Page 1 of 3
Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:34 am
by Malcolm
Here.
I'm not sure how I feel about this. Rob is, at best, an average director when one looks at his two films. He is a horror fan, though, & seems to've asked John Carpenter before doing anything. There's a definitely some potential, but the way the article reads in disturbing. Tossing out everything in the sequels? Suppose it ain't a bad idea, but it makes the series more goddamn confusing & disconnected if you do that & keep the same villain. I'll be cautiously optimistic but well-grounded in the fact that it'll probably suck.
Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 3:02 pm
by GORDON
Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 5:45 pm
by Leisher
I am a huge Halloween fan. I consider it to be the best horror film ever made. Thus, I am really hoping that this works out, but my first impression is that Rob Zombie fucked up the mask. He actually made it less effective.
Just showed it to the wife who FEARS the Michael Myers mask, and she said the same thing. "Why is it so dirty? It's scarier when it's pure white."
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:28 pm
by GORDON
New website, new trailer.
http://halloween-themovie.com/
Personally, a "pristine" mask never really affected me one way or another.
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:46 pm
by DoctorChaos
Trailer looks good. I agree with the pristine mask being scarier. I think it has something to do with it being so out of place looking. It adds to the surrealism. IMHO
Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2007 7:09 pm
by Vince
I don't think it was the original being a purer white that made it scarier. It was the fact that it was a Captain Kirk mask that made it scarier.
Seriously though, the original mask looked more like a death mask.
Posted: Wed Aug 01, 2007 10:08 pm
by GORDON
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 6:22 pm
by Paul
Did anybody see this?
Malcolm's recent lament about The Brood reminded me that this movie was out.
Posted: Mon Oct 08, 2007 8:54 pm
by Malcolm
Paul wrote:Did anybody see this?
Malcolm's recent lament about The Brood reminded me that this movie was out.
I couldn't bring myself to pay to see an inferior updated version. I know I've not seen it, but there's simply no way in hell it's even close to the original. This was a fucking genre defining (alright, genre popularizing) film, too. I'll probably 'Flix it at some later date.
Posted: Tue Oct 09, 2007 10:05 am
by Leisher
My cousin makes indy horror films and is a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE fan of the original Halloween. He told me that Rob Zombie should be beaten to death for his sins.
So, I'm betting that if you love and respect the original, you'll hate this version.
Posted: Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:32 pm
by Leisher
I was right...and wrong, but mostly right.
Halloween is a classic film that when originally released scared the shit out of people. It made people believe in monsters. It constantly ranks in the top 5 of anyone's "Best Horror Films of All Time" lists, including #1 on many.
This new version is not your father's Halloween and I don't mean that in a good way.
Rob Zombie simply was not the right guy for this film. Here, he made a decent horror film, that while having its flaws, was entertaining and would be accepted under a different title. As a remake, it was a travesty.
The first half of the film shows Michael Myers as a child with his dysfunctional family. Remember the well dressed parents who showed up in the opening scene of the original? They've been replaced by white trash bad parents. A mother, who means well, but has made bad choices, including her poor taste in men. A cripple father that verbally and mentally abuses everyone and may possibly be a pedophile.
This version tries too damn hard to explain what Michael is and that's the true sin of this film. Michael was the Bogeyman. No further explanation necessary. Loomis said it best in the original when he explained that Michael was simply "pure evil". Now we're told about social and domestic issues that "created" him. The worst part is his household wasn't that bad. Millions escape from worse without becoming serial killers.
Speaking of Loomis, I hope Malcolm McDowell needed the money because that's the only reason he was here. His performance was odd in that as the film went on, the worse he got. There's even a scene late when he should NOT be happy, yet it seemed like he was smiling. (Hard to explain without spoilers.)
The whole Michael/Loomis relationship was completely off kilter too. If you remember, Loomis was the one guy that Michael would not go out of his way to kill. They had a bond of sorts. It was like Michael wanted Loomis to live as he knew what Michael was and would do anything to stop him. Here, their relationship seemed devoid of any link despite the dialog telling us otherwise.
As for Michael's quest, the way he starts his evening of murder (as an adult) is really stupid. It just seems so forced and completely pointless.
