^ I don't get that notion that "as Halloween films they're trash"....do you mean because they're different and the second one specifically doesn't retread the same ole tired ground? Because that's the only thing I get out of that statement. The remake isn't perfect & could've been better (something Zombie himself admitted) but H2 is arguably one of the best slasher movies of that entire decade. I'm particularly speaking of the director's cut.
I commend Rob for taking the initiative to do something different...to put a spin on the brother/sister story angle between Michael & Laurie that's twisted and makes sense, to get Michael out of those damn coveralls, to be bold & not include the classic music and so on and so forth.
Changing elements doesn't make it any less of a Halloween film. Are Batman (1989) & Batman Returns any less of Batman films because Batman kills people in them even though that's a huge deviation? Nope.
I just don't get the logic there.
Yes, as Halloween films they're trash. I've actually said on numerous occasions that I like Zombie's H2 more than his first outing because he really ran wild with the whole thing. It was like reading a crazy, else-worlds Halloween comic.
However, in terms of his first try at a "remake" of Halloween, he failed horribly. My feelings on this have nothing to do with the mindset that his take failed because he changed things, or that I wanted/expected the film to "tread the same ole tired ground". As I said previously in this thread, it is possible to create a Halloween movie with a unique story or new vision that could be great...as long as it captures the
essence of what Halloween was all about.
And that's precisely where Zombie failed -- his remake was lacking the true essence of what made the original Halloween so special.
At its core, Carpenter's Halloween has a remarkably simple set-up. On Halloween night, a little kid randomly murders his older sister. Years later on another Halloween night, this child -- now a man -- escapes the mental hospital and begins stalking a teenage girl and her friends. The doctor who "worked" with this child while he was locked away, believing him capable of terrible things, races to find and stop the killer before it's too late.
Why did Michael Myers kill his sister? Why is he going after Laurie Strode and her friends? Why Halloween night? Why is he seemingly unstoppable in the end? We never got the answers to those questions, and it didn't matter. One of the main reasons the original Halloween was so effective was because it tapped into our primal fears; among them, the "fear of the unknown". The thought that you never know who might be watching you or why. The fact you might not like what you find when you open your bedroom door at night. The idea that someone you know or love -- a friend, a sibling, your child -- might just SNAP and do terrible things.
It didn't matter who was under the mask. Michael Myers wasn't a man. He was a shape, the living embodiment of the evil that lurks in the hearts of men. To quote Dr. Loomis directly:
"I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil. "
The original Halloween is built upon that principle, but it also succeeded because of the suspense and overwhelming sense of dread that hung over the entire film from start to finish. There's actually hardly any violence or gore shown in the film. Like Psycho that came before it, the build-up to the kills and all the things we DIDN'T see are what made it scary for audiences.
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Rob Zombie failed to understand this, and he simply wasn't the right man for the job to begin with. Instead of going back to that simple premise, he took the original premise and instead made things over-complicated and incredibly generic. Instead of creating atmosphere and suspense and terror, he tried explain-away the mystique of Michael Myers. He tried to do things differently, but also stick to the general premise, which ultimately was taking the easy way out.
His remake is essentially two separate stories crammed into one film. Michael Myers was given the most generic, serial killer "origin" story possible. Mom was a stripper, struggling to make ends meat. Check! Older sister was a *****y ****e. Check! Stripper mom had a *****ebag, abusive boyfriend. Check! Older kids bullied Michael at school. Check! Started killing animals before humans. Check! Demonstrated clear obsession with wearing masks. Double check!
These are things we never needed to see, and they didn't serve to make the second half of the film more effective or powerful in anyway. Also, making Michael's mask dirty and turning him into a giant did NOT equate to him being more scary in any way. It's another example of how Zombie completely misinterpreted the original material, and shows why his style of filmmaking was wrong for a Halloween remake. And further steering away from the original, simple premise, he decided to give heavy focus on the Michael and Laurie brother/sister connection -- a concept that was introduced in the original Halloween 2. it was never even hinted at in the original film and didn't necessarily need to be a part of the remake.
By the time the boring "origin" story is over with and the film shifts into full "remake" mode, it breezes by so fast and quickly tries to hit all of the iconic moments from the original, even lifting the same dialogue in certain places. So for all of the "different" things Zombie tried to do, it seems Zombie was at a total loss for how to tell the Halloween story in a unique way, aside from giving it a trailer-trash element and making everything more dirty, vulgar, and violent. His idea of how to delivery a scary ending was to have 10 never-ending minutes of Extreme Home Makeover: Michael Myers Edition.
So yeah, like I said, Zombie H2 was better and more interesting overall because it was really just his own thing. Not a good "Halloween" movie (like I originally said), but a relatively entertaining and unique slasher flick. He really should have just made that his own movie and not used Halloween characters for it at all. It only served to further taint the name of the franchise.
