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Ron Miller's DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 8, No. 37 |
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REMAKING "HALLOWEEN" THE PERILS OF RE-DOING A MODERN HORROR CLASSIC
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Want Slasher Overkill?
Put a Zombie in charge
By RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
When people started walking out of the new "Halloween" after the first 30 minutes, I could tell I wasn't the only one in the crowd who thought the long-awaited moment of "slasher overkill" finally had arrived.
First the parents who brought their kids sprinted for the exits, then the adults who maybe figured they could find something better to do on a rainy afternoon than watch a kid beat another kid to death with a tree branch. My wife just cringed. I figured I'd hear about this from her a little later...and I sure did.
I'd decided to attend the first regular showing of "Halloween" at 1:30 PM on opening day, a Friday afternoon, assuming it would draw mostly adults who were serious fans of the long-running horror series. There had been an earlier screening--at 11:59 PM the night before--but I assumed that would draw an atypical "Rocky Horror Show" kind of party-oriented crowd of punky teens. I'm too old for that gang these days--and, besides, who wants to drive some 30 miles home in the rain at 3 AM? I'm WAY too old for that kind of fun.
My overall impression: The sparse crowd in the theater was made up mostly of deadheads and teens without dates. Nobody there seemed much impressed with the new "Halloween." Only half a dozen people hung around to watch the credits roll and we were two of them. It looked to me like everybody else was anxious to get out of the theater and back into their cars, except maybe for this immense fat guy who wanted to hit the candy counter one more time before going home.
So, here it is: The new "Halloween" isn't an attrociously bad remake of the classic horror movie, but it's not a barn-burner like the original was. Nor is it likely to re-start the flame under the "Halloween" franchise, spurring a whole new run of chapters in the saga that began with the original "Halloween" in 1978. There are just loads of perils in remaking horror classics and this one crashed into most of them.
Let's start with the problem of having to "out-do" the original in terms of horror. This is, after all, the year 2007 and the original was made 29 years ago. That's more than a quarter of a century of slasher movies to surpass in terms of frightening moments.
In my opinion, the so-called "slasher" era really began in 1960 with the release of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," which showed us a nearly naked Janet Leigh being stabbed to death in her shower. There had been nothing quite so gory on an American movie screen until then--and for "jump out of your skin" thrills, it's still unsurpassed.
But in 1978, young filmmaker John Carpenter wrote, directed and even composed the music for a low budget independent horror film called "Halloween." It became a box office sensation mainly by upping the gore element far beyond Hitchcock's "Psycho" and adding nudity and sex. It actually delivered thrills in such style that Carpenter created a new horror genre and a cluster of sequels. The "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" series quickly followed and suddenly almost all movie monsters were carrying cutting instruments of some kind, splattering the screen with even more gore, most of it from the gaping wounds on beautiful naked girls.
As the momentum finally dissipated for the genre in the new century, "Jason" and "Freddy," the monsters from the "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare" series, were pitted against each other in "Freddy vs. Jason" in the hope two monsters for the price of one could keep those franchises going. The folks behind the "Halloween" saga briefly flirted with the idea of having their monster--a blade-hefting ghost named Michael Myers--meet up with "Pinhead" from the "Hellraiser" horror series, but finally decided to reserve Michael for better things. Why share the loot if they could restart the whole series by going back to the beginning for a remake?
The assignment finally was given to writer-director Rob Zombie, a musician from a popular rock band (White Zombie) who had turned to making horror films. As stupid as that name looks among the credits on a movie screen, I can't blame him for dumping his original monicker: Robert Cummings. Who would go see a horror movie directed by someone with a name made famous by one of America's favorite light comedians?
Once Mr. Zombie began to consider how to freshen up the franchise, he obviously settled on a couple of premises. First, the audience needs to know what horrible things went on in the Myers household that would turn a junior high school kid into a mass murderer. Second, you need to make those things so violent and revolting that moviegoers weren't going to think this was the same old picture from the 1970s.
In the original film, we just were told that little Michael killed his family on Halloween night, but didn't get around to his baby sister. So, when he escapes from the mental hospital where he was sent after being convicted of the crimes, he naturally wants to go back home to Haddonville and erase that oversight.
The new "Halloween" certainly establishes there was plenty of reason for Michael to become a monster. His father (William Forsythe) is a disabled war vet and abusive alcoholic who calls Michael a queer at every opportunity. His Mom (played by Zombie's decorative 36-year-old wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, the former Sheri Lyn Skurkis of San Jose, CA) is a topless pole dancer in a local strip club. His sister is a slut who lets her boy friend prod her while mom's at work and dad's sleeping off his latest drunk. The only innocent party in the house is the baby sister, who hasn't learned to say "Goo" yet.)
As if this were not enough, Michael is picked on at school by three dim-witted boys who think he's fair game for whatever they have in mind. Boyhood Michael, who's played by a pork-faced kid named Daeg Faerch, is incredibly lackin in self-esteem. He thinks he's ugly, so he always wears a clown mask over his face, even at school. Since nobody pays any serious attention to Michael, even with his clown mask on, nobody notices when he starts dismembering small animals.
Okay, we get the picture. Michael is either going to grow up to be a serial killer...or maybe a U.S. Senator.
But first we need to see Michael kill the worst of his schoolyard tormentors--which he does by hammering the kid to pieces with a tree branch. This is such a gory sequence, done by one juvenile to another, that it makes you realize how incredibly low the horror genre has fallen since Hitch opened the door by putting a butcher knife in Tony Perkins' hand nearly half a century ago.
