[HorrorScience] Halloween (2007)

Reading time: 9 minutes

Qualification

halloween

Title in Spain

Halloween: The Origin

Year

2007

Duration

109 minutes

Director

Rob Zombie

Distribution

Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Danielle Harris, Brad Dourif, Tyler Mane, Daeg Faerch, William Forsythe, Richard Lynch, Udo Kier, Danny Trejo, Clint Howard, Lew Temple, Tom Towles, Bill Moseley, Ken Foree, Scout Taylor-Compton

Script

Rob Zombie (Reinterpretation of the original story by John Carpenter)

The darkest souls are not those who choose to exist in the abyss of hell, but those who choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us.

With this phrase from Dr. Samuel Loomis, one of the most recognized characters in this saga, this 2007 remake of the successful halloween by John Carpenter, this time by Rob Zombie, the musician and horror film director who I have already talked about previously in a series dedicated to his films. In fact, the film that I will talk about next is included in our cycle halloween and also in the Rob Zombie cycle, as he had already promised in that last one that he would do once he started talking about this saga.

The story begins on October 31 of an unspecified year, with a family quite dysfunctional -not to mention shitty-, understood by a vulgar, violent, incestuous, alcoholic and useless stepfather; a mother who works as an erotic dancer; a promiscuous teenage daughter; a pre-adolescent son with character problems and homicidal inclinations; and a baby who spends her time crying in that rotten family environment.

After this lively family scene where the elders argue continually, and where the father of the family appreciates his daughter's "nice little butt", treats his son as a faggot, and despises the baby saying that he only knows how to cry and shit, we realize that Michael, which is the child's name, not only suffers from bullying at home but also at school, where we see him moments later fighting with two older boys in the bathroom who provoked him by treating his sister and his mother as whores.

The school principal breaks up the fight, and Michael insults him, telling him to fuck off. Michael's mother is summoned to school, and after complaining that they can't call her every time something happens with her son, another person appears, who introduces himself as the Dr. Samuel Loomis, child psychiatrist.

Mrs. Myers is taken aback for a moment, and when she thinks about leaving the place, Loomis convinces her to sit down because he has to talk to her about something important. The principal takes out a bag containing a dead cat, and informs Mrs. Myers that the animal was found in her son's backpack. And not only that, but also the boy kept photographs of several dead animals. To the mother's growing concern, Loomis responds that usually taking pleasure in hurting or causing pain to creatures smaller than oneself is a sign of a deeper problem, and that her son is a very disturbed child who has to be studied and given a series of tests.

Michael escapes from the school running, but not before picking up a clown mask he left in his locker.

At school dismissal time, the two who had mistreated Michael in the bathroom come out, and one of them gets on his bike to leave while the other walks away. Michael stalks the latter, and in a certain place with lush vegetation where no one can see him, Michael goes out to cross his victim, hitting him in the legs with a large tree branch. The beaten boy falls to the ground, and Michael begins to hit him repeatedly until the battered boy begins to beg him to stop. However, Michael puts on his clown mask and resumes beating his victim until he kills him.

[HorrorScience] Halloween (2007) — Little Myers

Once back at home, Michael is watching TV with his shitty stepdad, and asks his mom to tell his sister to hurry up because he doesn't want to be late to go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood since it's Halloween. His mother agrees to let him go, although she informs him that because of what happened at school tomorrow things will have to change. Mrs. Myers leaves home to go to work, and a boy arrives, her daughter's boyfriend, whom Mrs. Myers asks to leave the house early because she already knows what they both do in her room. Once they are left alone, The teenager tells Michael that he is already big enough, and that he should go trick-or-treating by himself..

Michael, dressed completely as a clown and with his mask on his head, he sits on the street while other children happily visit the different houses in search of sweets. At the same time, her mother is dancing almost naked in a bar, her father has fallen asleep in an armchair in the house, drunk and the television is on where they are playing a movie with Bela Lugosi, and her sister is in the upper room having sex with her boyfriend, who has no better idea than to put on a mask at that moment, telling her that he wants to have sex with the mask on. But hey, It's not just any mask, is THE mask. You know which one, the one we all know in this saga.

Michael returns home, sits alone in the kitchen, and starts eating sweets, with a very bored expression. Seconds later he gets up from his chair, opens a drawer in the kitchen cabinet, take a wide packing tape and from another drawer take a large kitchen knife. I think at this point we all know what will happen, although this time everything will have Zombie's imprint, creating much more violent and bloodthirsty scenes than in its prequels.

Some critics have criticized this film negatively, calling it unoriginal and offering nothing new to the saga. I wonder what these critics expected from a remake. Zombie's film is a reinterpretation of Carpenter's original story, and as is often the case in these cases, it is not as good as the original, but it does have enough content and appeal to attract those fans of the saga (or neophytes in it but followers of horror films) who do not have a closed mind and realize that this is halloween made for today's audience. The first 45 minutes also show us events prior to those we can see in the first film, and a different origin for this feared and recognized murderer. The Rob Zombie version of Michael Myers does not provoke fear due to his silence and his coldness like steel, he is not calculating nor is he evil incarnate like the original. Rob's Michael is violence in its purest form, he is an unstoppable force that provokes fear for that very reason.

The biggest flaw of this film can be said to be the same as that of other sequels in the saga, and it is try to give a reason for Myers' violence, to why he murders. In Carpenter's original film, Myers has no clear motive. He is a cold-blooded killer, without motivations, without expression, evil behind a mask, a destructive void, a practically inhuman being. In that film, Myers is also the evil that stalks the protagonist, Laurie Strode. In Zombie's version we seek to enter the character's mind, situations from the past are narrated that cause his hatred towards his family members, towards adolescents, sex, and even the reason for his obsession with wearing a mask. These changes, this humanization of the character, also make the murderer the true protagonist of the film, since this is his story, and we do not suffer for the fate of any of the other characters, who are absolutely disposable.

Se puede decir que Zombie creó una versión propia de la historia original, lo suficientemente distinta para espantar a muchos fans de la saga, pero incluyendo gran cantidad de similitudes que mantienen la identidad de la franquicia.

Some curiosities:

Antes de realizar esta nueva versión, Rob Zombie llamó a su amigo, John Carpenter, para comentarle sobre este proyecto. Carpenter le dijo que haga de la versión «una versión propia».
Danielle Harris, la actriz que protagonizara la cuarta y quinta parte de Halloween interpretando a Jamie Lloyd, hija de Laurie Strode, re aparece en esta película, esta vez interpretando a Annie Brackett, hija del sheriff de Haddonfield.
En cierto momento Dimension Films pensó en hacer de esta película un cross-over entre Michael Myers y Pinhead (el protagonista de la saga Hellraiser), intentando imitar lo visto con Freddy vs. Jason. Se lanzó una encuesta en el sitio oficial de la compañía, y en base a los resultados negativos por parte del público ese proyecto se canceló.
Es la primer película de la franquicia donde Michael Myers habla.
Rob Zombie metió a su mujer Sheri Moon Zombie en la película diciendo que necesitaba a una actriz alta que haga el papel de madre de Michael y que explique de alguna manera el porqué Michael es alto cuando es adulto. (Yo no le creo, y supongo que ustedes tampoco. Zombie mete a su mujer en todas sus películas.)