Halloween (2007) (Unrated)

What better way to kick off an entire month of horror reviews than with part of a classic franchise?  Well, I suppose starting at the beginning of that franchise, but I already did that.  Howzabout the reboot?  I've actually really wanted to see Rob Zombie's take on Halloween for a while now, but never did because...well, most reboots suck.  Hard.  Still, of all the horror directors of the last decade, Zombie was probably the best choice to fix Halloween as a property.  Because, let's admit it, that shit got broke.  Zombie had experience making movies about soulless killers, he clearly respected older horror movies, and his movies aren't torture porn.  They're just...stabby.  So, yeah, I was excited when I rented Halloween (2007).  That excitement was tempered a bit, though, by the biggest Michael Myers fans I know, my cousins-in-laws; I remember asking them how the movie was, and I just got sighs and snorts of disgust.  But really, how bad can this reboot be when you compare it to Halloween: Resurrection? 

It could be adorable!

 

Halloween (2007) can be broken into two parts.  The first part is the origin of Michael Myers, and the second part takes place about fifteen years later, and is about Laurie Strode.  In part one, we meet Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch), a soft-looking chubby kid with hair down to his shoulders.  Honestly, he looks like an unattractive girl.

Lil' Michael, with an even less attractive woman

Mike has a history of wearing masks when he's out of school.  Not cool masks, like Corey Feldman made in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter --- we're talking little-kid-costume masks, like the ones made of cheap plastic with a rubber band around the back of your head.  We get a look at his life and his tendencies; when he eventually decides to put on a mask and murder several people (including his older sister), it's not that big of a shock, because he's obviously messed up.

Rob Zombie obviously wants to remake Killer Klowns From Outer Space next

Most of the hallmarks of serial killers are present in Lil' Mike's life.  He tortures and kills small animals.  He gets bullied at school.  He doesn't have a good family life; his older sister treats him like the plague and his mom's boyfriend is just a generally nasty sumbitch.  His mother, Deborah (Sheri Moon Zombie), cares about him, but is forced to be a largely absentee parent because she has to support her entire family by stripping.

It's only fair, since Rob Zombie supports Sheri Moon Zombie's acting career by casting her

When the fateful day arrives (SPOILER ALERT: it's in the title) and Michael goes on a prepubescent killing spree, he is apprehended by the police and sent to a mental institution.  There, we see Michael under the care of Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell); we see and hear snippets of treatment and medical opinions, as Michael spirals further and further away from being a normal child and closer to a full-time psychopath.

He was always a very promising part-timer

After 38 minutes of Lil' Mike, the film finally jumps forward fifteen years to modern times.  Michael Myers (Tyler Mane) has not spoken during all that time and spends his days in the mental institute making awful papier-mâché masks and getting far larger and stronger than it would seem possible for a mask aficionado. 

Who let Michael listen to Slipknot?  And take steroids?

Michael eventually breaks out of the mental ward and returns to his childhood home, where he hid the mask he wore when he went on his adorable murder spree.  While there, he catches a glimpse of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) on her way to school.  From that moment forward, Michael seems obsessed with Laurie and is more than willing to share his love of sharp objects with anyone who gets in his way.

Especially dainty brunettes

The acting in Halloween (2007) isn't bad, especially for a horror movie and especially for a horror remake.  Daeg Faerch was shockingly good as a young Michael Myers.  He looked like a wuss, but things got creepy fast whenever he showed off his "dead-eye" gaze.  Sheri Moon Zombie gave her best performance to date as Michael's mother; she was good, but that is also comparing it to her annoying previous roles.  I also liked Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis.  He isn't as demanding and abrasive as Donald Pleasence was in the original Halloween (1978).  Instead, he showed a lot of compassion and emotional investment in Michael's progression, which actually made him feel like a credible doctor.  I also liked the raw physicality of Tyler Mane as the adult Michael.  The character would have been effective if played by a normal-sized man, but Mane's huge build and body language made the mere sight of him frightening.

Which one would you be scared of?

