Halloween
After being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution (where he was committed as a 10 year old) and he immediately returns to Haddonfield, where he wants to find his baby sister, Laurie. Anyone who crosses his path is in mortal danger.
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- Cast:
- Scout Taylor-Compton , Tyler Mane , Malcolm McDowell , Daeg Faerch , Sheri Moon Zombie , Danielle Harris , Brad Dourif
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Reviews
To me, this movie is perfection.
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Excellent, Without a doubt!!
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
We all know and agree that John Carpenter's original Halloween film is a masterpiece in its own right, one that is almost impossible to top. With that out of the way, let's look at this competent reboot. Zombie decided to begin the story with an overlong display of Myers' rough upbringing, which I suppose gives it that different edge to any of the previous Halloween films. For the most part during these sequences, the acting could be better and the overall atmosphere should have been creepier. We were supposed to be looking at a child with the devil's eyes, but all we saw was a misunderstood little psychopath that wasn't all that intimidating. I commend Zombie for attempting to do the backstory justice, but it was all in vain. Once we get past the small glimpses of originality in the script, we then move onto the slasher portion of the film which takes up roughly the last hour. Zombie surprised me with the crafty way he recaptured the spirit of the original Halloween. The acting from Laurie and the two children was thoroughly convincing, and for brief moments the atmosphere was thrilling. It was a worthy recreation in my view. At two hours long, this movie should have felt like a slog to get through, but it was engrossing enough to keep me interested until the end. That's more than I can say for a couple of other Halloween films produced over the years. While some of the character depictions (particularly Laurie's) were horrendous, I was pleasantly surprised at how competent the movie was. My special shout-out goes to Malcolm McDowell for doing justice to Donald Pleasance's immortal portray of Samuel Loomis.Finally, I would rate this film somewhere around a 6 or 6.5/10, but I feel the overall rating on IMDB is too low, so I've bumped it up to a 7*.
I respect Rob Zombie for approaching this Halloween remake with a more divergent and comprehensive design instead of using means of replication (for at least the first hour of this retelling). However, these new explorations pan out as eminently unnecessary and rather cataclysmic to the story of Michael Myers. Humanzing the character of Michael felt off-brand and almost betraying of the monstrous character that made him so devastatingly horrifying. It's strange though, because even though I didn't favor the changes Zombie was making to the story, I certainly wished he would continue to present more inventive themes that hadn't yet been explored in the Halloween lore as the film went along. It's unfortunate that the second half of the movie becomes a near copy of the original Halloween. If there's one fact for certain, it's that if you're going to remake a film, don't try to mimic it. Make it something different and fresh that could possibly further improve the lore. For the most part, I didn't enjoy any of the new portrayals of past characters (with the exception of Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis) which is mainly because of the script that the actors/actresses were given. Conversations between many of the characters seemed vastly exaggerated and quixotic creating a sense of unbelievability that was quite bothersome. I didn't favor any of Zombie's directing techniques; nothing surely could compare to Carpenter's directorial style. As I was basking in the movie I just kept asking myself, "Why did this need to be made?" Well, the answer is simple: "It didn't." (Verdict: C-)
The original Halloween has been my favourite horror movie since I was first introduced to horror as a young teen. With that in mind, I didn't exactly go into this movie with high expectations. The horror genre seems to be more inclined to hash out dire prequels and remakes more so than any other movie genre, but I'm such a horror fan that I'll always indulge, no matter how terrible I expect them to be. What sets this remake apart from the original the most (aside from the entirely new cast and direction) is the attention given to Michael's childhood. The original is centred on Laurie's character, but this remake felt like it was very much Michael's story. I understand that for many people exploring Michael's past and delving more into his character was unnecessary since the fear of his character lies in the unknown. The fear of Michael lies in the unanswered questions - what made him that way? Who is to blame? Was he born that way? Did something terrible happen to make him that way? This movie tries to answer those questions but unfortunately falls short. The explanation we get is very mixed and in parts it feels