Wearing his clown mask, Michael goes completely to pieces when Halloween night rolls around, butchering his old man and his sister's boy friend before finally slicing his naked sister to ribbons. All the Viagra-filled old men in the theater will consider this a case of moral come-uppance: The sister gets it not long after being humped by her boy friend, then laughingly giving him a "zero" rating for his bedroom performance.
"This is sick!" one fellow said a few rows down from us after that bloody interlude. I believe my wife whispered something along those lines to me about then. Nice call. The new "Halloween" is "sick." In fact, if this movie were a hospital patient, it would have flatlined and been pronounced dead about then.
But Rob Zombie did manage to find a few little things to keep horror film fans paying attention a bit longer. For example, some of his casting was, in my view, quite inspired.
Take the case of Dr. Loomis, the psychiatrist who studies Michael after he's locked away in an asylum. Loomis becomes an expert on all things Michael and finally morphs into the Dr. Van Helsing of the "Halloween" series, the one they always call for to help stop Michael's latest rampage. Loomis was expertly played in the original series by the late Donald Pleasence. With him out of the picture, Rob Zombie turned to English character actor Malcolm McDowell, whose specialty throughout his career has been wild-eyed lunatics.
Malcom first burst on the American scene as the star of Stanley Kubrick's 1971 classic "A Clockwork Orange," playing a homicidal English youth so steeped in violent TV and movies that he happily beats a man to death in one scene while warbling "Singing in the Rain." I love the fact that the man who once played a monstrous boy killer created by violent media now is playing the voice of sanity in a new movie so violent that it could be from the very landscape of "A Clockwork Orange."
(While McDowell was doing publicity for the Kubrick film in San Francisco, I did my first interview with him. We had dinner together that night and I found him to be a delightful, quite likeable and un-sinister gentleman. His career has been in decline ever since he played the title role in the pornographic "Caligula," which no doubt brings him to the point where he's playing in "Halloween" remakes.)
McDowell is older now, white-haired and bearded for this role, but does a very good job filling the shoes of his predecessor.
Also on hand is Dee Wallace (Stone), who graced so many great "B" thrillers of the 1980s, including the original 1981 "The Howling." She became part of film history in 1982 when she played the mother of the children who befriend "E.T.--The Extraterrestrial." In the new "Halloween," Dee is a local mom--and a Michael victim. She has held up well and it was nice to see her again, even screaming her lungs out.
Yet another familiar player taking part is Brad Dourif, best remembered as the nervous, suicidal mental patient in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," here cast as a local lawman. Danielle Harris, who played Michael's niece in several "Halloween" sequels, returns to play one of his nubile victims.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who became Hollywood's reigning "scream queen" playing Michael's grown-up baby sister in the original "Halloween," is replaced by young Scout Taylor-Compton, who can scream with the best of them. The grown-up Michael is a hulking monster, played by former pro wrestler Tyler Mane. He has no speaking lines, but certainly looks convincing smashing his way through doors.
Rob Zombie has kept many of what I would consider the essential ingredients, especially John Carpenter's now-famous "Halloween" theme music. (I wonder how many thousands of young cellphone owners use it as a ring tone? One of my nephews uses it for any incoming calls from his mother!)
One of Zombie's best in-jokes comes when the boy friend of Michael's slutty sister puts on a "Michael Myers" mask to scare her on Halloween night. This is, of course, supposed to be before anybody knows who Michael Myers is. The boy Michael likes the look of it and puts it on for his own rampage. Later, we see him making his own special new mask at the asylum.
We also see film clips from the 1951 "Thing From Another World" on TV sets on Halloween night. They also were present in the original series and were especially relevant in "Halloween 2."
Naturally, most of the new "Halloween" takes place today, which is a whole lot cheaper than trying to re-create the late 1970s for a whole movie. There is also one other very important concession to a new reality in horror movies: There is no indication of anything supernatural about Michael. He's just a giant slasher who can be shot with several magnum bullets and still struggle on, though visibly dying. If they decide to do a sequel to this one, I suppose they'll have to explain how he becomes the indestructible ghost he seemed to be in all those earlier films.
The future of this franchise clearly will depend on how successful this remake is at the box office. Some may feel a new generation has come along that doesn't know the Michael legend, so it's time to do it all again. I don't think so. I think too many imitation "Halloweens" have come and gone since 1978 and it's all become very boring. The trailers that ran before "Halloween" this week included a preview of "Saw IV," latest chapter in the current hot "slasher" series.
If they want the franchise to keep breathing, maybe it's time for them to send Michael out to battle the winner of "Jason vs. Freddy, Part Two." The first screen horror cycle ended between 1948-55 when Universal studios sent all its classic screen monsters, one after another, to "meet" comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in spoof comedies. Maybe Michael Myers could "meet" Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller.
Otherwise, it would be nice to see the "Halloween" franchise pass quietly into cinema history, along with what's left of the "slasher" genre, and give poor MIchael Myers a chance to retire with his dignity somewhat intact.
©2007 by Ron Miller. The illustrations are courtesy of MGM, distributor of "Halloween" for Dimension Films. This column first posted Sept. 3, 2007.
Ron
Miller is a former nationally syndicated television columnist
and the author of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official
companion book to PBS' "Mystery!" series. He currently
writes about television mysteries for MYSTERY SCENE magazine.
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