Scout Taylor-Compton was decent as Laurie, but playing the Girl Who Lived is rarely a role that makes an actor look good.  Her friends, played by Danielle Harris and Kristina Klebe, were fairly inoffensive; Harris did a good job being a victim and Klebe balanced an obnoxious character with full-frontal nudity.  The rest of the cast is (not surprisingly, given the popularity of the original film) jam-packed with recognizable actors.  William Forsythe was good as a complete bastard of a father figure, Lew Temple was repulsive as a rapist security guard, and there was a small bit of the ol' Sid Haig-special (which is just another way of saying Haig is always gross).  As for actors that were not in The Devil's Rejects, Clint Howard and Mickey Dolenz had to be the most bewildering casting choices in the movie.  Udo Kier also has a cameo, but at least he seemed a little creepy.  Rounding out the cast, Danny Trejo was a kindly guard who may have given Michael the wrong advice, former Spy Kid Daryl Sabara was solid as a jerk bully, and Brad Dourif was adequate as the town sheriff.  When the film was finished, I was surprised at how competent the acting was.  I wasn't impressed by anyone but Daeg Faerch, but I didn't laugh at or hate any of the actors for their work, which is quite a feat in a slasher pic.

Rob Zombie wrote the screenplay for this Halloween remake and directed it.  As far as direction goes, I thought Zombie played it pretty safe with his style.  If you don't like a grainy look to your slasher movie, then you would have been irritated by the less-than-gorgeous shots and occasionally too-dark-to-see sequences.  I didn't really mind, but I know that bothers some folks.  Zombie worked well with his cast, getting performances that matched their characters surprisingly well.  I genuinely dislike his use of slow-motion and freeze frames, but they were used sparingly here.  As far as the script goes, I thought Zombie did a great job turning this movie into something different than just a remake.  The focus on Michael's childhood was definitely the most unique and interesting thing this movie had to offer.  I liked some of the smaller nods to the original movie (like the thick-rimmed glasses on a boyfriend) and I loved the added value the story gave to Myers' iconic mask.

Yeah, that's the one

The violence in this remake was definitely grislier than in the original Halloween.  Part of that has to do with the fact that five people were murdered by a child, sure, but this was not a film that flinched from violence.  This isn't a splatter-gore movie, though.  It's just intense.  The scene with Danielle Harris laying at the bottom of the stairs was particularly gruesome, and her character actually lives!  The kills were not particularly creative (this franchise has never made that a priority), but Tyler Mane's strength made the violence seem much more realistic; his portrayal made this the most intimidating Michael Myers since the original film.  There were also a lot of dead bodies in this film; I counted nineteen on-screen deaths, with several more implied off-screen.  When you crunch the numbers, Halloween (2007) seems like it should be a winner.  It has full-frontal nudity, a lot of kills, and solid violence.

This one didn't even happen on-camera, and it still looks good!

And yet, Halloween (2007) isn't a very satisfying movie.  Franchise purists probably point to the extensive origin sequence as the biggest flaw, since that is the primary story difference between this and the original.  That's not the problem, though.  Others may point to how closely the rest of the plot followed that of the original movie, which stripped the film of any suspense.  That's not it , either.  The rest might complain about the shallow pop psychology stereotypes present in the script, but that's still just a minor issue.  There are two problems that handicap this technically impressive effort: 1) awful characters and 2) focus.

Rob Zombie, as a writer, has never written a likable character for the audience to identify with.  As a horror fan, I imagine that he (like so many of us) prefers the monster over the victims.  The problem with identifying with the killer, though, is that you rarely make frightening movies when you understand and care about the villain; you might be able to make a disturbing film, but that familiarity makes suspense and genuine scares nearly impossible.  With Halloween (2007), we meet a wide array of characters and at least a quarter of the dialogue comes from awful, repulsive characters (and keep in mind that adult Michael doesn't speak).  Are we supposed to be horrified by the deaths of these terrible people?  In several cases, their deaths are at least understandable (William Forsythe, for example) and perhaps even justifiable (Lew Temple's idiot rapist).  Granted, the scale of Michael's violence prevents (most of) the audience from truly identifying with him, but the added insights into his childhood makes it clear that he is the most sympathetic character in the story.  And that's a problem.

