Review #39: Halloween (2007)

Cast/Notable Credits:
Rob Zombie (Director): House of a 1000 Corpses (2003), The Devil’s Rejects (2005)

Malcom McDowell (Dr. Loomis): A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Trek: Generations (1994), Tank Girl (1995), Firestarter 2 (2002), I Spy (2002)

Brad Dourif (Sheriff Brackett): Child’s Play Series

Tyler Mane (Michael Myers): ECW wrestler (Big Sky), Troy (2004), X-men (2000), The Devil’s Rejects

Daeg Faerch (Young Mike)

Scout Taylor-Compton (Laurie): 13 Going on 30 (2004), Wicked Little Things (2006), April Fool’s Day

Danielle Harris (Annie): Halloween 4, Halloween 5, Urban Legend

Skyler Gisondo (Tommy): Walk Hard (2007)

Jenny Gregg Stewart (Lindsey)

Hanna Hall (Judith Myers): Forrest Gump (1994), The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Clint Howard (Dr. Koplensen): House of the Dead (2003), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000), Little Nicky (2000)…and many more

Udo Kier (Morgan Walker): Suspiria (1977), Barb Wire (1996), Blade (1998), Shadow of the Vampire (2000), Feardot Com (2002), Evil Eyes (2004), Blood Rayne (2005)

Kristina Klebe (Lynda): Delirious (2006)(Pictured right)

Adam Weisman (Steve): Hatchet, The Toolbox Murders (2004)

Dee Wallace (Cynthia Strode): The Howling

Nick Mennell (Bob): Friday the 13th

Sybil Danning (Nurse Wynn): Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), The Howling 2, Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

Max Van Ville (Paul): Bad Santa (2003) ~ Skate board Bully

Cast from the House of a 1000 Corpses/The Devil’s Rejects (DR):
Sheri Moon Zombie (Deborah Myers): Both Films

William Forsythe (Ronnie): DR

Danny Trejo (Ismael): DR

Lew Temple (Noel): DR

Tom Towles (Larry): Both

Bill Moseley (Zach): Both

Leslie Easterbrook (Patty Frost): DR & Police Academy 1, & 3-7

Daniel Roebuck (Lou): DR, Final Destination

Ken Foree (Big Joe Grizzley): DR & Dawn of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead

Sid Haig (Chester): Both

Trailer:


Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween starts off with a peak into the childhood of Michael Myers. Zombie portrays his early childhood as problematic as he grows up in a hostile environment. His mother (Sheri Moon) works as a stripper while her dead beat boyfriend, Ronnie, sits at home doing nothing but verbally abusing Mikey and hitting on his older, hot sister, Judith.

Mikey is already a troubled young child at the tender age of nine. He tortures and kills animals (a typical sign for a psycho) and walks around wearing masks and wearing a K.I.S.S. t-shirt. I knew it! K.I.S.S. is the reason why Mikey goes on to kill. Remember: K.I.S.S. = (Knights In the Service of Satan). This explains everything. I wonder if young Jason or Freddy had their K.I.S.S. t-shirts? Rock n' Roll is the devil's music!

At school he is picked on and has a short temper starting fights. It seems he has frequent visits to the Principal's office because of all the trouble he's in or causes. Enter Dr. Loomis. In the aftermath of one of his fights, the principal calls in his mother and also introduces her to a child psychiatrist (Dr. Loomis). The only two people in his life that he seems to care about and love is his mom, and his baby sister (Laurie).

On Halloween night, Mikey's mom takes off to go to work at the strip club while Ronnie sits back drinking beer and watching T.V. His sister promises to take him trick or treating, but breaks the promise when her boyfriend comes over to "get some".

Mikey is left pondering what to do with his life in the kitchen while Judith is up stairs in her room doing the dirty deed with her boyfriend. Hanna Hall (Pictured right) is the actress playing Judith, and she is from Denver, Colorado. Way to represent my home state! During this time in the film, Zombie gives us our first taste of nudity...Booby Count: 1. Also her boyfriend is "doing" her while wearing the famous Michael Myers mask.

