Rob Zombie's Metatrash

[Yes, I'm finally getting around to posting about Rob Zombie's Halloween. I know it's late, but what are you going to do? Stab me?]

I couldn't be more divided on Rob Zombie's Halloween if Michael Myers himself cut me in half with a butcher knife. On one hand, I admire it as a brazen piece of metatrash. A portrait of lowlifes on a lowbrow canvas (it is, after all, a slasher flick), Halloween revels in its own filth with the gusto of someone who's never been taught social graces. The first half of the picture concerns the making of a Michael Myers and, suitably, Zombie devises a tale that's both hideous and larger-than-life. At every turn, there is woe in Michael's environment, a sort of antithetical fantasyland that includes a stripper mother (played by Sheri Moon Zombie like Sharon Stone on Wonder Bread, which is to say: enjoyably), a verbally abusive father figure (his mother's boyfriend threatens to "skull fuck the shit out of" her within seconds of appearing on screen, in the film's indelible first scene) and a slutty sister, who sexually harasses him repeatedly about the masturbation she assumes he's engaging in. At school, Michael faces bullying. His only retreat is his bedroom where he mutilates his pets. Ah, the comforts of home.

Young Myers' life is absurdly unpleasant. Perhaps a monochromatic life of misery is a reality for some, but seeing it depicted as such on screen is overwhelming. Even though Myers' upbringing and stringy-haired volatility reminds me of kids I went to grade school with in a can't-put-my-finger-on-it-and-wouldn't-want-to-for-fear-of-scabies way, it all seems so ridiculous. But then, ridiculous is a man who, in John Carpenter's original, wasn't so much a man as a force, an embodiment of evil. A big man like that needs a big story, a tall tale even. The real source of my ambivalence here comes from the massive unpleasantness (it's completely watchable), but the imbalance between Zombie's nihilistically fantastical writing and often-hand-held, reality-aspiring direction. It's so disparate that Zombie's Halloween might as well be an epic poem written in shit.

I get the sense that horror buff Zombie is at odds with himself – following the guidance of Carpenter himself when he told John he'd be "reimagining" Halloween, Zombie's making the film his own, but at the same time he's careful to respect the original. He's perhaps too respectful in the latter half of the film that aims to cram the events in the original into about an hour and still manages to trip over itself into tedium (an exception is Zombie's portrayal of the Strodes as overly cheerful WASPs, a cynically hilarious answer to Myers' misery-caked back story). Zombie is at his best when, however sloppily, he's endlessly ramming scenes and ideas in your face, like someone who spent the entirety of the '80s feasting on MTV, and having Russ Meyer for dessert. When Zombie turns on the atmosphere and attempts to shadow the pacing of the 1978 original, which was so even and stark you could sharpen a knife on it, Zombie comes up shorter than he ever has in the course of his short directing career (I'm specifically speaking about the laborious ending, this wandering thing lacking in tension that's apparently the product of a reshoot and a side of bad judgment).

But then, even the stronger first half of Zombie's Halloween is flawed. In a movie that attempts to tell you the whys and hows, not even Zombie has all the answers. Where does Myers' boundless strength, for example, come from? As someone who's capable of complete motor competence after being stabbed in the neck and shot three times, is he somehow beyond human? And, since we're basically afforded the opportunity to watch him grow, when did that happen? The original film aroused similar curiosity in me – I thought that what supposedly made Halloween scary was Myers' inhuman humanness. That he's somehow beyond man has always seemed like a copout – I wish Zombie would have righted Carpenter's (perhaps sole) wrong. (I'd also be curious about why Michael stopped talking if I hadn't watched the workprint version that leaked online just before the film's U.S. release. That version includes a scene absent from the theatrical release in which young Michael throws a fit about not being let out of the asylum he's sentenced to and ends it like the brat he is: "I have nothing else to say.")

Zombie's been beat up by reviewers for presenting such a brutal vision of Halloween. I don't fault him for this in the least. Zombie is, like the Myers he's created, a product of his environment – you become so (gleefully) desensitized watching horror movie after horror movie all your life that extremity becomes what you seek, if you're in the business, create. Ultimately, comparing Carpenter's and Zombie's stories is like comparing apples and artichokes. Zombie slides razorblades down your throat and then zooms in on the blood, while Carpenter reveals his story layer by layer until he gets to the bloodless heart. Zombie's flick is inherently a psychological gabfest, as a prequel whose goal is to provide as much story as possible upfront. Zombie resorts to gore where Carpenter thrilled with restraint. This is actually my favorite aspect of Zombie's film – it respectfully wonders if Carpenter's sleek creation was too sophisticated for the story of a brutal killer. Maybe it's more appropriate for a movie about a maniac on a rampage to be as unpleasant as possible. Maybe it should be difficult to watch. Maybe we got off too easy the first time around.

