Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween is a very different beast to John Carpenter's masterful original. The 1978 film not only shook up the horror genre, the representation of women in film and the potential of low-budget filmmaking, but it's also a finely crafted exercise in fear and entertainment. Zombie's take on the film shows a great love for the source material and horror in general, but is neither frightening nor entertaining. Zombie is a talented filmmaker, proving his potential with previous efforts House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. What he also proved with those films is his love of stylized, violent, potty-mouthed red necks, which ineffectively transfers to his vision of Halloween.
Zombie's Halloween is part-origin story, part-straight remake. We learn much of young Michael Myers' troubled childhood, full of unsavoury characters, which leads to his committing acts of violence and eventually the murder of his step-father, sister, her boyfriend and a school bully. He is incarcerated and placed under the care of Dr. Loomis, who, despite his best efforts, can do nothing for Michael. Years later the adult Michael escapes and returns to his hometown of Haddonfield, and begins to stalk Laurie Strode and her friends. Zombie spends a good hour or so on Michael's back story, something completely absent from the original film, barring the memorable opening scene where we witness the child Michael kill his sister. Once that hour is done, he simply retreads the original film with his characters, killing a lot more people on his way, and changing the ending somewhat.
The problem with providing back story for a character like Michael Myers is that all mystery about the character is gone. In Carpenter's film, we don't know why he's killing anyone and only very briefly catch a glimpse of his adult face. This is what makes Michael Myers so inherently frightening - he is unknowable, from the mask that obscures his face to the complete lack of back story. Sadly in Zombie's version, the horrible childhood he's inserted into Michael's past doesn't excuse any of his actions or evoke that much sympathy for the adult Myers, but it does remove any sense of enigma about the fully-grown Michael. Rather than being frightening, he's simply repulsive.
Repulsive is a word that can easily be applied to the characters from Michael's childhood. They're all so incessantly foul-mouthed and obscene, you start to wonder just why you're spending any time listening to them at all. Even when we're introduced to the girls, they don't hold the same charm as the girls of the original, particularly in the case of Scout Taylor-Compton, taking on the role of heroine Laurie. Jamie Lee Curtis played Laurie in the original, and made her an iconic character - Taylor-Compton does nothing new or exciting with the her.
Zombie casts a whole host of familiar horror faces in minor (and major) roles - Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Bill Moseley, Danny Trejo, Udo Kier...and the list goes on. His love for horror is evident, but so is his unwavering desire to turn Halloween into a film in his own style - the film was very much marketed as Rob Zombie's Halloween. There are glimmers of Zombie's talent on display - some of the adult Myers sequences are effective enough, but Halloween goes to show that Zombie might do best sticking to his own material, rather than appropriating classics.
In August, Halloween 2 will be released. The film is an original sequel, rather than a remake of the sequel to the original (whew, confused? I am!), and maybe it'll prove a better film. Either way, it'll still be Zombie pulling Michael Myers' strings, and if the countless sequels to the original and the remake prove anything, it's that only one man can do it effectively, and that's John Carpenter.