Anyway...Mikey's down stairs at the kitchen table thinking about the meaning of life and other sh*t like that when he decides to go homicidal. Hmm…I know that's what I typically do when I ponder stuff like that. I usually come to the conclusion, "Hey, let’s go on a killing spree!" Apparently Mikey and I share the same brainwaves because he does the same.

Mikey goes Ape sh*t on everyone in the house, killing all but his baby sister. Mom comes home and finds the carnage, police arrive, blah, blah, blah and then Mikey's off to the mental hospital! Damn K.I.S.S.!

For the next eleven months, Mikey is under the care of Dr. Loomis and starts to go down the dark path as he separates himself from the world. Loomis attempts to work with him but finds no success as Mikey diminishes to a state of silence while wearing handmade masks to cover his face.

During a visit with his mom, Mikey ends up stabbing a nurse in the jugular with a fork. The nurse dies. On a side note, the nurse was played by Sybill Danning. She was the big, busty blonde chick from the movie, Battle Beyond the Stars. The main ship in the movie looks like a scrotum ship (as my friends refer to it). So any time I can bust out the "It's the Testicle Ship!" reference, I can and will. Hey, it's a Roger Corman movie. What do you expect? She's also the blonde that rips off her top repeatedly in the Howling 2 movie. Check it out. But in this one, she dies. Damn K.I.S.S.!

Over the next 15 years, Mikey grows up into a huge silent monster that makes masks in his cell room. Dr. Loomis departs as his doctor, only to go on promoting the book he wrote about Mikey. Money hungry bastard!

One night, Mikey escapes the hospital. There are two versions of this escape, the theatre and the director's cut. One involves breaking out of leg irons, and the other involves two staff members raping a patient in front of Mikey. You choose which one you like. Bottom line, Mikey slaughters the staff, escapes and heads back to Haddonfield, Il.

It's now Halloween night in Haddonfield and Mikey returns to his former house. Coincidentally, his now adopted baby sister, Laurie drops off paperwork through the mail chute to the Myer's house. Her foster father is the realtor trying to sell the run down Myer's house.

Somehow, Mikey knows that Laurie is his baby sister and then "stalks" her while hiding in the distance and shadows. Why not? Have you've seen Laurie? (Pictured right...played by the lovely Scout Taylor-Compton) She's definitely one to be stalked.

Mikey spends the day stalking her and her friends as Dr. Loomis gets word of Mikey's escape and heads to Haddonfield to stop the monster.

Later on that night, one of Laurie's friends, Lynda, decides to have sex with her boyfriend at the deserted Myer's house. Guess what? It's not entirely deserted. Zombie gives us Booby Count: 2 courtesy of Lynda, and then shortly afterwards, Mikey dispatches the two. Damn K.I.S.S.!

Meanwhile, Laurie gets stuck babysitting a neighborhood child, Tommy Doyle. She also inherits another, Lindsey, from her best friend Annie. Annie is played by the lovely Danielle Harris who played the little girl, Jamie from Halloween 4 & 5. Annie's supposed to be babysitting Lindsey, but cons Laurie into watching her while she has her own little Halloween party with her boyfriend across the street. A little late night lovin'!

Mikey enter's the house across the street while Annie answer's her boyfriend's booty call on the couch. Mikey likes what he sees as he watches the two do the nasty. Here we get...Booby Count: 3! Unfortunately Mikey breaks up the good times and kills her boyfriend. BOO! Damn K.I.S.S.! Annie tries to escape...running around the house topless...thank you Danielle Harris...thank you...but is caught by Mikey and injured.

Eventually Laurie decides to return Lindsey back to Annie and comes across the path of destruction and Mikey himself. Mikey chases Laurie around and eventually Dr. Loomis catches up to them.

And then Rob Zombie realizes that he has just made a carbon copy of the original Halloween film. So to fix the problem, he milks the film for another twenty some odd minutes by adding random chase sequences and confrontations.

Eventually Laurie transforms into a strong female, and fights back and kills Mikey. Or does she? And we all learn that...it's all K.I.S.S.'s fault!


