in having Laurie as the main character. As a result many of the classic scenes are compressed and dispelled as soon as possible. He is unashamed in his devotion to Michael, and delivers an inverted replica of the first film. We see all of the events relating to his breakout, and the ensuing massacre as he secures transportation back home. But when it comes to his babysitter victims, their circumstances are truncated. In a way that's fine, since we'll always have the original (no doubt Anchor Bay will have another DVD in a few days!).
This midsection feels a bit paint-by-numbers, and at first I yearned to see altogether something else that could capitalize on the very fascinating origin story instead of another depiction of elements I were familiar with. That said, Zombie knows how to tweak things here and there to keep it fresh. When I thought I knew everything about the robbery of a gravestone, he threw in something extra to keep me on my toes. He also doesn't indulge in a shot for shot recreation a la Gus Van Zant's pointless retake on Psycho. In fact, Zombie's widescreen framing is very, very good.
He routinely uses an interesting gimmick in which we see things as if from the point of view of the killer, even when he's not officially present at the time. When he stares at the nude form of his sister, it's through a chain-link veil that barely comes into focus. There's another neat visual moment where Loomis confronts the local sheriff Lee Brackett (cult icon Brad Dourif) behind an array of purple orbs caused by a reflection of sign at the Haddonfield Burger restaurant.
Overall, Zombie has matured greatly as a filmmaker. He was plagued by the curse of the first time director having to throw in every visual trick in the book (see George Clooney's busy Confessions of a Dangerous Mind for another example), but has since learned to slow things down a bit. The weird things he does indulge in are actually pretty fun, such as a slight camera shake every time Michael slams a victim into a metal dividing wall in a bathroom stall. But gone are his protracted segments in negative color and random splices of vintage cheesecake stag films.
I appreciated that he respected the source material enough to retain all of the original character's names (right down to their boyfriends). He also drops references to the Rabbit in Red bar (found on a book of matches in the original). Following Carpenter's tradition, The Thing From Another Planet is seen mutliple times on televisions within this film, and there's the clever use of Bela Lugosi in White Zombie. While locations and events were shifted and recomposed, there's still an essence of familiarity at play.
Some script choices are smart, primarily to include the relationship between Laurie and Michael right from the get go, whereas originally it did not appear until Halloween II. Other choices resulted in mixed results. It was interesting to expand upon the iconic nature of Michael's William Shatner mask of choice, and it is introduced early in the film this time. Seeing a young kid walking around wearing this gigantic, eerie face was a strange effect – like a bobblehead sent from the depths of Hell. However, the plot device implemented to return the mask to the Michael of adulthood was mildly head-scratching.
I've heard talk of people complaining that the ending feels rushed, but it's actually the opposite. Zombie rebuilds the finale of the original into a similar structure, and then constructs another wing beyond that. While thematically the decision to relocate Laurie's ultimate showdown into the abandoned Myers house (now used as a party zone by sexed-up alcoholic teens) makes sense, it robs the picture of some much needed tension. Part of what made Carpenter's vision so terrifying was that unstoppable, incomprehensible evil had infiltrated the mundane reality of suburbia.
It made you question your safety when popping popcorn, getting clothes from the laundry room, or even starting your car. When Laurie was trapped screaming in the closet at the end of the original, it was a closet just like the one in your bedroom. You didn't get that moment of catharsis as you left your fear behind at the theater. You had to return home to its true lair and feel it simmering in your gut (and look for the figure of Michael in every corner of your house, as in both versions he is often seen barely exposed in the shadows).
Zombie thus missteps slightly by staging the climax in the decrepit, rotting home of Michael's youth. When this Laurie is desperately hiding in various nooks and crannies, it's harder to relate to because the location looks like it's straight out of a horror movie. Subsequently, Michael loses some his potency as well – when he's menacing people in plush carpeted, inviting abodes it's terrifying. When he's rampaging through a spooky ghost house bashing in walls with a two by four, it becomes more of a grimy cartoon that's texturally closer to the environment seen in the cheesy last movie Halloween: Resurrection starring Busta Rhymez.
Once it moves beyond this section, the film regains its footing. I admit that it had me guessing, for there were potential story threads that led to very dark destinations. I began to wonder how deep Zombie was going to take us. I did enjoy the last few minutes of the film, but I must say that by that point I had started to anticipate a really bleak outcome and secretly began wishing for it. He could have capitalized on the creepy psychology and harrowing sense of hopelessness illustrated in the beginning. It must have been tough trying to fill the shoes of original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis, but Taylor-Compton deserves credit for delivering the goods when it counted most. The kids she babysits are also very good (Skyler Gisondo as Tommy and Jenny Gregg Stewart as Lindsey), and there's a very funny scene in which they accuse her of stalling when Tommy wants to know juicy information about the boogieman.
