Hola all. Massawyrm here.
I love KC and the Sunshine Band. They made a number of really catchy songs that I love for the kitsch value - you know, the kind of thing you throw on and throw down to with your friends when no one is being even a lick of serious. And no one but friends are around. One of their better songs is a little ditty called "I'm Your Boogie Man." It's a fun little piece of nostalgia about being a great dancing partner. But then Rob Zombie came along. And he just had to remake the thing. So what did he do? He completely reworked the song to sound like it was about being some kind of fucking monster. And you know what? God damnit I love that fucking song. That's the version I put on when I actually want to rock out.
A good remake is exactly like a good cover song. I takes everything that was good about the original and completely reworks it. Makes it different. It takes familiar elements but looks at them through a new pair of eyes. Rob Zombie didn't rewrite the lyrics or the fundamental music to The Sunshine Band's version. And he certainly didn't take everyone else's copies of the original away so that his was the only version in existence. He just played it differently, making a song that exists for a completely different reason. Now there are two versions, each the same and yet functionally different.
By now you should know where I'm going with this.
I love Rob Zombie. The guy is a remarkably unique voice in filmed horror. Love him or hate him he's trying some very different things, and slowly but surely he's pulling himself out of his heavy borrowing from other filmmakers and getting more and more distinct with every film. I find him a fascinating director because I know that every time I sit down to watch one of his movies he is going to show me something I've never seen before. And Halloween is no different.
There already has been and there no doubt will continue to be a lot of hullabaloo over the changes he's made. Zombie's changed this and he's decided to do that. Most of all, people have been bitching about canon and mythology. Now I know I'm big into that kind of stuff my own self. But there are occasions when you can't really turn to a canon or mythology argument – and Michaels Myers is one of them. There are two reasons for that.
The first requires me to ask you this: Which mythology are you talking about? When it comes to Myers, where do you draw the line? Which Michael Myers mythos do you subscribe to? Does it end with the first Halloween or do you draw the line at the point that Carpenter left? Are you like me and the series ends when that mystery man frees Michael from that jail cell at the end of part 5? Or are you completely insane and subscribe to that whole he's a genetic experiment to make evil bullshit that we were given when Dimension took the reins. Or in your head does he die like a punk ass bitch at the end of the one they made when Hollywood had a huge hard on for Kevin Williamson and expanded his crappy 20 page treatment, trying to keep every little scrap of English he wrote onto those pages? Do I even need to ask how Busta Rhymes fits in? Really. Honestly. Your version of Michael Myers ends when the movies begin to get shitty in your estimation. Which leads us to reason two:
Michael Myers doesn't belong to John Carpenter anymore. He belongs to us. All of us. To an entire generation. Myers, Krueger, Voorhees. They're our Universal Monsters. Our Wolf Man, Frankenstein and Dracula. How many functionally different versions of Dracula are there out there? How about of the Wolf Man? Of Frankenstein? And how many of them even resemble the original source material upon which they're based? Welcome to the era when we begin to reinvent our Universal Monsters. And like the Universal Monsters, there are certain details that are essential to ensure the monster is recognizable. The rest is what decides whether or not that version is a good movie.
So is it? Is this Halloween a good riff on the story, the myth, the legend that is Michael Myers? I was sure as hell pleased. Mostly because like "I'm Your Boogie Man" Zombie put his distinctive touch on it, but more importantly gave me something I had never seen before. In fact, I almost wish this weren't called Halloween. Not because I don't think it's worthy of the name, but because, like Dawn of the Dead before it, it comes with too much baggage. It's the same story, but told in such a radically different way that it really becomes a completely different film. And what it has to offer is original, frightening and deliciously fucked up. But if you spend the whole movie comparing it to the original or trying to reconcile it with previous mythology, you're going to miss what's so great about this one.
You have never seen 10 year-old do what you are about to watch a 10 year-old do. Zombie doesn't in any way try to recreate Carpenter's brilliant POV murder scene. Instead, he presents to you a murder spree worthy of the legend of Michael Myers – a set up and delivery that people would definitely talk about in a town for two decades. The type of murders that lead to legends and abandoned houses and queer looks at the mere mention of a name. It's pretty brutal stuff very much in the vein of what you expect from Zombie. And as you watch that 10 year-old grow up in a mental institution, you watch his slow, gradual transformation into the Michael Myers of your nightmare.
Forget the fact that his origin is different, that the story that gets you to Haddonfield on Halloween Night is told and paced differently. What really matters is once you've gotten there, once you've seen what Zombie tells us created his Michael Myers, the guy standing in front of you wearing that mask and wielding that butcher knife? That guy is Michael Fucking Myers. No doubt about that. He is cold, methodical, ruthless and unstoppable. He shows no emotion. He spares no one. All this bullshit you're hearing about sympathizing with Michael Myers – it's all just that. Bullshit. You don't feel for him. You might understand what made him, but you don't sympathize with him. The guys a fucking monster. No heart, no soul. Just evil with a mask and a knife.
And he carves out a murder spree of legend.
Zombie puts all of his trademark flourishes on this. Rather than setting the origin of Myers in Suburbia, it falls more in a drunken redneck hell just this side of the trailer park. Then, once we do get to the suburbs, it's hyper sexualized with enough naked cheerleaders and daddy's girls to get even a eunuch aroused. And every bit of violence is brutal. Zombie has a way of making some classic, been-there-done-that kills just plain hurt. He never has to resort to gimmicky death scenes. Butcher knife, baseball bat and bare hands. That's all Myers needs. And it still gets you.
Do I love this more than the original? Oh God no. Carpenter fucking rules. But I will say I like this mythology better than anything presented beyond the first film, and that I like this one a lot more than I like ANY of the sequels. I think it's a fine retelling of the story and that it has a lot to offer those who long for something a little different. In fact the only scenes here that didn't work for me are the few that Zombie seems to crib almost entirely from Carpenter. There are three sequences in particular that feel like they belong in the original rather than here. And I like Carpenter's take on those better. But every place Zombie differs is a pretty great new story, one I immediately fell in love with.
I think – no fuck that – I KNOW that this one is going to divide people. Purists are gonna howl about canon, and the snarkier out there are gonna try and pin this as an abused child story (it isn't.) But what it all comes down to is: what do you want in a remake? If you hate the very idea of a remake or long for a remake that is updated but unchanged, this is gonna piss you right the hell off. Personally I don't think this is in any way a violation. The corpse of Michael Myers has been desecrated several times by my count, and Zombie appears to be trying to restore some dignity to it. I for one think he succeeded. But I can only Recommend this to those seeking a new take on the story. Those who are open-minded about remakes or relatively unattached to the mythos of Myers will find a wonderfully disturbing horror film here.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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