Synopsis
Evil has a destiny.
The early years of young Michael Myers and the events leading up to his fateful Halloween night murder rampage in the quiet town of Haddonfield, Illinois.
Directed by Rob Zombie
The early years of young Michael Myers and the events leading up to his fateful Halloween night murder rampage in the quiet town of Haddonfield, Illinois.
Halloween: O Início, Halloween I, 索命万圣节, Halloween I: El origen, ליל המסיכות 1, האלווין 1 (2007), 新万圣节, Halloween: El comienzo, Rob Zombie's Halloween, Halloween - The Beginning, Хэллоуин 2007, Halloween: El Origen, האלווין / ליל המסיכות, Хелоуин, Halloween: El inicio, 할로윈: 살인마의 탄생, Halloween 9, ハロウィン, Halloween: Η Νύχτα με τις Μάσκες, โหดสุดขั้ว อำมหิตสุดขีด, 惡靈07 月光光心慌慌, Хеллоуїн 2007, Noć vještica, هالووین, Noč čarovnic, 月光光心慌慌之殺清光
like a lot of folks i'm not convinced Zombie does himself any favors by fleshing out Michael Myers' backstory. he typically falls back on his cartoon trailer-trash rotten-tooth fetish, and frankly it just feels like an act. but when his Myers attacks it is punishing and simple, so much so that even the camera panics, shivering and scrambling for the nearest exit. there's a great beat here as Myers enters the Strode house and shuts the door behind him and Zombie keeps us outside, across the street, in the quiet, just for an extra second. placid on the outside and frantic, unvarnished brutality on the inside.
- "The whore with the big tits hanging down her knees?"
- "Maybe I'll choke the chicken, purge my snork all over those flappy ass tits."
- "I hope she likes cripples."
- "Bitch, I will crawl over there and I will skull fuck the shit out of you! Oh, fuck you. Sit on my pole right now, bitch."
For the avoidance of doubt, Robert "Zombie" Cummings was 41 years old when he wrote this film, and not 14 like you'd assume.
A stultifyingly artless, one-note, dull and overlong remake.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
if I got bullied by Juni from Spy Kids I would probably also turn into Michael Myers
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
*Was a 34, now a 65*
I may never love Rob Zombie's first re-interpretation of Michael Myers, but I've grown to respect it a great deal. What keeps it from greatness is still its adherence to the original source in the second half. The origin of Michael, with the grimy detail of his home and school life, and the eventual massacre inside the Myers house, is brutalizing and acutely observed. I especially love the re-working of the 'stand-still' moment of the 1978 film, in which time seems to slow down entirely after Michael's parents take off his clown mask. Here, time and motion is suspended as cops and reporters cover the crime scene, desperate for answers while Michael sits in…
You know how sometimes, hours after you had a very pleasant and delicious meal you burp and you can taste the faint aromas of that meal mixed with the unpleasantness of stomach gasses?
Yeah, you know what I'm getting at....
The first forty minutes or so of Halloween are incredibly fascinating in how Zombie shows the creation of a serial killer with a level of cinematic equality not usually given to monsters. He draws upon sympathy with brutishness and the actions of Michael's tormentors are simplified into a single voice of harassment, but his mother loves him. Sherri Moon Zombie plays Judith Myers and she is the avatar of our sympathy for a child who can't be saved. We don't know if she did anything wrong as a mother, but considering the circumstances she's surrounded by it's hard to blame her if she failed, because she did her best. Sherri has a warmness in these opening scenes that cuts through the dark and makes the inevitable seem tragic. That's the greatest accomplishment in this flawed reshaping of Carpenter's text.
So that's why Michael Myers stopped talking.
Because everybody kept calling him a whiny little bitch as a kid.
Gee, thanks for remaking this, Rob Zombie! I totally needed to know that!
I get more out of this with each viewing. What stands out this time is how powerfully it plays its first half against itself, how telling us about Michael's background doesn't demystify him so much as it underscores that even knowing the facts of a disturbed killer's upbringing brings no true understanding of his broken mind. More troubling still is its insinuation, first with family and then with Danny Trejo's unforgettable kind orderly, that not even relation or being "good to you" can stop what's coming.
The second half no longer strikes me as a functional retread of the original's bloodletting but just as much a realm where Zombie distinguishes his approach. For one, despite the more aggressive violence, Zombie…