So now I embark on the necessary
Halloween (2007) review. Like so many others -
thirty one million dollars worth of fans - I trekked out to a late night Friday showing to a reasonably full upper middle class Midwestern audience.
I add the caveat that I was only a little drunk, having had a margarita at Applebees shortly before. I trust this doesn't have any effect on my analysis. *grin*
I'll tell you truly, I wasn't expecting much. While I enjoy Zombie's work, I am in now way slavishly devoted to it as some horror fans are. I do find his horror homages delightful, however (and even more so in his music, of which I am slavishly admiring of), and his creative use of maniacism and gore that hearkens back to the seventies horror films much more effectively than other Splat Packers (ahem, Roth and Aja). But what people miss - amidst the gore, swearing, and white trash bickering - is that Rob Zombie is A) smart, in general and about his horror, and B) a businessman (in spite of the tattoos and long hair and the general angry disposition he always seems to have on his face).
C'mon, people, see it from his point of view. He's a rising director in a genre that is not only floundering, but is subject to serious debate concerning its artistic validity and overall merit. The flippin' Weinsteins, sensing that this guy has got some talent (not counting the critics who question a heavy metal artist's right and ability to direct), and give him free reign over a beloved franchise. He has eyes and a functioning brain, so knows that Michael Meyers and the slasher sub genres are down the tubes, jokes even within splatterati and fan crowds. So he grabs that chance, not only for his career and pocketbook, but also as an artist who's seen something he loves raped by commercialism until it lies bleeding and broken in the gutter. So, he extends his hand to give it a second chance.
This is not an ideal artist-patron relationship, however. This isn't Mel Gibson using his own money to make
The Passion of Christ (2004). This is Brunelleschi
taking orders from the Medici, Michelangelo
catering to the Church. We tend to idealize those who think out of the box, those work touches a cord with us. We love their independence, their bravery. But we forget they're people with ambitions and goals, stuck in a world very similar to ours where we compromise a million times a day in pursuit of a greater goal. There's no difference here; there's a mainstream audience Weinstein wants Zombie to consider. So this
Halloween won't end up with the same deliriously campy and dirty vibe
House of a Thousand Corpses (2003) and
The Devil's Rejects (2005) had (though there are elements of it present). I think it's time for Zombie to stretch out of that framework anyway. You can only make so many of those movies before you're pigeonholed into the genre. Another smart business move.
As for his smarts, well, look at where he took
Halloween. There are two prongs of his script that I find particularly insightful: the
Hannibal Rising (2007) treatment Myers was given, as well as the mother/sister subtext from Myers childhood.
The biggest failure of the first Halloween, in my opinion, was the lack of motivation on Meyer's part. Born into an affluent, suburban family, Myer's suddenly picks up a kitchen knife and stabs his sister. While it's clear the murder is psycho-sexually related, we have no idea what drove Myers to commit the act. Zombie remedies this, making Myer's family a white trash cess pool of vulgarity and hate. With the exception of his mother (and even that relationship is muddied)and baby sister, little Mikey has no one to turn to in his bleak, colorless world. In fact, Mikey's favorite color is black; Dr. Loomis tells him it's the "absence of color"... a fitting analogy for Mikey's desolate existence. While we still find it hard to accept Mikey's actions, especially his violent bludgeoning of a schoolyard bully, we can feel for the child. I kept thinking to myself that someone needed to hug that child and tell him life was much more than what he'd been allotted in childhood. But, as we all know, that love came too late.
It is that identification and repulsion that gives Halloween most of its heart - both the lovey dovey and the rip-it-out-of-your-chest-take-a-bite-and-stomp-it-on-the-floor-with-a-knife-stuck-through-it kinds. Even in our gore-loving hearts, we hope Meyers will redeem himself, rise above his psychopathic-inducing nature and nurture, especially in regards to his little sister, Laurie. Those hopes are systematically smashed with three key events (skip ahead if you haven't seen the movie, as there be spoilers afoot here):
- Myer's brutal murder of a nurse in the asylum, in near approximation of his mother.
- Myer's senseless murder of Ismael, who - like Lecter's Barney, always treated him with respect. (I was muttering, "No, NOT Machete! Not Sex Machine! Aw, damn...")
- Myer's attempt to reach out wordlessly to his sister, thrusting a picture of the two of them into her shaking hands and expecting her to know its significance. When she doesn't understand and stabs him, all hope is lost. His idealized angel, Boo, is knife fodder like everyone else.
The most telling scene involves Michael's relationship to his mother. Just like
Psycho's Norman Bates, Michael has mommy issues. A bastion of love, the only adult kindness Mikey knows, she also brings into the house the loathsome step father, whom berates Mikey into a sea of self-loathing. It is this attraction/repulsion (not to mention Mommy is a stripper, and everyone at school knows it) creates in Mikey a psycho sexual
Madonna/whore complex with his mother. And we all know how thorny
that issue can get - at least he's not wearing Mommy's clothes. In the scene, Michael has stolen his mother's gravestone (and left a dead animal effigy in it's place) and kidnapped his sister, his treasured fetish objects, and brings them deep into the home they once all shared (no need to point out that a house is the key symbol for the unconscious - judging by the state of the house and how he tears through it, Myers is desperately slashing round his own neuroses). He kneels, as if genuflecting, and drops his knife. There will be no
phallic stabbing of these venerated women. It's disarmingly sentimental for a Zombie film. We hope, like Christine in
The Phantom of the Opera (2004), that Laurie (who's truly a kind soul) will reach out to him in his madness and find some semblance of the loving Mikey inside. There's no sugary sweet happy ending in his this film. Laurie, the good little
Final Girl she is, grabs the knife and stabs the shit out him. Wouldn't you?
It was messed up, it was gorier than Zombie let on to be, it did well at the box office, though
both Zombie and Weinstein say there will be no further Halloween movies, they left the ending open for whomever picks up the torch next; Aja or maybe *shudder* Boll.
Anyway, my personal feelings aside, the film has quite a bit to offer the casual film-goer and the seasoned Halloween fan, if nothing more than to watch and see what Zombie has added to the Halloween mythos. I'd give it an A- But, who am I kidding? I"m preaching to the choir.
