Halloween (2007) - Film Review

Halloweenthon Day 9

Halloween is directed by Rob Zombie and stars Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Tyler Mane, Scout Taylor-Compton, Brad Dourif, Danielle Harris, and William Forsythe.

Plot
After being committed for 17 years, Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton).

Review
I want to say that I'm not a huge Rob Zombie fan, this and Halloween II were the only films of his I've seen and I didn't like either of them, but I've listened to a couple of his CD's and I enjoyed them both. I know one of them was Hellbilly Deluxe, but I don't remember what the other one was

I watched the unrated cut, and I didn't even watch all of it. I skipped the first 54 minutes or so because that first act is absolutely dreadful. I do remember enough to talk about that first act though. This my my third time watching this movie, and I've only watched the first act once, and every other viewing, I just skipped the first act. I don't want to sit through a bunch of rednecks screaming and swearing at each other, and I don't want to sit through that dreaful scene when Michael escapes. It's a bit too inappropriate for me to say here, but it's the worst scene in the franchise, down there with Busta Rhymes vs Michael in Resurrection. The theatrical version of Michael's escape is better, as he is being transferred to another cell, then he hulks out and kills four guards.

The opening goes in the "nurture" route in the whole "nature vs. nurture" thing with Michael Myers. In the original, Michael falls under nature, he was born to be a murderer, but in this movie they go with nurture, he lived in a terrible environment, had a terrible family, and just had a terrible life.

In the original movies, Michael was just an ordinary kid who just happened to murder his sister, he looked like he had a normal life, normal family, but just snapped (don't bring up Thorn, that is not canon anymore), but in this, he's annoying, kills his pets, verbally abused by his family (except his mother and baby sister), and then he moves on to killing people, his first victim being that boy from Spy Kids.

Also, I don't care about Michael's childhood, the more mysterious, the better in my opinion.

The biggest issue with the movie is the characters, there is not a single likable character in the whole movie, there are more bad characters than good characters. In the original movies, Haddonfield was like a normal town with nice people and everything, in here everyone is either a jerk, a redneck, or just crazy. Also. almost every male character in the movie has long unkempt hair and a beard. Just like Rob Zombie. Look Rob, you don't have to make every character the same in every movie.

The first act sucks but the rest of the movie is slightly better as it's a rushed remake of John Carpenter's original. And by rushed, I mean it's the last hour of the movie, when Carpenter's version was just 90-something minutes.

There's a scene where Laurie drops off some mail at the Myers house and when she leaves, Michael picks up the mail and smells it. I guess he recognized her scent? That's weird.

Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) tries to get Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) to realize that Michael is on the loose in Haddonfield, and he doesn't listen, giving us the whole disbelieving sheriff cliche, and he keeps the book that Loomis wrote about Michael in his desk just in case the author shows up. Sheriff Bracket starts to take this seriously after seeing Annie (Danielle Harris) near death.

There's a scene where Laurie is running from Michael in the neighborhood and you can see him keeping up with her but in the next shot he's missing. He probably stopped for a snack or to tie his shoes or something, but then she trips on some oxygen and he takes her to his basement and he tries to make her remember him, but it doesn't work and she stabs him in the shoulder. Ok, you should probably aim a knife somewhere other than a shoulder.

In this movie, they remove the plothole of Michael driving back to Haddonfield without a licence or lessons, but it creates a new one by not explaining how Michael got back to Haddonfield, so how did he get back? Hitchhiking? Uber?

If I can think of one thing I liked about the movie, I liked when Tommy and Lindsey were with Laurie, that was actually quite funny, and I liked Michael's look with the damaged mask and everything.

Malcolm McDowell isn't bad as Dr. Loomis, in here you can see he actually cared for Michael. But it's obvious he can't be as timeless as Donald Pleasence as Loomis.

I didn't care for Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie, especially after the bagel scene, as the original Laurie would never do that to a bagel. Also, in the original Halloween, Laurie was rather unlike her friends, but in this film Rob made her dumb and slutty like her friends but she wears glasses so we know she won't die. And she actually shoots Michael instead of Loomis in this one.

Tyler Mane isn't bad as Michael, I mean all you have to do is kill people and don't talk. Tyler Mane is 6'8, making him the tallest actor to play Michael, and I think I would be terrified if I came across his Michael in real life, but because he doesn't talk, adult Michael is one of the more tolerable characters in the movie.

Overall, Halloween sucks. I hate this movie and Halloween didn't need to be remade. He didn't "ruin" the franchise because it hit rock bottom with Halloween: Resurrection. This is my #2 least favorite Halloween movie.

I'm going to give Rob Zombie's Halloween a 2/10.

Come back tomorrow for Rob Zombie's Halloween II.

Previous review - Halloween: Resurrection
Next review - Halloween II (2009)