Comments

[J.J.]

I totally agree with this...it was so over the top it was hard to follow any of it. I just kept asking questions through the whole movie..."how'd he get so strong?", "why'd he kill his janitor friend?" Kudos to Rob for trying to give Mikey a reason for his psycho killerness, but I wasn't feelin' it.

[Megan]

How that 4 foot tall kid turned into 8 foot tall Michael Myers is beyond me. Maybe they're putting Human Growth Hormone in the food at asylums now. At any rate, the only real conclusion that I came to after seeing this movie was that I support the death penalty for children, and Carpenter did it better.

[Rasha]

I didnt like the movie at all...period.To answer JJ's questions: I think he killed the janitor guy because he somehow felt betrayed cause he tried to cuff him again. Basically, anybody who gives up on Mikey..turns him into this monster. I.E. all of his family members. He didnt want to kill little sis..till she stabbed him.

I did think his size was ridiculous. I would think someone that size would be tranquilized and restrained a little bit better than that. But this is the movie world right??

Some say you shouldnt compare it to Carpenter. but he used a good bit of Carpenter's old movie. So, they should be compared. That movie wasn't that original.
All that being said, I enjoyed the sillyness of it all. I felt like i laughed more than I should have.

[Tiff]

From the first line in the film, I knew that I was in for a shitfest. The only saving grace for me was the stellar acting from Sheri Moon Zombie. Her suicide scene was the funniest thing I've seen all summer.

[Henry Evil]

Thanks for your thoughts on the movie! I knew it was coming when I saw your banner.

That said, I really didn't like the movie. The first half was so trashy and over the top, and the second half was so... truncated... and by-the-book (except now with tons of boobs, uh, great).

I don't know how better to express my disappointment. The whole thing just felt really pointless and shrill.

[trevor]

i totally agree. the film felt like rob zombie directed the first half and then some other hack came and directed the second, like The Devil's Rejects turning into the Black Christmas remake halfway through. a totally uneven film. but...i still kinda liked it, though some things infuriated me to no end.

[Bart]

My main problem with the movie was that switch between his childhood and when he was a grown-up giant. Since you saw him in the beginning as a kid with bad hair, who wore masks sometimes, I still kept seeing him as a giant kid wearing a mask. In the old movie, I always thought his face would be deformed in some way if he took off the mask (like that one scene in I think the second Friday the 13th movie when the sac falls off his head), but in Rob Zombie's version I kept picturing a chubby-faced kid.

[sami]

The kid that played young michael myers was so... girly looking. Im sad to say I've never seen the original (tho i was dragged to the really horrible Freddy vs. Jason movie by an ex (keyword) boyfriend.

I wasn't sure how to feel about this either... I love Zombie --- and I guess in fantasy movie land, not everything has to make sense... maybe that's why it's so scary... but I would have liked to see more detail during that "15 years later"...

[Z.]

Part of what made Carpenter's film such a masterpiece *is* the fact that he offered pretty much no explanation for Michael.

His family was pretty normal, he lived in an unassuming suburban house, etc. Then one day, he's 6 years old and he chops up his sister. And then you think, "Wow, how did a normal family end up with such a child as that?"

Of course, in later films in the series, we are given some copout lame story about a curse and a cult, but that's not Carpenter's fault. Aside from Halloween II, I tend to ignore that the others exist - especially when the third movie's only mention of Michael is a quick shot of him on a TV screen when the main character is in a bar.

Evil without apparent rhyme or reason is certainly more spooky than Zombie's "vision." I felt like he tried to cram every possible psychological cliche he could into his explanation for Michael's existence. The over-protective mother who also happens to be a stripper, the drunken, abusive step-father, the slutty, shrill sister that teases him (and tantalizes the step-father). Kids at school that are mean, administrators at school that are clueless, blah blah. Blah. Putting all that in there reduces Michael to nothing more than a product of his environment. We *expect* a kid with a screwed-up childhood to turn out to be a crazy killer, and since we expect that, Zombie's Michael loses all power to terrify. He might as well have ended up a cracked out, uneducated redneck that knocks over a series of convenience stores. With Carpenter's Michael, he's just there. He's evil. He's pretty freakin' smart and strong. And even if we don't know WHY he's like that, it's not really that important - because you just have to deal with him either way.

I have about 900 more reasons for why I think Zombie fucked this movie up royally, but I better shut up now since this isn't my blog. ;-)

[Vagabondblogger]

I'm sorry, but this response in on your MTV awards (exxcuuuuuse me! I'm livin' in Cairo, Egypt) recap - totally excellent. And when they replay it here, time after boring time, I will try to catch it in bits and pieces, so as not to be too freaked out! I totally loved the recap. Exceptional!

[Tanith]

Yeah,
Where's the comments prompt here for the VMAs?
The VH1 website gives me anxiety gas.
Poot.

