Jamie
“Get me a Hostel!” the executive screamed, chomping a cigar between his lips. The young associates scrambled through the piles of original scripts sent their way. No hostels in sight. Where were the achilles tendon slices? A quick ctrl+F for “ripe melon” finds zero time it was used to describe a head being crushed by a killer’s bare hands. Even a script titled “Extreme Gore” turns out to be a reimagining of the 2000 Presidential Election which, while horrifying, is not what they need. Suddenly the sea of scripts parts and like a glowing medallion there is a copy of Halloween: Resurrection. “Resurrect… Halloween… talk to me people,” screams one of the associates excitedly.
Or at least that’s how I imagine this all happened. Step two: hire Rob Zombie. Step three: profit. There is no inbetween steps because I assume no one on the studio side knew what the hell was going on. Horror had changed in a matter of just a few years from Scream knock-offs to Blair Witch knock-offs to Saw knock-offs. Halloween went right along with it: H20 to a pseudo reality horror in Resurrection and then finally Zombie’s Halloween reboot. And it worked. So kudos to everyone involved. Zombie remade the classic film with some extra gory bits mixed in, he did it on the cheap, and it made a massive amount of money. And that’s pretty far and away the most impressive part of this movie. Besides that it’s a gross, cheapo Halloween remake with much worse acting and an excessive amount of Myers backstory. No need to even do a recap as there isn’t anything interesting to talk about.
For Hot Take Clam Bake I’ve got one that’s been cooking in the oven for the last few entries of Halloween. I have not shied away from my opinion that for the original Halloween series (through entry six) Dr. Loomis is at best a merely annoying, possibly drunk character who pops up here and there for some laughs. At worst he’s the true villain of the franchise. HOWEVER, after his absence in H20 and Resurrection I started to suspect that, could it be?… Loomis might be a necessary evil? His absence made it clear to me that he had functioned for most of the series as Michael Myers hype man. A little kid murdered his sister and then escaped years later. Throw it on the pile next to the rest of the escaped prisoners. But no! Loomis is right there screaming in your face about his eyes being black as coals!!! He’s evil! And you’re criminally responsible if you don’t heed his warning because Michael Myers is one scary MFer… well, shit now I’m spooked. Who is this Myers character? He must be an unstoppable horror show. You see? I’m all hyped now. Ready for Michael to knock my socks off.
What does this have to do with the reboot? This point is the remake’s biggest failure is its inability to understand this. You had McDowell at the ready! The man is a maniac! So what do you do with him? You tame him down. It becomes a story of Loomis’ recognition of Myers’ trauma and ultimately his attempt (and failure) to reason with Myers’ homicidal mission against his sister. And just when I was recognizing his value as a character. Loomis is good. This movie failed him and thus it failed us. That take is scored as a Heat Seeking Missile. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Halloween? More like I Wish I Hadn’t Seen (It). Did you ever think to yourself “Man, I wish the horror classic Halloween was gross like Hostel.” Rob Zombie did. Let’s go!
- This movie is two hours long. This movie also has a half-hour section that explains in detail the origin story of Michael Myers as a whiny sociopath. Thus, this movie could have been a much better film if they just cut out the origin story. Et voila. You are welcome, Rob Zombie, call it the Sklog Cut.
- This is a tale of two films. On the one hand, thanks, I hate it. On the other, very clearly some people liked it because it made a boatload of cash. It does potentially feel like the way a “reboot” should go for a horror classic. He changed up the genre. That makes sense. You have to change up something, right?
- I still wish the film wasn’t made though.
- Besides maybe Dourif, the rest of the cast is a kind of give or take. I didn’t think Rob Zombie’s wife or the woman playing Laurie were very good, and McDowell is always a trip. But acting isn’t in the top 3 things I disliked about the film.
- The top three are all how gross this film is. Again, thanks, I hate it. Turns out I can abide torture porn-esque films now. I don’t feel queasy while watching them. But I still hate them and I hate that they did it to Halloween.
- Similarly Michael Myers being a hulking wrestler also seems wrong.
- To draw it back to the remake series a bit, Halloween: Resurrection could have been called MichaelMyers.com because that is hilarious, but also could have been called Murder.com and been a generic slasher. Similarly, this could be called like Torture House or Stabbed Seventy Times in the Face and it would have made more sense. This isn’t really Halloween, and when it is it is really just going through the motions.
- I know this is a mishmash of thoughts, but I’ll end it by saying that this film is NOT dog poo in my face. So it does manage to not be the worst of the series … I might have watched the worst of the series right after though. Stay tuned.
- Obviously, as usual, the film is a Setting as a Character (Where?) for Haddonfield, Illinois. And it is a A+ Holiday Film (When?) for Halloween as well. This film is closest to Good for me, as much as I personally hate it, I also recognize what it needed to do and that Zombie managed, against all odds, to do it to make is a marked improvement over the later Halloween sequels.
I didn’t have time to get this on DVD so no special features. Wish I could have listened to Rob Zombie’s director commentary. Read about the spinoff series called Halloween II: King Michael Myers in the Quiz.
Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 