ROB ZOMBIE'S 'HALLOWEEN- UNCUT.' (2007) BASED ON THE ORIGINAL FILM BY JOHN CARPENTER AND DEBRA HILL. WRITTEN, DIRECTED AND CO-PRODUCED BY ROB ZOMBIE.
STARRING TYLER MANE, SHERI MOON
ZOMBIE, DAEG FAERCH, SCOUT-TAYLOR COMPTON, DANIELLE HARRIS, KRISTINA
KLEBE, BRAD DOURIF, DANNY TREJO, WILLIAM FORSYTHE AND MALCOLM
MCDOWELL. REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
Well, at least now we know what drives
masked serial murderer Michael Myers to kill. It's his God-awful
family, haha. In this Rob Zombie 're-imagining' of
the 1978 horror classic that introduced Michael to the world, we go
right back to Michael's beginnings and man, it sure ain't pretty.
Young Michael
is brilliantly played by a young fella called Daeg Faerch. With his
fabulous mop of blonde hair and cute face, it's clear that another
decade or so onto his age will see him beating off women with a
stick. For now though, as the young serial-killer-in-the-making, the
ten-year-old Michael Myers is a deeply troubled little boy.
He gets
the living daylights bullied out of him at school for being
different. There are
some scenes of bullying in the film that ought to bring back
unpleasant memories of their schooldays for some viewers. I
personally have no time for bullies.
Their
main problem is probably that they're petrified of anything or anyone
that doesn't conform to their standards of what's considered
'normal.' Those are
some pretty narrow limits for the rest of us to keep inside. And who
are they to decide
what's 'normal' for
the rest of us, anyway?
If
anything, poor Michael's home life is even worse than his school
one. His pole-dancer Mom is loving enough towards him but his
alcoholic step-dad is a nightmare. Ronnie verbally bullies the child
non-stop, calling him weird and saying that everything he does is
'faggotty-ass.'
As in,
he says: 'That's some faggotty-ass shit right there, boy,'
to everything Michael does,
including the home-made mask-making the child engages in daily. I
don't believe that those exact words made it into the parenting handbook under
'Encouraging Your Child...!'
Michael's
older sister is uncaring and slutty. Looks like someone's gonna be
following their Momma into the adult entertainment business when
school finishes. There's a baby girl too, to whom Michael is
close.
The
poor little fellow, all he wants is someone to love and for someone
to love him back. The masks he makes are obviously intended to hide
him from a cruel world and keep him safe. How sad is that?
If
you've seen the original film, the horror movie with the best musical
score ever bar none (none, I tells ya!), you'll
know that the young Michael is
sent to a mental institution for life for something really naughty he
does when he's ten.
Much the same thing happens in this film too (except for the gremlin!), which is where we meet Malcolm A CLOCKWORK ORANGE McDowell filling in for lovely cuddly old Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis. He does a good enough job, but he's not a patch on Donald Pleasence.
Remember
in that TREEHOUSE OF HORROR episode
of THE SIMPSONS where
Bart is being terrorised by a gremlin on the side of the school bus
and Principal Skinner says that maybe being sent to a mental
institution for the rest of his life might teach the little
rapscallion to behave?
Much the same thing happens in this film too (except for the gremlin!), which is where we meet Malcolm A CLOCKWORK ORANGE McDowell filling in for lovely cuddly old Donald Pleasence as Dr. Loomis. He does a good enough job, but he's not a patch on Donald Pleasence.
Only
because no-one could be,
though. It ain't nuthin' personal. I like Malcolm
McDowell. He was great in CALIGULA, indulging
in a bit of the old in-out, in-out with his horny missus, Helen Mirren.
Michael's
escape from the institution and his pilgrimage back to Haddonfield,
his home town, is like the start of a second almost completely
different film. I prefer the second half of the film because it's the
bit we've all been waiting for.
It's the bit where Haddonfield teenager
Laurie Strode is preparing for Halloween with her family and her
girlfriends, blissfully unaware that her grown-up brother is coming
back for her. Ooops, I didn't mean to say that 'brother'
bit...! And
you'd really miss Jamie Lee Curtis in the role of Laurie, but this
new girl does her best with it.
Rob Zombie
really captures the Halloween spirit of American neighbourhoods in
this part of the
film. Every house is decked out beautifully in pumpkins and skeletons
and other seasonal whatnots and the place looks utterly gorgeous.
Laurie's two bezzie mates are foul-mouthed skanks and I can't say I'm
sorry when they run afoul of you-know-who.
The film is
about thirty minutes longer than the original movie. It's a bit
over-long, to tell you the truth. I get what the director's trying to
do as regards giving us an insight into Michael's background and
childhood and stuff but I personally would have taken out a big chunk
of the mental asylum scenes, maybe the ones where Michael's being
visited by his Mom. It's way too much. I would have left in Danny
Trejo as a mop-wielding friendly custodian, though!
I would
have also taken out a bit at the end as well. Haha, listen to me, the
big editor. I go to one film-making course and I think I'm Quentina
Tarantino. Or Samantha Raimi. Or Georgia A. Romero. Or even Roberta
Zombie herself. Or, as they say in THE SIMPSONS:
'You watch one episode of MONK and
you think you're Monk...!'
Yep, that's me, I
think I'm Monk now.
Seriously
though, the film should end when the question: 'Was that
really the boogeyman?' is asked
and answered. This movie continues on for a good bit after that point
and I must admit I was getting a teensy bit tired and fidgety towards
the end. The overgrown swimming-pool bit was good, though. Nice
setting.
I pretty much
thoroughly enjoyed this film. It's extremely violent, as you might
expect, and I love the fact that the impassive-faced Michael grew up
to be a seven-foot-tall man-mountain. It makes him even more
formidable as an opponent. His lank greasy hair
needs a serious dose of Pantene, though.
The
second half of the film has a good Halloweeny atmosphere and the
scene with the guy who's in the toilet reading porn when Michael
knocks on the cubicle door is quite funny. As an affectionate homage
to the original horror classic, the film is a delightful romp, haha. I give it a thumbs-up.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA
HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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