[Daniel]

Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with the ending, which, as you pointed out, lacked any sort of tension. And that bitch was so feeble, it just made me mad.

[Christina]

I was curious to hear your take on this remake. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I would have enjoyed (?) seeing a little more of his childhood, and a little less of the homage to the original. We know what happens in the end, why not see more of what got him there? Oh, and my favorite part of your review:
At school, Michael faces bullying. His only retreat is his bedroom where he mutilates his pets. Ah, the comforts of home.
Hilarious. Thank you :)

[spazmo]

Heh, "an epic poem written in shit" makes for an awesome pull-quote. (Doesn't life feel like that sometimes? Mine sure does.)

Lots of people have their own ideas about what made the original film so effective. Watching it for the millionth-or-so time the other night, I decided it wasn't Michael Myers' mysterious nature that draws you in, but the fictional backdrop for his story itself - Haddonfield. The town where evil was nurtured...and eventually comes home to roost.

It's a beautiful cinematic shorthand for the Potemkin nature of suburbia. The magical way Carpenter disguised south Pasadena as a sleepy, leaf-strewn upper-midwestern town was the real achievement.

There's a dude (many of you might have heard of him) who's really into digging up the geographical bones of scary classic horror films, and Haddonfield was his first (of many) successful expeditions.
He goes to Texas Chainsaw territory, Georgetown, and Camp Crystal lake, too.
Here's the link.
Horror's Hallowed Grounds

(PJ Soles makes a cute surprise cameo in the Halloween video!)

P.S. ~I don't know this guy, I just thought you might be interested.

[Ross]

I just watched the work print version last night and thought it was far superior to the theatrical release. Sure, it was still problematic, but at least it flowed well and had Zombie's sensibility intact. The scenes removed were minor, but many of the points being made were fairly subtle (e.g., the reason for Michael's silence), so removing just one scene would render it senseless. And the killing of the one boyfriend went from a savage Zombie-style stabbing to a rip-off of the original Halloween. Why?!! You know, if the reshoots were the studio's idea, I sure hope Zombie will release his version intact on DVD.

[Waltz]

I thought the movie was really good, I wish Rob had shown more of Michael while in the asylum, and therapy sessions. To say it was over the top i don't agree with, you're forgetting the guy is a psychopath, and that is how psychopaths act. Danny Trejo who played 'the janitor friend' was killed by him because Michael is a psychopath, and a psychopath has no feelings for others usually. So to wrap it up Rob Zombie did this movie justice, he did good in capturing a psychopath like Michael Myers' life, brutal was definitely the correct toad to choose. Rob Zomie shined as he usually does.

[Susan]

I thought this movie was total crap. If Zombie would have made it into something original it may have been okay, but with the original to compare it to, it looks terrible. The thing that made us suspend our disbelief in the original was that you didn't know the origins of Michael, so it was anyone's guess why he was built like the Terminator. Humanizing him into a typical serial killer makes the second half of this film just plain ridiculous. It would have been better if he stuck with letting him die like a real human.

The gratuitous sex and violence in the movie doesn't help it either. Zombie missed what made Halloween scary - it was what you didn't see that was frightening. The mask covered something mysterious. You didn't see a lot of blood. You weren't sure what he was capable of. There was nothing scary about Zombie's Halloween except for the acting performances and the script.

[Tre]

I have never seen the original so I didn't have anything to compare it to. I was really annoyed by all of the teenage boobage in it. Yet, the stripper scene where it would make sense for there to be boobies, nada. The stripper wears a bikini top, but the teenage girls were topless...can someone please give me some reasoning behind this?

[cokane]

Baaahh! Old Lady Kane remembers the day when horror movies were scary and didn't rely on the slashy bloody gory gore. But snif...this made me homesick picturing it all go down at a certain theater we know and love...

[Fairmaiden327]

Your writing style is so easy to follow. I love coming here to read your reviews.

[johnjacob]

"It's so disparate that Zombie's 'Halloween' might as well be an epic poem written in shit."

You're fantastic.

[lattegirl]

I guess your review relegates this movie to the "will-see-when-desperate-on-a-Saturday-night" list.

I am anxiously scouring your archives for the Grindhouse movies, which I just rented today. I KNOW I read something here about them... must...locate... wish... you... had... a search feature...

[Penny Lane]

I guess you could say that Zombie's "vision," which wanders around aimlessly spraying blood, matches Michael's mess of a psyche, but I think that's mostly rationalizing what was essentially Rob Zombie jerking off onto a film reel for two hours. I hated every aspect of this movie. Particularly the fact that my significant other found it so disturbing that I didn't get laid the night we watched it. Thanks a lot, Rob Zombie.

[Erewwtev]

lH4IXB

[viagra burnout]

If you have to do it, you might as well do it right.