14 July 2016

ROB ZOMBIE'S 'HALLOWEEN.' (2007) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.




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.

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.

And it's been praised as well for highlighting the link between hurting and torturing defenceless animals when you're a kid and then going on to do the same thing to people when you grow up. I have to go now. I need to go find my son. And the family cat...!

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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