496: Rob Zombie's Halloween (Expanded)

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_00]: 203. Let's get to Rob Zombies Halloween from 2007, which I did cover briefly on the Halloween Premium podcast, which you can check out as well if you haven't already.

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I just covered that as more of a kind of a bonus, but I figured since that was a more concise sort of review, I'd re-review them in a more expansive way and more in the context of Rob Zombie rather than just Halloween as a whole.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Besides being done by Zombie, it stars Scout Taylor Compton, Malcolm McDowell, Tyler Maine, Brad Durif, Sherry Moon Zombie, William Forsyth, a few others, Danny Trejo.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And the synopsis is, after being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Lori.

[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_00]: So like I said in the original review, and I'll try not to repeat myself too much, but hopefully there's enough new thoughts here to make it interesting if you have already heard that original review.

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the last Halloween films along with Halloween 2 that I saw of that franchise.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Have seen it, or seen both, I'd say three times each all the way through.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Right off the bat, this would be towards the very bottom of Rob Zombie's filmography for me and of the Halloween franchise, whereas we'll get to two I feel a lot different about that one.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_00]: It has grown on me a little bit over the years, but biggest thing that always brings it down is the origin story.

[00:01:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Having this really long, like almost I'd say about 45 minute origin story with Michael Myers as a kid is the worst choice.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And I understand that he's wanting to remake it, reboot it in his own way at something different.

[00:02:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I get the ambition, the attempt at that, but what makes someone like Michael Myers a slasher killer interesting or scary is we don't always know who it is and or we don't know anything about them.

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We aren't attempted to try and care or sympathize with them, they're just a crazy person who puts on a mask, on a costume and causes chaos.

[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's much more of a realistic, somewhat realistic situation.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas in this, I'm sorry that Michael Myers had a bad upbringing, an abusive father, a crappy family, he got bullied.

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry about that, but regardless, that doesn't give you the right to brutally murder them or anyone because of that.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that it's so long, it's so grim, desensitizing after a while, it feels manipulative.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this isn't what he wanted, but it feels like here is somewhat of a motivation for how he started.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not a motivation, but some sort of humanization of him.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: All in all, it's just not that interesting either.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: The kid in this is tough to say or to judge.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think his performance is fine, but respectfully he has one of the most unlikable jerk faces I've ever seen on a kid.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe again, that's like saying here, you're not supposed to really like this guy.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Or means it's spot on casting that I feel that way, but the whole thing feels confused overall.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But I just don't like spending time with that kid or just with Michael Myers in general out of his larger than life slasher story.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Also the fact that they have him wearing, he just has to wear a homemade mask all the time after he's been put in the institution.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Even when he's at home before the killings, it just feels like overkill way too on the nose.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: He always has to have a mask on to feel safe or to feel like himself.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: It just, it doesn't really work for me.

[00:04:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Some specifics.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: The scene where he gets into a fight at school and his mom comes to the principal's office, she yells at the principal for calling her out.

[00:04:48] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not getting upset with Michael immediately.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you're really calling me again because you got into another fight?

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the mom is pissed at the school for this.

[00:04:57] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like that makes no sense.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when the principal pulls out the dead cat in the plastic bag that Michael put in his backpack, the mom goes, so what?

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a dead cat.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's so easy for a kid to come across a dead cat.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_00]: What's the big deal?

[00:05:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it may not be that uncommon for a child to come across a dead animal on the street or in the woods, whatever, but it's not common for him to stuff it in a bag and then have photographs of dead bodies.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: It feels so unrealistic and it could have been written in a more subtle way.

[00:05:36] [SPEAKER_00]: However, good things about the movie for a little bit.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: The breakout of Michael Myers when he's an adult.

[00:05:45] [SPEAKER_00]: If the movie had started there, I would be talking about this movie in a vastly different way or in a vastly better way.

[00:05:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Because you don't need to know anything about him when that happens.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: You could have cut those 45 minutes out and lost nothing with what the rest of the story holds for the most part, aside from the baby sister thing.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And I do like when he's old, he's wearing the orange homemade mask and he has the long hair.

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Like it's just a different look.

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't mind that he's huge and bulked up like he is in this because even though in the original or main franchise, he's somewhat larger than normal.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: In this he's like a football player, wrestler, almost sort of guy.

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I love the look of Michael Myers in this when he puts on the iconic costume and Michael Myers mask.

[00:06:42] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that looks fantastic in how it's shot.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's very creepy and just visually very powerful.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: His relationship with Danny Trejo is, I mean it is what it is.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a big part of the movie but it's at least somewhat funny and interesting.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Sherry Moon Zombie who plays Michael Myers' mom.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Overall she's good as she always is.

[00:07:06] [SPEAKER_00]: But of course, as is Rob Zombie fashion, the mom has to be a stripper.

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't make her anything else so that's another classic trope.

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: The Myers family killing by Michael is very brutal, of course.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: And I know some people, I'm still sort of split on it.

[00:07:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I know some people rag on it for why are you killing the sister too?

[00:07:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Like why are you killing people who didn't necessarily really abuse you like your stepfather did, for example.

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And it carries into Halloween 2 as we'll get to but it makes sense considering Michael Myers is a ruthless killer.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't really discriminate.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it's really disturbing, I think that's the point.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And so even though I don't like watching it, obviously, it still makes somewhat sense for who he becomes.

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Then jumping towards the end, like I mentioned earlier, the best part of the movie to me is when it is just the Laurie Michael chase and it's Michael causing death and destruction through Haddonfield.

[00:08:25] [SPEAKER_00]: He's going into houses randomly and just killing people.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, alright, it's simple, clean, slasher, intense, brutal storytelling.

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing else going on. It's just this place to place, kill to kill horror film.

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Although the third act, if we're just talking specifically of maybe the last 15-20 minutes, the actress who plays Laurie, while I know that it's a slasher,

[00:08:56] [SPEAKER_00]: therefore there's going to be a lot of screaming, you can still have restraint as a filmmaker and picking your spots because obviously screaming wears on most people after a while.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_00]: That whole section is Laurie screaming at the top of her lungs incessantly.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: It's the most loud screeching headache inducing yell.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: All she's saying is, someone please help me, someone please, please, someone please help me over and over and over and over.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you need to stop because for a little while, sure, I'm with you.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But this is definitely of all these movies, the most offensive example of over, let's say over acting, over dramatization.

[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Besides that, the score is good. Overall it's shot well. I don't really have any issues there. I think Halloween II looks much, much better though.

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't believe that it will ever really climb higher than the rating I'm going to give it now. It's just a little too messy in terms of what it's trying to be.

[00:10:16] [SPEAKER_00]: So that one is a light three out of five.