Its also fun watching Malcolm McDowell trot through the ensuing disaster considering he played a violent youth himself in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (another film I saw at an early age – egad!). Instead of delighting in the red, red krovvy he's attempting to prevent more of it from spilling. He's not quite as off-his-rocker as Pleasance's incarnation, but the script's smart decision to turn him into a true crime novelist yields dividends in terms of story. It creates a plausible reason for locals (especially Sheriff Brackett) not to trust in his assertions that the devil himself has returned to his small town home. Loomis is mistrusted by those who feel he has exaggerated the danger in order to sell books (which have a realistic looking trash-crime cover) and ultimately profit from the town's losses.
Along with McDowell this thing is a geek's delight – a who's who of b and z-grade film actors. If you've seen me mention the word 'cult' in front of every other thespian description, it's no accident. There are the aforementioned Dourif, Danning and Trejo. Clint Howard has a role. There's also an awesome cameo by Ken Foree, costar of the original Dawn of the Dead. And when Mickey Dolenz showed up as a gun merchant I just about lost my mind. A Monkee in a movie this vicious and depraved? It's so wrong and yet so very right at the same time. Even Udo Kier pops up at one point! Of course Zombie fans will delight to see the return of his regular stable of actors, including Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Tom Towles.
The soundtrack is also interesting, for Zombie resisted the urge to fill it with his own disco-metal compositions. He also wisely chose a composer to respect and ably expand upon the sparse creepiness of Carpenter's original self-produced score. Just as much as the white mask makes Halloween what it is, he knew that the music was equally important. And thankfully nobody indulges in a full-band version of the haunting Halloween theme song either. It was a surprisingly successful choice to litter the soundtrack with overused classic rock radio staples from the likes of Nazareth, Rush and Blue Oyster Cult. I also appreciated a brief use of the Misfits song Halloween II, since I always found it odd that Glenn Danzig wrote at least three songs named Halloween and none of them ever were used in the film series in spite of their instant applicability.
The thing I appreciated the most is going to sound stupid but here goes. After watching the original film over and over again, I've retained silly amounts of dialogue and minutiae as a result. In Carpenter's version there's a largely unimportant subplot involving Laurie having a crush on a schoolmate named Ben Tramer. It's a throwaway named after one of Carpenter's friends, but with every viewing the name kept jumping out and I suddenly wanted to learn more about the elusive Mr. Tramer. (He does get full character status in the second film, but I'm not counting that here.) I later decided that if I ever form a rock band I will name it 'The Ben Tramer Experience' just to confuse my audience. But what's this have to do with Rob Zombie's Halloween?
Because it represents the crux of my geekiness, the pinnacle of my insatiable fandom for the original film. Tramer's existance was an element that absolutely had to be respected by the new kid in the director's chair. Think of the how everyone fretted that the last line of Peter Jackson's Return of the King wasn't going to be Samwise's final phrase from the novel. Or how Bond fanatics (myself included) were bouncing in their seats waiting for 007 to utter the words "the bitch is dead" in Casino Royale. Zombie could ditch the ghost-boyfriend scene (he doesn't) or even the headstone gag (likewise), but Ben Tramer's inclusion in the dialogue was make-or-break material for yours truly. Did Zombie pass the test? You'll have to see for yourself.
On all other counts he's done a decent and oftentimes great job. It will never supplant the original, and at times the omnipresent, invincible evil (aka The Shape) that emerges is at odds with the very psychologically grounded damaged youth we meet at the beginning. Rob goes to great lengths to reconcile the more complicated Michael Myers he's created with the anthropomorphized depiction of sheer evil that had come before. And perhaps it loses something by distancing itself from the tale of one young girl's personal apocalypse.
But as horror acolytes such as myself know, inhuman monsters are only interesting to a point. We need some sort of human conduit to place everything in context and allow us to fear for their lives as well as our own. Reframing this story so that the monster is the main character was a remarkably risky one. There are times when you are asked to relate to his homicidal nature, and understand why he tilts his head sideways to stare blankly at his gruesome handiwork. It's a fine line that can easily lead to failure (see the jokey Freddy Krueger from the later Nightmare on Elm Street films).
Which leads me to the conclusion that apparently Rob Zombie also shares – that you should know when there's too much of a good thing and have the courage to stop. This film is a self-contained nightmare, and Dimension should resist the urge to make more just because that's what became of the source material. Likewise, the original Halloween series should be put to sleep, and let us simply have these two unique versions to complete the cycle. I'm proud to state that Zombie didn't fumble the ball, but we don't need a sequel. Unless of course, it's Halloween II: The Ben Tramer Story.
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Addendum: I just watched the fim again last night and am happy to report that upon second viewing I was looking less and less for the differences between versions and found myself anticipating moments to come - which is a sign that this film is a success. I also wasn't as disappointed in Michael's wrestler look, though I still stand by my original comments. But I was struck by how many great moments there are in the film, and how fantastic Zombie's imagery is (I love the way he frames young Michael in the back seat of a cop car as the kid slowly turns to stare at you). And when the end credits came, with the theme music blaring and each on-screen title punctuated by snippets of faux home movies of young Michael, I got goosebumps and it hit me just how much I appreciated this film. Zombie has done a great job. If only he had released it in October!