#6: Halloween (1978)

I hate a guy with a car and no sense of humor.

A nothing budget, very little blood, and no gore – but what we do have are three sympathetic lead performances, a perfectly structured screenplay, and a young, hungry filmmaker who knew exactly where to place his camera and how to stage a scene.  Those are and always have been the perfect ingredients to create lightning in a bottle.

In the entire world, Rob Zombie was the least qualified director to helm Hollywood’s least necessary remake. To anyone paying attention, it’s very simple. What makes Michael Myers Michael Myers is that he personifies True Evil; he is as remorseless as he is unstoppable. Worse, he is the six year-old next door who snapped for no good reason, the cute little nephew whose eyes suddenly went forever dead, and that sweet kid who sat next to your son in the first grade who one day decided he would hack his sister to pieces. But more important than any of that, Mr. Zombie, is that there’s no explanation for Michael Myers – no back-story, no pseudo psycho-sexual analysis, no politically correct trailer trash trauma, and every second that that ill-conceived (and over-directed) remake spent explaining Michael Myers not only drained away the very thing that made him the immortal stuff of nightmares, but reaffirmed just what a masterpiece co-writer/director John Carpenter delivered into the world late in the fall of 1978.

The year is 1963; the place, the fictional town Haddonfield, Illinois — a quiet, leafy, idyllic suburb that probably hasn’t seen a real crime in years. Through the eyes of … someone, we watch the stalking of a couple of randy teenagers, the grabbing of a butcher knife, and the slicing to death of a teen aged girl whose last word, “Michael!”, comes in the form of a scream mixed with recognition, disbelief and terror. A few beats later, and to our great horror and astonishment, Michael is unmasked by his parents and revealed to be nothing more than a normal-looking six year-old boy. (more…)

Tonight!

Monica Crowley, Brooke Goldstein, Terry Schappert and… (more…)

Director Rob Zombie’s biggest mistake in 2007’s remake of “Halloween“ was in his desire to “explain” Michael Myers. Most of the narrative was spent building an unimaginative trailer trash mythology, which in turn drained off what made Myers so uniquely terrifying: the fact that he was just some suburban kid who snapped one night. The sequel takes this bad idea a step further, digging into the psyche of our Michael to explain why he’s so determined to kill his sister Laurie. Hint: He wants to bring the family together.

The original “Halloween II” (1981) picked up right where John Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece left off. Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) is in the hospital after the previous night’s attack and Michael returns for another 90 minutes of mayhem. In a nod to the predecessor, Zombie wants us thinking things will go that way until he twists the plot forward a year, but the result is that he just kind of remakes the first one … again. (more…)

The comments in yesterday’s “Melrose Trek” post ran about 9 to 1 against me, which begs the question of how so many can be so wrong…. Honestly, I don’t oppose remakes on some sort of general principle, it’s the meterosexualizing of iconic characters and lack of respect for the source material that galls, and if “Superman Returns” existed that would be my prime example of what can go so horribly wrong.

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This Friday comes a remake to look forward to; a do-over of Wes Craven’s “Last House on the Left” (1972), one of the all-time classic horror flicks. Some have come close, but when it comes to the pure art of creating a sense of oppressive, grinding dread that stirs the guts with a spoon, there’s no other film like it. Just watching the trailer again (it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie, it’s only a movie…) gives me the willies, and anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t throw the word ”willies” around lightly. (more…)