Who am I supposed to be rooting for, again?  The quiet one, or the whiny one?

The other problem with Halloween (2007) is the story's focus.  It's not enough that the supposedly normal characters are abrasive and cruel ---the origin story makes Michael's evolution almost tragic.  In and of itself, that's not a bad thing; the greatest villains are the ones who have understandable motives.  That origin story shifts the focus of the movie, though.  As I noted in my plot summary, the origin of Michael Myers focuses on young Michael.  For the rest of the film, the story is ostensibly about Laurie Strode; we follow her life and see how Michael hunts her down, as well as seemingly anyone she knows.  However, the film is still following Michael at this point; we are trying to figure out why it was so important for him to leave the mental home and come back to scenic Haddonfield, Illinois.  This shift in focus is the main difference between Halloween (2007) and Halloween (1978).  In the original, there is little attention paid to how Michael spends his time and absolutely no explanation for Michael's actions; Laurie doesn't know why she is being hunted, and neither does the audience, which is why it is so scary.  In this remake, we have an incomplete understanding of Michael's motives, and that means that we are following him a lot more often and have some clues as to why he is doing what he is doing.  Remember the suspense and terror from the original movie?  That's been replaced by grim fascination in the remake.

Although this picture is, admittedly, pretty fascinating

Individually, the shift in focus and the unsympathetic characters would not sink a slasher movie.  When you combine the two, though, they create a vortex of audience indifference and boredom, and that makes for a sucky experience.  It's too bad, really.  There are some great moments in this movie, but the tone was all wrong for the story being told.  When Rob Zombie was focusing on the new elements that he created, the movie had promise, but when he conformed to the plot of the original film, this remake became almost a grind to get through.  Would it have been better for Zombie to depart from the original even further than he had?  Probably, although the story is what makes the original such a classic.  Zombie should have just scrapped the whole "reboot" idea and just made this into a study of an all-new psychopathic killer.  Halloween (2007) isn't an awful movie, but it is definitely disappointing because it has the potential to be great.

Check out this promotional poster for the movie.  It highlights the best parts of the movie, which in turn shows how for the focus has shifted from that of the original.  Still, it's a pretty sweet poster.

THX 1138

THX?  Isn't that the annoying noise that tells you that the audience is listening?  Well, yes.  The THX company is actually a splinter company that branched off of Lucasfilms, which is of course run by George "I love prequels" Lucas.  THX 1138 is Lucas' first feature film, a science fiction movie set in a dystopian future; and if you know anything about Lucas' work, you know that he didn't try for a low-key character-driven work for his first film.

In an underground future city, where drug use is mandatory (for general compliance as well as for better job performance), sex is illegal, and everything is monitored, THX 1138 (Robert Duvall) is just another worker drone, going through the motions of what the future calls "life."  He works long hours with radioactive materials, maintains minimally interesting conversations with others, confesses his problems to a picture of Jesus with an automated voice, and then goes home and watches the government-owned holographic television channels with his assigned opposite gender roommate, LUH 3417 (Maggie McOmie).  Good times, right?  Apparently, not so much.  THX (or "thux," as "luh" sometimes calls him) is having problems.  His medication doesn't seem as effective, and he's getting headaches and is being bothered by things that he usually ignores.  Well, that's because his roomie has been slipping him placebos, illegally forcing him off his medications without his knowledge.  But, once the drugs have left his system, THX experiences emotions for the first time, including his lust for LUH.  Breaking the law in sci-fi movies rarely comes cheap, so THX and LUH have to do what they can to fight The Man, before it's too late.

C3-PDestro?

The most impressive aspect to THX 1138 is the production values.  For having such a small budget, this future looks pretty cool.  I liked the appearance of the underground city and the cars, but the minimalist design for the costumes and many of the sets was really clever.  After all, what better way for a totalitarian government to fight individuality than by making absolutely everything bland?  Everyone wears only white, everyone is clean-shaven and has a shaved head, the furniture is functional and monochrome --- even the jail cell where they spend some time is just a pure white limbo.  The robotic police, with their almost-but-not-quite C3P0 faces, were a neat idea, as was the inclusion of budgetary concerns in a huge government-run complex.  And I liked the government-sponsored TV channels: one features a dancing naked woman, another has a dancing naked man, another has police beating a man (the sound of which is sampled at the start of "Mr. Self Destruct" by Nine Inch Nails --- and yes, I'm proud of myself for catching that all by myself), and the last channel has news; sex, violence, and knowledge, all in a government-sponsored box.

