Halloween Retrospective: Halloween (2007)

Halloween Retrospective | #9 | Halloween (2007)

Note: I watched and am reviewing the theatrical cut of the film.

After Halloween: Resurrection left the franchise in irredeemable shambles, there was some floundering within Dimension Films about what to do next. Several ideas were put forth, but eventually, after producer Moustapha Akkad died and was succeeded by his son Malek, they settled on following the mid to late 2000’s trend of remaking classic horror films in an updated contemporary style. As we saw with Halloween H20, the Halloween franchise can be updated for a contemporary audience with a new story expanding on the themes and background of the characters, but the idea of a straightforward remake of the original was always going to be tricky. The 1978 Halloween film isn’t effective because of the strength of its story alone; the narrative is actually quite basic. Instead, it was its near-perfect execution that rendered it a classic. So much of its meaning and effect comes not from the literal events happening but from the way they are presented and the atmosphere it created. Therefore, any attempt to update the story is fighting a losing battle. Taking the narrative out of the original context just doesn’t really work, particularly not in the brutal, maximalist style of both the filmmaker they chose and the prevailing style of the mid-2000’s. To effectively remake Halloween, you would need to reimagine the story from the ground up, rather than produce a scene-for-scene remake.

To its credit, the 2007 remake of Halloween attempts to do exactly that – to an extent. Rob Zombie, 1990’s heavy metal musician behind such hits as Dragula and Thunder Kiss ’65 and director of the films House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, was approached to helm the film, and was given the freedom to write, produce and direct it, essentially being allowed to decide the direction the film would take. John Carpenter, the director of the original, encouraged him to “make it his own,” and so he designed the film as part prequel, part remake. The result is a film that I’m not sure I’d call good, but that I find fascinating to discuss regardless. To the extent which it reimagines and recontextualizes the meaning behind Michael Myers as a character and the story and world he inhabits, the film is a success. To the extent that it is simply a remake of John Carpenter’s original in Rob Zombie’s excessive, gore-drenched style, it fails.

Of course, even that sort of over simplifies it. This is the first Rob Zombie film I’d seen, and all I really knew was that he had an incredibly distinctive and divisive style that closely matches the image he puts forth in his music career. Everyone sort of looks and talks like a hillbilly and everyone seems to like heavy metal. A lot of the characters and their actions feel very genuine in a way that even the original didn’t quite manage to pull off, until someone drops a line that’s just too vulgar, and you remember the guy who wrote it. This is especially weird for the teen girls in the film, who really capture the closeness that teenage girls have but also have some exceptionally sexual lines that are even more uncomfortable when you remember that they were written by a middle aged man. I’m no prude, but the vulgarity often reaches the point of absurdity, where it detracts from the mood the film is trying to establish.

But at the same time, it does sort of play into what the film is trying to do in a weird, complicated way. While the meat of this story is more or less the same as that of the original, the entire context and framing of it is different in a way that changes the entire meaning. The original film was about the citizens of Haddonfield, particularly Laurie Strode and her friends, and their encounter with an inscrutable and unstoppable force of nature that was Michael Myers. Rob Zombie’s Halloween gives Michael Myers a “voice” of his own – not literally, but also kind of literally – and a perspective. It’s the story of Michael from his own point of view, showing us the world he sees and the way he became the person he is today. Raised in a broken home and tormented by his uncaring older sister, vulgar and abusive alcoholic stepfather and sadistic school bullies, exploited by a child psychiatrist who sensationalized his story for his own gain, locked up by a mother who seemed to turn her back on him when he needed her most, Michael is an animal in a trap, lashing out at a world that he sees little good in. He doesn’t seem to understand why his actions are bad, because he sees people as mostly filthy, wicked people that deserve to be punished, and Rob Zombie’s style of writing and filmmaking really accentuates this vision of of the world.

The first half hour gives us a lengthy prequel backstory following Michael Myers as a kid. The house he lives in is toxic and dysfunctional, in a way that’s both excessive but somehow uncomfortably intimate and realistic at once. Zombie doesn’t resort to grotesque physical violence between family members until the killings begin because he doesn’t have to. Domestic violence isn’t always physical. It’s fighting, shouting, belittlement, neglect, emotional manipulation and personal betrayal. If you live in a house where there’s more screaming and hate than love and affection, that can do as much psychological damage as direct physical abuse. It’s a haunting portrait of small town Americana gone wrong, of a young boy who only wanted to be loved when the world only gave him hate. He may be too far gone to save by the time the main story rolls around, and the things he’s done may be unspeakably evil. But to ignore the humanity in monsters is to ignore the monster in humanity. Michael Myers didn’t just come from nowhere. He was created by the hatred of others. The only person that he has left by the time he escapes from the asylum he's locked in is the memory of his baby sister Laurie, whom he loved, and whom, after his escape, he returns to Haddonfield to rescue. The idea that she may not want or need saving, especially not by him, may be too much for him to bear.

