"Love Hurts." I think that that song accurately describes this movie to me. I love the original. I love what Rob Zombie has done before hand. I was even able to find enjoyment out of Halloween 2-7 (not Ressurection though). But this.... this was like watching my girlfriend cheat on me with a retarded hick with a giant labido.
As you know, this is a "re-telling" of the story of Michael Meyers. Truly, "re-telling" isn't the word. Raping? Yes. That is it. We begin the first part of the movie with Michael (Daeg Faerch). He has a hick redneck family. His sister is a whore, his dad is dead, his step-dad is an alcoholic who likes to beat him, his mother is a stripper, and they have a nice little baby. Well, mean ol' nasty kids tease Michael and he gets angry. So he decides to upgrade from murdering little animals to one of the kids who called his mommy a whore (thank god no pissing on a body). The one day, Halloween to be exact, well, he doesn't get to go trick or treating. That, well, that is over the line. So he kills step-dad, his sister and her boyfriend that she is boinking (who is wearing the William Shatner mask! OMG!) His mom comes home and sees him, Michael gets arrested and put in a pyschiatric ward.
There we meet Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell). He is studying Michael and trying to get through to him. Suddenly Michael stops talking and kills a nurse when he is left alone with her. Cut to 15 years later. Loomis is still obsessed with Michael, but now he has made a book to cash in on it.
Then, on Halloween night, for no reason at all, they decide to move Michael to a different area... in the middle of the night... And we see that he is a GIANT. He kills everyone, even the guy who was always nice to him and is the one that finally made Michael be a shut off (that is right. Somebody actually pushes him to that level... but he does it nicely. He tells Michael to shut himself off from the rest of the world. To exist only in his head and thus Michael never speaks). Then Michael returns to Haddonfield to find his little sister. That is Laurie Strode, she is a babysitting and her friends are all sleeping with other guys, while Laurie watches some kids. So Michael tracks them down one by one to try to get to Laurie. Then there is the end... which I won't unviel because it IS fairly shocking if you are a Halloween fan. Something I didn't think the Weinstien's would want to do with the potential for this to be a series.
If any of you read my script review you know that I had some major problems with the script. Well, Zombie corrected them, but some are replaced by incredibly stupid ideas and he cut out some of my favorite pieces in the movie. Sorry, it is a Halloween movie, I at least wanted to see ONE P.O.V. shot that I was promised from the script. Also, I loved the murder scene with the little girls, which is cut out (sort of, it is re-worked to the bully killing). Then there are things that when I read in the script, I didn't have a problem with them, but had MAJOR problems with them in this film. Of course, Zombie also didn't get rid of Loomis' swearing which killed me a little bit more each time. One thing that I liked in the film that hadn't been introduced in any other version is Loomis' strange sort of... frienship with Michael. Which would have played off well, if they didn't have the line in there to point it out "Michael, you have sort of become... my best friend. Which shows you how fucked up my life is." I hate hate hate that line, but I did like the emotion from McDowell near the end.
Then I just straight up had problems with Zombie's direction, which I never thought I would say. His films have all been about shock value, but there has always been a build up to the violence. Not here. Suspence? Zombie says "FUCK THAT! LETS DO THAT COOL THING WHERE HE BLARE MUSIC REALLY LOUD IN AND HAVE SOMETHING RANDOMLY APPEAR ON SCREEN!" Useless... He was developing into such a fine filmmaker and I can't believe that this was his follow up.
I mean, there is really no point for there to be suspence though because since the movie moves so fast (but feels so damn slow) we have no character development. There are only two characters who are really in the entire movie and that is Michael and Loomis. Michael is played by two people in this movie: Daeg Faerch (Young) and Tyler Mane (Old). Daeg Faerch is terrible. He doesn't know how to walk a fine line between "I'm sweet" and "I'm insane." He is either one or the other. The kid also looks like he has down syndrome and is a little overweight which makes me go: How the hell did he turn into Tyler Mane? The kid from the beginning is short, overweight and terrible. Then there is old Michael: GIANT, MUSCULAR and okay. Luckily, he has no dialouge. There is still an embarrassing scene between him and Laurie. Scout Taylor-Compton takes on the role of Laurie in this movie and does, actually a fine job. She isn't given very much screen time but in the time she develops a very likable character, but when Michael is being depicted as sort of likable in the movie and loving her... well... we don't really feel scared for her. Malcolm McDowell turns in a good performance as Loomis, but not as good as he should have. It is probably because of the dialouge which, at times, was very NOT Loomis.
Oh right, I also didn't mention that the soundtrack, which has greatly enhanced Zombie's past films here is well... attrocious. While, the parts of the original score that he did use are fine, the songs he puts in are terrible. There is literally a montage before Michael kills his family where it cuts between him sitting looking out all sad, his mom stripping, and his step dad drunk... all to the song "LOVE HURTS." It is the worst moment in the film and, in any other movie would have had me laughing at how bad it was, but with this movie, it just had me angry.
Zombie has failed... and failed big time. Earlier today I sent Moriatry, of AICN, to actually give the film a chance since his review was a hate filled rant... but now I realize that that is the only reaction that should be come of this film. It doesn't just fail as a remake, but fails simply as movie.
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I can't really defend my position on this film except to say that I had no real expectations going in. I was entertained and the movie never felt slow to me. I actually liked the placement of "Love Hurts" and felt it was the only real intentional moment of semi-humor. In regards to moving Myers, I was under the impression that with Loomis deciding not to take on Myers as a patient he had to be moved into a different facility. I could be way off but that it was I got from it. I didn't need any character development in this because I coudl tell from the first ten minutes that this was not Halloween and it was Zombie's slasher flick. (POSSIBLE SPOILER!!!) The Weinsteins actually did not want to turn this into a series from the get go, so that takes care of that ending.
Again, I do not really disagree with you on this, I was just able to enjoy the ride when I realized I was not watching a John Carpenter movie. I still think this is a vast improvment over House of a 1,000 corpses. At least here he knows what the fuck he is doing.
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