The acting is pretty decent, but it's a little hard to gauge in a movie where emotions are a foreign concept.  Robert Duvall is fine, but I expected more from someone as talented as him; don't ask me what else he could have done, given the script, but I was just a little disappointed.  Donald Pleasence was pretty good as a mildly sinister sociopath and Maggie McOmie was okay as the Eve to Duvall's boring Adam.  I think my favorite supporting performance came from Don Pedro Colley, and only because his cheerful ignorance kept the movie from being a total downer.  I also noticed Sid Haig in a bit part, but he didn't get to do much of anything.

Now, you might have noticed the similarities between THX 1138 and other, more famous, examples of dystopian futures.  That is because this movie borrows heavily from George Orwell's 1984, with a dash of Brave New World added in for spice.  That's not a bad thing, mind you; the concept of "Big Brother," the omnipresent monitoring of citizens by the government, is now widespread in our culture.  George Lucas (who co-wrote the film, in addition to directing it) has never been one for truly original ideas --- watch Akira Kurosawa's Hidden Fortress and compare it to the first Star Wars if you doubt me --- but I wish he had been a little less obvious this time.  Sure, it's his first movie, but it has the feel of something written by a child.  One time, when I was little, I wrote a story about dinosaur friends on a journey that was NOTHING LIKE The Land Before Time, which I had recently enjoyed, because my story included the power of rock 'n' roll and a magical bone that turned things into butter.  I'm not implying that George Lucas was as obviously not influenced by Orwell as I was not influenced by singing animated dinosaurs, I'm outright stating it.

Wearing your influences on your sleeve doesn't make a movie bad, though.  Where THX 1138 fails is in the area of storytelling.  This is a movie about the future more than it is about the adventures of THX; if they wanted it to be about THX, we would have had more insight into his character.  So, that makes this a story about the future we could all find ourselves in.  But there is no drama to that story.  There is no horrible truth at the core of this future society, like Soylent Green being made of people.  So that brings us back to the movie theoretically being about THX again...but his character arc peaks in the first third of the movie!  This story is just an awkward mess.  It's not told clearly, either.  I was always able to get the gist of what was going on, but could never be completely sure.  And riddle me this, Batman: if THX is arrested for going off his medication and having sex, why is he allowed to stay off his medication in prison and even have sex with LUH?  I don't get it.  And the ending is pretty terrible, too.

Visually, this is a pretty impressive movie.  Too bad the story isn't there to support it.

The Devil's Rejects

The Devil's Rejects is a mathematical anomaly.  The film is a direct sequel to House of 1000 Corpses, which is one of my Most Hated Movies, and is a sequel that is better than its predecessor.  That's unusual, but not unheard of.  What is unusual is just how much better it is.  In my own conservative estimate, The Devil's Rejects is at least thirty bajillion times better than House of 1000 Corpses.  I know, riiiight?  And I proved it with math!

You might have noticed that I call this a "direct" sequel.  That means that the events in this film have definite and explicit ties to those in the previous movie.  Does this mean that you need to see House of 1000 Corpses to understand or appreciate this movie?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Do not, under any circumstances, watch House of 1000 Corpses, unless you want to not enjoy six hours of your life; it might only be an hour and a half long, but you'll spend close to five hours scrubbing your eyes raw in the shower.  All you need to know about the evil Firefly family is explained in this movie.  Trust me.

