CHANGING THE FACE OF FEAR FOR A NEW GENERATION

  
Director Rob Zombie's vision puts a bloody new face
behind the mask of a horror legend
by Scott Weitz
— August 31, 2007 —

To paraphrase an old ad campaign: this is not your father's HALLOWEEN.   Nor is this John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN.  Rob Zombie's visionary, violent take on the story of Michael Myers is most definitely a HALLOWEEN for 2007 in all that entails.  His is a far less stylized film than the first tale and a substantially more brutal story.  As writer and director, Zombie stated one of his prime motivations was to make Myers scare audiences again — mission accomplished, but perhaps in ways HALLOWEEN devotees (especially fetishists of the franchise) will find challenging to say the least.

Michael Myers is back, but with a character-driven core of humanity now corrupted beyond redemption by the insanity of evil.  Knowing a bit more about who lurks beneath the pale mask of The Shape — without explaining away his lethal instincts — restores relevance to his murders, returning the horror to his violent acts which had been reduced to uninvolving cheap thrills by formulaic sequels.  The 2007 model of Michael Myers is no mere slasher.  Young and adult, he is a killer who audiences will find unsafe, threatening and — amazingly, for a semi-remake — unpredictable. 

HALLOWEEN is two parts creative reimagining of a horror icon's story, and one part respectful tribute to an enduring classic of cinema.  Within that equation, the first half designed by Zombie to expand and explore the persona of Michael Myers is the most dramatically satisfying and successful of the film. 

The opening act illustrates the dysfunctional family life of young Michael, played with eerie stillness by Daeg Faerch.  This socially sidelined ten year-old endures constant verbal and emotional abuse by his mother's live-in lover Ronnie (William Forsythe) and elder teen sister Judith Myers (Hanna Hall).  In fact Michael's last remaining connection to his humanity is wired through his mom Deborah, played with an intense range of futile hope and ultimate heartbreak by Sheri Moon Zombie in her strongest work to date.

Working nights in the soul-stealing environment of a strip club, Deborah struggles vainly to keep her disintegrating family life tolerable, though her own despair blinds her eyes to Michael's deep and growing troubles.  The boy has been torturing and killing small animals to vent his buried rage at the world, and his mother balks at the reality when confronted with evidence presented by Dr. Sam Loomis (in the guise of veteran actor Malcolm McDowell).

Loomis' professional advice is much too little and too late, as Michael snaps one day after school, bludgeoning to death his tormenting bully (Daryl Sabara).  The thug is quickly exposed as a coward while pleading for his life under the attack of Michael's shockingly violent fury, and cinema's longest-running serial killer is (re)born.

Already obsessed with hiding his deadly impulses behind his clown costume mask around the house, once again Michael again suffers the abuse of his sister and pseudo-stepdad on a fateful Halloween night.  Without his working mother present to maintain the last grip on his humanity, Michael retreats behind his rage forever and exacts his bloody revenge upon Ronnie, sister Judith and her loveless boyfriend.

No doubt young Faerch got quite a workout in these murder scenes, as director Zombie instills a giant's power in this undersized, doughy pre-teen boy; a fitting setup to casting 6' 10" Tyler Mane as adult Michael for the last half of the film.  Faerch's deadpan silence as a brutal killer provides a sharp counterpoint to his character's storm of physical mayhem, capped off by Michael's iconic stalking of his bleeding sister through the halls of their dreary home.  Destiny is revealed as young Michael realizes his true identity, his power to kill fueling his will to live as the family slaughter commences . . . save the one uncorrupted soul Michael still dares to care about, his baby sister whom he lovingly calls Boo.

Zombie's dramatic and screen-time investment in young Michael's character is precisely intended to challenge over a decade of programmatic slashings by a once-threatening horror monster, and credit due to Daeg Faerch who fully lives up to this acting challenge.  It's a very tall order to play a nearly mute, horrendously insane murderer and retain any degree of believability, yet actor and director succeed in this most daring of franchise departures.

No doubt this dramatic study of Michael's misshapen youth may scare off those fans and fetishists who can't tolerate any substance to Myers thicker than a layer of painted latex, but others looking beyond their own expectation will be rewarded by Zombie's efforts to restore meaning and relevance to this horror icon. 

Zombie continues into HALLOWEEN's second act with Deborah and Dr. Loomis' continued attempts to resurrect Michael the boy, who utterly disassociates his ego from his enraged killer instinct.  The writer/director decorates Michael's sanitarium cell with dozens of handmade masks, all futile hiding places for the boy's shame and self-loathing.  When Michael kills again, Loomis' failure is sealed and their fates are intertwined thereafter.