that Michael's chaotic and unhappy home life is the reason why he starts to kill but later on the message seems to be that he was born a psychopath. I have to admit, the flimsy explanations did little to add to the story and whilst I think twisting the movie to look more at Michael's POV could have been great, it wasn't done very well. By the time the movie switches to the present time and we're introduced to Laurie and her friends, it feels that it's been split into two different movies. The beginning half that looks at Michael's childhood plays very little part in the second half, which reverts back to the original almost entirely. Many of the famous shots, quotes and kills are included with only very slight differences, and although for any remake it's important to keep some element of the original, it did begin to feel like a copycat in places. The changes of cast were somewhat disappointing. Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie was by far the worst of the casting decisions. Admittedly, any actress that played Laurie would have had a hard time going up against Jamie Lee, but in this remake Laurie felt all wrong. Her character was bland, unlikeable and it was very hard to sympathise with her or care if she lived or died. In the original, the audience fall in love with Laurie and are so invested because they want her to live. Part of the issue lay in the fact that this Laurie incessantly screamed and even when Michael was less than a foot away was still whimpering. Laurie in the original was a pragmatic and intelligent young girl that survived because she out-manoeuvred Michael. In this remake, she seemed utterly devoid of any common sense at all. The rest of the cast were okay - neither good nor bad - but the same problem befell all of the characters in that they seemed to be stripped of the personality they had in the original. Don't get me wrong, this remake is not actually THAT terrible. In fact, for the most part it's enjoyable and certainly a lot better than other slasher movies I've seen in the past. I love that Zombie kept the original music, because let's face it Carpenter's piece is what makes Halloween what it is and if that had been changed in some way, it wouldn't have felt right. In addition, I do think that despite the attempts to humanise Michael, he still remains scary. In fact, I'd argue that he's even more scary because we see that actually he was once a normal, cute little boy who was adored by his mother despite the less than ideal living situation he was brought up in. It makes you question even more so why Michael is this way. Clearly he has some capacity to feel which is evident when it comes to Laurie and Sam Loomis. He spares Laurie's life on more than one occasion, and even when he is trying to kill her, it almost feels like he's not actually trying. His relationship with Sam is also incredibly complex and although there's clearly not love there, there is some inexplicable bond that allows Sam to reason with Michael on some occasions (even if only for a moment). I do think the biggest success of this movie was the development of Michael's character. Some might not agree with how it was handled or how Michael's character was changed, but personally, I found it fascinating. The one thing that always bugged me about the original is that we were never given enough insight into Michael. What was his motivators? There are very few killers who kill just BECAUSE, there's always a reason, even for the most psychotic psychopaths.As far as remakes go, overall, this is a good one. However, it would have been so much better with a few changes. Better casting decisions (particularly for Laurie's character) and more care put into developing Michael's story and character could have made this almost as good as the original. What let this movie down is that in the second half it fell into the trap of imitating the original and lost sight of Michael's story. What this movie should have done is followed Michael from being a child, provided a much better explanation than what we got for why he was the way he was and showed the break-down of his mental state over a period of months/years. However, jumping very quickly through those stages of Michael's childhood and then completely neglecting it in the present, derailed the attempt to explain or make sense of Michael's character. Despite this, I would recommend this remake to fellow horror fans and fans of Halloween. It will never be good as the original, but what will? It's still worth a watch since it does have some very strong parts and adds a new perspective to Michael's character (even if it's not taken as far as I would have liked).
Rob Zombie might be able to direct but he can not wrote dialog. All of his characters all sounded like White Trash. They were so raunchy that you didn't care if they died. There was no sympathetic characters and no characters that 99% of the population could identify with! Now Rob Zombie fans will hate this review but his "Halloween films" were good then why are they ignoring them and going back to the original film? This could of been good had someone told Rob "Can you make some of these people different"