The movie begins with the Firefly family in their home (of 1000 corpses), sleeping in after a night of killing, skinning, raping, or whatever they do at night.  Unfortunately for them, Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe) is leading a bunch of state troopers to their house (of 1000 corpses) with a Search and Destroy order.  The troopers attack, the family fights back, and all of a sudden the house has more than a thousand corpses in it.  One family member --- this is more of a Manson family than a blood family, mind you --- is captured, a few die, and two escape.  Well, two escape and Tiny (Matthew McGrory, the giant from Big Fish) happened to be wandering through the woods with a body, so he misses the whole ordeal.  The two escaping members are Otis (Bill Moseley), a frightening and hairy creep, and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie), a psychotic but busty blonde with an annoying voice.  They meet up with Baby's father, Captain Spaulding (Sig Haig).  The Captain is a loud, fat man in clown make-up, who runs a oddities tourist trap.  Together, the three remaining Firefly family members attempt to avoid getting caught by the police.  On the way to their hideout, these three opt to torture and murder a family-style country band (which included Brian Posehn) as a time-wasting activity.  Their hideout is actually a brothel run by an old friend of Spaulding, Charlie (Ken Foree).  While they were on the run, Sheriff Wydell learned from his captive that the Fireflys had killed his brother; he decides to go around the law, and hires two bounty hunters (Diamond Dallas Paige and Danny Trejo) to help him hunt, capture, and torture the remaining Fireflys to death.  I would like to tell you that Charlie's place is a secure womb of safety for the Fireflys, but bad things happen to bad people, too, sometimes.

Writer/director/rock star Rob Zombie did not impress me with his first attempt (the prequel) in any way, shape or form.  This movie, while vile, angry and somewhat gory is actually surprisingly entertaining.  The script, which could be described as an F-bomb minefield, gives the characters some decently smart dialogue.  Some of it is funny, some of it is just angry or mean, but I thought it fit the characters well.  The characters are all unsympathetic, but that's okay --- this isn't the kind of horror movie where you root for the bad guys.  Otis, Baby, and Captain Spaulding are all terrible people, and you're hoping that they get what's coming to them.  There are many points where one of the innocent victims of the Firefly family could conceivably escape or overpower their tormentors, but these situations are handled so brutally that you have to admit it...these villains might be bad, but they're really good at it.

Rob Zombie also deserves a special kudos for the best use of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Freebird" in any movie.  Ever.

The acting is a little overwhelming at times, especially from Otis and Baby, but it generally fits the tone of the movie.  They are all horrible, dirty characters, and the world they live in is a horrible, dirty place.  Bill Moseley, in particular, was especially vile as Otis, the male lead and the man who mentions the title in his dialogue.  Sheri Moon Zombie, Rob's wife, was one of the worst things about House of 1000 Corpses, but she's pretty tolerable here.  She's nothing great, mind you, but seeing an attractive person being so evil makes her actions seem so much worse.  Veteran horror movie actor Sid Haig rounds out the titular characters; he's always been a B-movie actor, but never tries to be anything else.  He delivers his lines well and is pretty disgusting to look at, so I think he performs above and beyond the call of duty.  William Forsythe isn't a great actor, either, but this is the best role I've seen him in; he plays a skeevy guy so often that having him play a vigilante cop is interesting and yet a logical extension for him.  The rest of the cast might be noteworthy, but they have little screen time and less development.  Still, it was nice to see P.J. Soles pop up as a prostitute, Ken Foree (from the original Dawn of the Dead) as the brothel owner, former pro wrestler Diamond Dallas Page as a thug, and Danny Trejo as a tough Hispanic guy (way to try something new, Danny).

I think what makes this movie effective is that it takes place out in the open.  Instead of some stupid teenagers that are having sex and abusing drugs wandering in the woods, the victims in this movie are seemingly nice people.  The film doesn't focus on these characters too much, since it is not their story, but it is rare to see a Good Samaritan getting shot in the face in any movie, even a horror flick.  I think the notion that, at a moment's notice, a normal group of people could be getting ready for a road trip, minding their own business, and the next moment be living and dying at the whims of psychopaths is a frightening thought.