This original treatment of Michael Myers' character, filling in the missing story gaps left fittingly unexplored in Carpenter's classic film, stands out as the creative and dramatic strength of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN.  As with his fledgling first effort as a horror director with HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES, and the much more substantial character-driven evils in sequel THE DEVIL'S REJECTS, Zombie stretches his technical ability and story sensibility even more in this reimagined half of the film.

Zombie's script interweaves existing, franchise-held folklore about Michael Myers' sketchy past with new material which deepens the character and dramatic potential surrounding the genesis of this serial slayer.   Michael isn't explained, he is explored.  No hokey curse makes him kill.  Michael may live in emotional squalor, suffering constant torment from others, but this is not a motive to justify his murders.  It's merely a plausible setting in which a troubled boy turns his own mental corner and takes the path to lethal insanity.  The first half of HALLOWEEN never intends to illustrate why Michael becomes a killer, but it does dramatize how a boy could quickly develop into a ruthless, inhuman (but not dehumanized) murderer.

Towering Tyler Mane assumes the role of adult Michael Myers, masked by a bloody orange faceplate of his own making which bears more than a passing resemblance to a Halloween pumpkin underneath his shaggy mop of unkempt hair.  The effect further disassociates Michael from his own subverted humanity, as masks become both a way of life and death for Myers after fifteen years locked up in Smith's Grove Sanitarium.  Even with no speaking lines, Mane also had a tough assignment living up to fan expectation (realistic or compulsive) about how Michael Myers walks, stalks, stabs and slashes as The Shape of evil extinguishing lives in Haddonfield.  Yet the actor delivers work of both brutal force and sinister subtlety in a performance that certainly looks much easier to enact than it was.  Mane never lets the audience forget Michael exists beneath that mask, thinking, waiting and plotting to make the kill to satisfy the evil within him.

On the eve of his transfer to another facility, Michael's stored rage — now amplified by his daunting physical stature — erupts as he slays the unfortunate guards (cameos by Zombie favorites Leslie Easterbrook, Lew Temple and Bill Moseley) assigned to make this unwise move.  A quick tribute is due to actor Danny Trejo for his delightfully tender, against-type performance as the lone sanitarium worker who shows Michael compassion throughout his incarceration, and makes the most of a well-written supporting role.

As Zombie leaves his original telling of the tale behind to follow Michael home to Haddonfield, and picks up the narrative thread in a condensed re-telling of Carpenter's action from the 1978 film, this new HALLOWEEN loses some of its creative steam and strength.  The familiarity of plot and characters now allows the audience to get ahead of Zombie's film, when in the first half he led them down uncharted paths nightmarishly unsettling to walk.  In short, resuming Carpenter and Debra Hill's scripted story returns comfort and control to an audience previously filled with anxiety but now awash in familiar anticipation. 

Myers is on the loose and going home to search for all he lost that fateful Halloween night, personified by his baby sister, now adopted and living as typical teen Laurie Strode.  The shining strength of this final act is embodied by young actress Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie, who succeeds in reclaiming the same natural, realistic performance which made Jamie Lee Curtis a standout in 1978.  Yet as with Michael Myers, this is a Laurie Strode of her time and social context.  Rougher around the edges but equally pure and moral at heart, Scout engenders audience support quickly and her work in the film should offer solid starring projects ahead in her career.

Alas the same cannot be said for the characters of Lynda and Annie Brackett, played by Kristina Klebe and Danielle Harris respectively.  Both actresses work well in their roles, but its the characters which let us down. Amid this condensed retelling of the modern-day act, the script allows little time to warm up to and identify with either of Laurie's teen friends, and so their ultimate fates at the hands of Michael garner much less suspense or sympathy.  To be frank, as written Lynda is nearly unlikable: a promiscuous 'slut' who worries much less about being one than she does worrying her friends think she's one.  A shallow caricature of a shallow girl, Lynda's predestined dispatching (echoing that of his sister's post-sex murder) lacks any palpable emotional response.