There’s definitely an inherent ableism to the Michael Myers story. The fact that he’s escaped from a mental asylum and constantly described as inhuman and pure evil, especially by his psychiatrist, is problematic, especially in a society that so often demonizes the mentally ill. The reality is that mentally ill people are far more likely to be the targets of violence rather than the perpetrators of it. I’m not sure that this is directly the intent, but the way that Rob Zombie frames this new Michael Myers origin story feels like it directly addresses this in a way. By steeping the film in Michael Myers’ perspective, he is given a voice with which to advocate for himself. It draws attention to the idea that these issues are far more complex than the first film let on, and that Michael Myers is, in many ways, still just a scared and lonely child lashing out at a cruel world. He is very much the villain, but he can also somewhat be seen as a victim - to an extent. On the other hand, he is still murdering people rather indiscriminately, and while the mental illness aspect was really just window dressing in the original and sort of a backdrop to what’s more of a supernatural evil, Rob Zombie’s version does draw far more attention to this supposed connection, and really, motive or no motive, his actions are still heinous. The film does explore the contradiction here, but I still don’t feel like it’s doing many favors for the real life mentally ill.

It's possible that it wouldn’t be so bad if the second half weren’t the way it was. After a lengthy prologue, we move ahead to the present day, and from there the story becomes an almost scene by scene remake of the original, only updated with Rob Zombie’s style. But again, the original is very, very dependant on its style and atmosphere, and all of that is gone here. John Carpenter's minimalism is gone in favor of Rob Zombie’s brutal, excessive style, and the atmosphere and mystique of John Carpenter’s original can’t be replicated because of the new backstory given to Michael. So why try? Why not continue with your own story instead of remaking someone else’s, when that story isn’t the one you started telling? So much of what happens in this second half doesn’t feel like it has any real purpose aside from referencing the original – Michael Myers stole his sisters gravestone in the original so he did so in the remake as well, even though he doesn’t really seem to have a reason for doing so. Michael goes to Laurie Strode’s friends house to murder them first, despite the fact that he has no reason to do anything except go right to her. The inscrutability of his actions in the original film doesn’t translate here because we know his motives and his actions don’t really make sense in relation to them. One could argue that the film was trying to lend ambiguity to said motivations by trying to keep the audience guessing as to whether he's trying to protect Laurie or butcher her, but by the end of the film the answer to this is clear. Not to mention the fact that the kills are just insanely excessive. Brutality is one thing, but when you show nearly two whole minutes of Danny Trejo’s face as he’s waterboarded only to have Michael pull him out before he’s dead and then slam a television on his head, it just feels really, really pointless. Even John Carpenter’s original score, heavily sampled in this film, feels really out of place.

Even this half isn’t all bad, though. The cast in this film is actually phenomenal. Malcolm McDowell (of A Clockwork Orange fame) is pitch perfect as this reimagined Sam Loomis, and Scout Taylor-Compton brings a contemporary authenticity to Laurie Strode’s character that Jamie Lee Curtis’ in the original doesn’t quite have (note: not dissing Jamie Lee here, but I feel like her series peak so far has been in H20, not the original). Even the child actor, Daeg Faerch, is genuinely chilling as a young Michael Myers. There’s a scene towards the end where Michael finally confronts Laurie and tries to get her to recognize him from their youth with the picture of her he carries in his pocket, but she doesn’t recognize the picture or him because she was a baby, and it’s genuinely heartbreaking despite everything he’s done at this point (or perhaps even because of it – he’s such a monster at this point that there’s no way she’d ever accept him even if she did know).

This review is basically twice as long as any of the others for this series, and I think that’s testament to just how interesting this film is. I’ve made clear that there’s a lot about it that I don’t like, but I also can’t stop thinking about it. I’m not going to say this is on the same level as Halloween II or III or even H20, because it just doesn’t really work quite well enough and despite all of the things I admire about it it’s a bit of a slog to sit through. But this is quite possibly the strongest original vision of Michael Myers since John Carpenter’s original itself, and for all its flaws, I think that’s at least worth acknowledging.