This is, in my opinion, one of the best horror films ever.  It is dark, disgusting, and horrifying.  It is also sincere, which makes some of it kind of funny.  The acting is excellent (for a horror movie), if only because there are no terribly designed characters that take you out of the moment, forcing you to acknowledge that there is no such thing as a razor-fingered dream monster and that you're watching a dumb slasher flick.  This manages to avoid the trappings of other villain-focused horror movies by giving the bad guys some serious (and seriously painful) obstacles to overcome; even though the Fireflys are big and bad, this movie never becomes a snuff film for their victims.  This is not a movie for casual horror fans.  If you get nightmares easily, you should avoid it.  If you watch the scary parts with your hands over your eyes, don't bother taking them off during this movie.  This is a film for the discerning horror fan.  It might not have the widespread appeal of Halloween, the rawness of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or the art of The Shining, but this is the meanest and strangely unembellished horror movie in years.

Coffy

You aren't going to find the words "smart" and "blaxploitation" in the same sentence too often.  There's a good reason for this.  Blaxploitation films were made quickly and cheaply, with little time spent on the writing, directing, or editing of the films.  Coffy is actually one of the better blaxploitation films, but it obviously suffers from a low budget and terrible script.  Many blaxploitation staples are present here, so pull out your scorecard and check 'em off...

• Black drug dealers/pimps
• The white man trying to keep the black man down
• Gratuitous nudity
• Funk beats and waka-chicka guitars
• Soundtrack songs that explain the plot
• Racist white villains

Yep, all present and accounted for!  Of course, with all those qualities present in the movie, it can't be that bad, can it?

Coffy (Pam Grier) is a nurse whose young sister got hooked on drugs (heroin, I think) and is now mostly comatose.  Coffy handles the situation the best she can; she pretends to be a junkie willing to exchange sex for drugs and shoots her sister's dealer in the face with a shotgun.  All's well that ends well, right?  Actually, the movie keeps going for another eighty minutes because Coffy keeps finding new bad guys to kill.  To track down the baddies, Coffy does the most sensible thing she can do: she poses as a high class Jamaican prostitute, just to get time alone with the men she holds responsible for the local drug trade.  That doesn't always work well; she spends almost a third of the movie in captivity after she fails to kill a white kingpin.  Overall, though, her strategy works pretty well.

This isn't a movie that would translate well into a book.  Writer/director Jack Hill's script was pretty bad at the time and hasn't aged well in the last 30+ years.  Luckily, a lot of its jive talk has gone from cool to lame and is now in the humorously quaint category, so it's actually kind of fun to hear nowadays.  To give you an example of some of the quality writing here, ask yourself what you would do to disguise yourself as a Jamaican prostitute.  Was your answer "Just add 'mon' to the end of all my sentences"?  If it was, you missed your calling writing blaxploitation screenplays.

The movie obviously has a low budget, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.  While Coffy's weapon of choice is a shotgun, you see precious little blood, even when she shoots a man in a swimming pool.  And the guys she shoots in the crotch...well, it's probably better that they didn't have the money to show that.  I actually think Coffy does a good job with the action, despite the low budget.  While seeing some fake blood would have made the movie a little better, it wouldn't have made a huge difference overall; the key was Coffy having a kick-ass attitude, which Grier definitely delivers.

I have a few unanswered questions after viewing this film.  Sid Haig's character is an enforcer for a drug kingpin.  He is supposed to take Coffy out somewhere, give her an overdose, and leave her to die.  Instead, he injects her with the drugs (actually, it's sugar that Coffy swapped for the drugs.  Shh!!!  Don't tell Sid!) and then tries to have consensual sex with her.  That's right.  He's preparing to have sex with a woman that might die during the act.  Eww.  I mean, classy.

And what's with the bad guy that is wearing glasses, but one of the lenses is blackened out?  I'm not stupid, I get that the dude is missing an eye, but he's missing out on an amazing opportunity that totally would have been boss in the 1970s.  He should have worn a monocle and an eye patch.  I swear, I'm not a Hollywood stylist, but sometimes I get inspiration.

Look, the movie's not very good.  The dialogue is terrible, the acting is amateurish and the direction is nonexistent.  And yet, the first half of the movie is pretty entertaining.  Pam Grier is a sassy woman and there is a lot of violence and a lot of gratuitous nudity.  Sure, the movie gets boring for the 30 or 40 minutes where it delivers all of its exposition, but that's a relatively small price to pay.  The awesomeness of Pam Grier more or less cancels out the awfulness of the rest of the movie.