Danielle Harris, once the girl who portrayed Jamie Lloyd, the niece of Michael Myers in HALLOWEEN 4 and 5, fares better as Annie, the daughter of Sheriff Brackett (the sadly underutilized Brad Dourif).  She and Laurie actually do develop on-screen chemistry as best friends.  But almost all aspects of this final act come off as rushed, fulfilling plot point expectation (and perhaps franchise demand?) while skimming over the humanity about to fall under Michael's knife, and Harris' Annie gets shortchanged accordingly.  Supporting roles by Dee Wallace and Pat Skipper as Cynthia and Mason Strode work just as well in scenes establishing the loving environment of Laurie's adopted family, but plot demands put their screen time at all too brief premiums.

Young Skyler Gisando and Jenny Gregg Stewart serve the story well as babysitting charges Tommy Doyle and Lindsey Wallace, but once Michael Myers returns to stalk Laurie, they too figure into the final action too briefly to make audiences fear for their tender lives.  Indeed, the tense if drawn-out finale is a suspenseful battle of wills between Laurie and Michael which empowers both characters with motive and action to play out this violent end game, if at the expense of all who hastily perished before.

Alas, the last act's major weakness resides in Dr. Loomis, who the script has turned into an exploiting lecturer selling books about Michael's evil instead of an obsessed lunatic frantic to make Haddonfield believe a butcher walks among them.  When originally portrayed by Donald Pleasance, Loomis' failure to save Michael turned him into a slightly unhinged crusader out to slay the monster he could not cure.  The many baroque, melodramatic speeches put into the mouth of Loomis by John Carpenter nonetheless informed his character, and paralleled the doctor's life with his escaped patient.  In Zombie's script, Loomis' credibility is undermined as a book-hawking intoner of doom at college psych seminars, turning his personal failure into a professional windfall.  Such a new character dynamic could have been written into a tragic subplot, linking Michael's return with Loomis' personal downfall, but this dramatic potential remains untapped.  Thus Loomis has little to lose or gain by hunting down Michael, and indeed his character and McDowell's performance figure awkwardly into the finale.

Speaking of which, I'll address the rumors and commentary about possible studio interference with the ending of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN.   With loose talk and leaked workprints circulating even before the film's release, it's likely impossible to state definitive fact about changes made in the script and movie.  But seeing the film at its Hollywood world premiere, a week earlier than such talk began, it seemed to me that HALLOWEEN ended in a place not setup or supported by the characters and story established in the first two acts.

I won't spoil the ending which you'll see in theaters, but it fails to be as definite or satisfying as Zombie stated it would be in his repeated interview comments that his HALLOWEEN would have a specific ending with no sequel setup looming in the last frames.  Could Zombie even hint at forced changes if Dimension stepped in and requested more flexibility in his story's conclusion?  Too much speculation to discuss it further, but suffice it to say that I was eager to see Zombie put a clear-cut ending on his tale, and the final results don't seem to bear out his promised intentions — specifically the oddly unspecified fates of Annie and Loomis left unresolved amid the furious fight ending the story.

What finale there is between Laurie and Michael works well enough on its own, though frustrating vagueness lurks in its violent climax too.   What succeeds in this denouement is the horror Laurie must not only to confront, but the desperate action she must take herself.  She truly fights to save her own life at the hands of her murderous brother, and even if she triumphs there is little doubt of the terror inflicted upon Laurie and the nightmare left to endure thereafter.

I give much credit to Rob Zombie for signing onto this daunting project, and ultimately for taking on what might well be a thankless task, castigated for being both too original and too influenced by franchise demands to step entirely out of HALLOWEEN history to create his entire film from scratch.  That is an impossible, contradictory standard which no artist could ever live up to, and so I refuse to make Zombie bear that burden.  I applaud his original take on this celebrated, beloved horror tale, and give due credit for his success in opening up a familiar story to new, challenging ideas.  His film is certainly the boldest gamble and vision to appear under a HALLOWEEN title card in decades.

If Rob Zombie fails to completely execute his vision of HALLOWEEN, it's only because his strength and talent as a writer/director remain in his creating original, utterly personal works of his own design.  His film certainly breathes new life into a classic horror character who has lingered creatively comatose for years now, and if Dimension resumes the series anew based on Zombie's tale, then credit him with making the attempt even possible again.

Rob Zombie will continue to develop as a promising, intriguing cinematic author, and with his recently signed two-picture deal with Dimension Films, I encourage him to unleash his creative powers unfettered by franchise concerns or fanbase fanaticism to make two new, distinctly Rob Zombie films to come.  Until then, HALLOWEEN stands as an often-chilling promise of the full potential this rising filmmaker will fulfill soon enough.