The Michael in the original was an unstoppable killing machine with an intellect to match. Here, he's still unstoppable and strong, but he's not as smart, and he loses his abilities when faced with the end of the movie.
Even worse is the way he finds Laurie. Apparently, he's part German Shepard. (You'll see, it's just fucking stupid.)
I loved Rob's previous films House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects as they were conceived and made by him. They fit his style. Here, he just is out of his element. If you look farther up the chain, you'll see I saw elements of this because of the way they changed Michael's mask. I was right about Rob being the wrong guy for this film. He doesn't know "subtle horror." He doesn't know that the original was scary because it played off of a real urban legend "The Bogeyman" and made a killer out of anyone. The fact that Michael came from a good family but was simply evil and the pure white mask, hiding terror in something so sterile, these are concepts that Rob just didn't pull off here.
I still think Rob is a good film maker, I'm just saying that they shouldn't developed this as something new and let a classic be a classic.
That being said, I'm not sure how to rate this, so I'll do it in two ways. The first being as a remake and the second as a stand alone horror story.
As a remake, 0 out of 10. (They took everything scary about Halloween and turned it into "just another horror film.")
As a stand alone, 7 out of 10. (If this film wasn't a remake and had instead been "an original story loosely based on Halloween it would've been much better.)
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:25 am
by Malcolm
They suggested he was psycho cos he'd bad parents?
Of all the scenes in House of 1000 Corpses (or maybe The Devil's Rejects, they run together), the one that pissed me off most was the scene when the sheriff (William Forsythe) got to torturing the family. There's times when it's fun to see bad people beat the shit outta other bad people. At least both folk theoretically deserve the pain they get. Rob seems to've no idea how to incorporate any cleanliness or innocence in his films. He's got no idea how to evoke the fear that perhaps bad shit can just happen to you. Any time he tries, the victims are always shallow & ancillary.
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:29 am
by GORDON
I kinda liked that torture scene. There were no good guys, there were no bad guys, and you even get to feeling sorry for tortured Baby (since she's hot) even though you KNOW she fucking deserves it because she's a psycho.
Just made the movie all the more crazy.
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:31 am
by Malcolm
It's William Forsythe. Do you really need Rob to say explicitly that he's a violent sumbitch?
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:34 am
by GORDON
Well, you know, if the Firefly clan our the focus of the story, then the sherriff is their main antagonist... and usually these things are good vs. evil... but in this case it was crazy-evil vs. evil but crazy in a different way.
Edited By GORDON on 1198388083
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:38 am
by Malcolm
Ain't nothing wrong w\ that, but it gets one dimensional after a bit. It's the only trick he knows.
EDIT : & as stated in this review, sometimes horror flicks require other tricks.
Edited By Malcolm on 1198388328
Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 12:41 am
by GORDON
I wish they'd either left the Dr. Satan scene in DR.... or cut it out of Ho1kC.
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:35 pm
by GORDON
Finally saw Halloween remake.
Some things didn't make sense, some I liked. Rob Zombie seems to be good at making you feel at least a little bad for the bad guys... the kid was just plain broken, and I felt bad for him when he was in the hospital and just wanted to go home and couldn't understand why he could not. Zombie traded "pure evil" for just plain broken. I can live with that.
But I didn't understand his motives. In the beginning he spared the baby, so I figured he wouldn't kill innocents/people who hadn't fucked with him. But later he kills the janitor, and then Loomis, so I figured that now we ARE killing innocents. But then he doesn't kill his sister in the basement, and instead is holding out the picture, trying to tell her something, I don't know what. So now we aren't killing innocents again?
I dunno.
All in all, I guess I liked it. Felt bad for the kid, and I liked Loomis early on, it seemed like he genuinely wanted to help.
Also, Brad Dourif was wasted in this film.
Also, was the black trucker taking a dump the mechanic in Alien? I feel like I've seen him somewhere.
Posted: Wed Nov 04, 2009 10:58 pm
by Malcolm
I don't watch Halloween flicks to feel sorry for the villain.
Edited By Malcolm on 1257393503
Posted: Thu Nov 05, 2009 12:42 am
by GORDON
Malcolm wrote:I don't watch Halloween flicks to feel sorry for the villain.
Then you're lucky.... you can just rewatch horror movies from the '70's and be satisfied forever.