Villain:

Young Michael (Daeg) did an awesome job in this film. You gotta admit, even if you hated the "young, troubled story line" of Mikey, Daeg did an excellent job here. I though it was great to see Michael “age” through the years and deteriorate to his present state.

On the other hand, older Mikey was just okay. But effective. I wasn’t such a big fan of making him a freak of nature (7’ 300lb +), but I guess if you want something terrifying visually then that’s what you get. Wasn't really my cup of tea, but I guess I can deal with it.

Cast:

Outside of bringing in every one and their mother from the House/Devil franchise, I liked the cast of the new film. In the battle of the trio of hot young women: Scout, Danielle, and Kristina vs. the original 1978’s Jamie Lee Curtis, Nancy Keyes, and P.J. Soles...I take the new group hands down. Look at them, they're hotter!

People complain that the new group are too annoying and naive. But have you been around teenage girls lately? They also worked well together on screen and gave the girls more of a lively feelt to their characters than the original cast. I know Jamie Lee Curtis is a great actress, but her character felt a little too…for lack of a better term…goodie two shoes. And the other two of the older group were just annoying as hell and insignificant.

Sheri Moon had her best acting performance to date…considering the previous movies she has been in…as Michael’s mom. I could actually see some emotion in that character. Fellow Devil's Rejects alum, Danny Trejo was another great character. But I'm a big fan of him. He didn't do anything special but be a cool old Spanish guy. Oh well, I'm cool with that.

So let's move on to Dr. Loomis. Yep. The man who knows Mikey the best. The original doc, Donald Pleasence did a great job in the first two Halloween films. And then as the series grew more comical, he should have stop accepting the role for Dr. Loomis. Toward the end it was almost injustice to the character.

Malcom McDowell steps into the role for this remake. We first see him as he appears in the principal’s office at Michael’s school in the beginning. At that point, I couldn't buy Malcom as Loomis. He looked like a hippy. It's like, "Dude…I wanna be your friend. Wait a second while I light up." That portrayal just didn’t do it for me. It was more of a Zombie fault than Malcom. But, as his character grew older with Mikey, Loomis turned out not to be such a bad character after all.

The original Loomis was like, "He’s the devil. He can’t be killed. But I don’t know what to do about it." While the new Loomis is like "He’s a bad man, but if I given him a hug he can change."

SFX/Gore:

Three words: BRUTAL AS HELL. But I like it. Why hold back? From the early years to the late years, Mikey was brutal and heartless...consistent. The body count in the film was high at around twenty (at least that's what I counted in Director’s cut). Once again, Damn K.I.S.S.!

***SPOILER*** (Highlight to read): In director’s cut, Dr. Loomis does not die and his character is left in question as the movie ends. Also, Danielle Harris character “officially” lives as Rob Zombie comments in the film’s commentary. ** End **

The special effects were state of the art and good. There was nothing really done to piss me off there. No cheesy deaths or awkward looking effects.

TNA:

Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…Sex and Boobies…and hot chicks. Hallelujah! Amen Brother! Three racks of breast, three scenes of doing-the-dirty-deed, one dual rape scene and six hot chicks. And one of the most important factors: NO SHARK FACTOR! Well done! And for your viewing pleasure...the lovely Danielle Harris (pictured right)...all grown up now.

T.Gun's Take:

Okay it was a remake. Not really too original, but like I said, it's a remake. I did like the first segment of the movie with the telling of Mikey’s childhood story and then moving into his killing state of mind. Most people hated the whole “broken family-I torture little pets-mom and sister is a whore-step dad is abusive-now I must turnout bad and kill everyone” storyline but I bought I actually enjoyed it.

I'm going against the grain, and admit that I liked this version of Halloween. I think it stands close to the original and some times I rather watch it over the original. I could be a little biased with the upgrade in hotness and booty. For more info...see Remake rant.

Misc. Movie Trivia:
- Halloween opened September 2, 2007 and made $58.2 million at the box office ($30.6 opening weekend)
- Production was delayed due to the death of Moustapha Akkad (Halloween movies 1-8 producer). He died due to injuries from terrorist attacks in Jordan.