Halloween-the remake
My Blog
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
In the world of film, if you’re going to remake something, then you should be relatively confident that you’re remaking something that has some room for improvement. There are certain films out there that have had such a makeover, and benefited from it; Heaven Can Wait, Dawn of the Dead, The Thing, to name just a few. However, John Carpenter’s Halloween is not one of them.
Apparently, no one told this to Rob Zombie.
The original Halloween was a milestone in the horror movie genre. It’s one of the precious few truly great horror films ever made. It is genuinely shocking in parts, realistic in it’s presentation, and the very ending when that spine tingling music hits with such a powerful force, is one of the greatest endings in horror movie history. It really is one that arrests the heart and absolutely chills the blood. Rob Zombie however was somehow able to remake this wonderful horror gem of a film with none of those qualities mentioned above.
In making a movie one would think a director might just happen to ‘accidentally’ stumble onto something good, or well done, or maybe even at the very least, worth citing. I mean, playing the odds, in a movie that lasts two or so hours, you would think he would have something to offer from his product, however small.
But no, not this Zombie.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised. After all, he’s the one that gave us The Devil’s Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses. I was actually able to get through Rejects, but Corpses drained me completely after only about fifteen minutes. I just couldn’t do it. And I’m ashamed of myself. I really am. I thought I was tougher than that. But we all have our weaknesses.
Anyway, he stayed pretty much on track as far as following Carpenter’s version, which would have been a plus if Zombie had the talent to keep up with the inconsistent but, at times, great Carpenter. But he doesn’t. He SOOOOO doesn’t! In fact, I have to say that Rob Zombie must be maniacally and arrogantly delusional. For him to do John Carpenter’s Halloween is like having Keanu Reeves do La Boheme. Does he not know that there is a reason we don’t allow Roseanne Barr to play ‘Lady Macbeth?’ Picture Mick Jagger singing ‘Ave Maria’ and you’ll have an idea of the magnitude of the blasphemy I’m talking about here.
I won’t go into a point-by-point, scene-by-scene critique in this review - I don’t need to. There’s way too many problems to mention. I’ll just say this: Rob Zombie’s attempt at being true to the original film only made his version all the more pathetic. After seeing Carpenter’s, watching Zombie’s is like seeing Charlize Theron and Ted Kennedy in the same beauty contest…I do not exaggerate.
No, Mr. Zombie would have done better, not good of course, but better, to remake that 50’s sci-fi movie where the alien was simply a guy in a gorilla suit with a space helmet on, carrying off some screaming scantily clad woman. At least then he would have been some competition for the original.
The director of this cinematic Down’s syndrome version mistakenly decided to use that great soundtrack and underscoring music from the original Carpenter film to help gain an eeriness, I suppose. But, in hindsight, it didn’t help him in the least. On the contrary, all it did was make me think of how the original riveted you to your seat…and how the original was full of suspense, tension, and sheer breathtaking artistic integrity…and how I sat there wishing that I was watching the original instead.
A remake should make you forget about the predecessor. Rob Zombie’s made you long for it.
I think you should see it. Really. But first, watch the Carpenter version. That way, when you sit down to watch Rob Zombie’s, you’ll only have to watch about fifteen minutes of it before you can happily find something else to do.
Keck
