Halloween Franchise (1978-?)

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oldsheperd
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#76 Post by oldsheperd » Wed Sep 12, 2007 12:20 pm

Can't do this. Michael Myers looks like Kane when he still had his mask and long hair. Did he wrestle the Undertaker in the movie?

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s.j. bagley
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#77 Post by s.j. bagley » Wed Oct 10, 2007 9:06 am

it would seem my best option, then, would be to pick up the new release and then hunt down an inexpensive copy of the two disc edition for the commentary.

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colinr0380
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#78 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:46 pm

Again I find myself in the middle of this - as a big fan of the original I find everything about the remake redundant and feel that the 'humanising' misses the point of the original film somewhat. On the other hand this doesn't feel like it destroyed a classic - I liked the 'spot a horror film celebrity' game and even thought the teen characters in the second half were surprisingly sympathetic, even though (or maybe because) we didn't spend as much time with them as in the original.

My big problem with the remake is the obsession with making Michael Myers sympathetic by finding understandable reasons for him to have killed everyone up to Danny Trejo's guard (the animals excepted). From the white trash family (though I would say that while they are all stereotypically sketched to be as unappealing as possible they still don't reach the absurd caricatures of the family in Million Dollar Baby!) to the snidey nurse it seems that Myer's actions are being mitigated. For what end? To suggest that he was a troubled kid driven bad in a 'perfect storm of circumstances' or to suggest that liberal types are always trying to find the good in the irredeemably evil as we witness Loomis's change from Myers being his 'best friend' (while exploiting the case for his own ends) to agreeing that he is 'Satan incarnate'? It raises all these 'nature or nuture?', 'environment or genetics?' questions that the film doesn't really want to deal with in any meaningful way.

We also need to factor in the filming style in which the tiniest details of Michael's environment are dwelt upon while the wider world is mostly out of focus suggesting a lack of empathy, something which privileges Michael's view of the world and makes this much more his film (one area with which I've never had a problem is Michael Myers's indestructibility. I read somewhere that someone who may not properly feel physical pain personally may similarly not be that sensitive to recognising that in others - they may hurt people because they don't properly understand the meaning of pain. I'm not sure it applies to the remake too much but I'd like to think it factors into the original where Myers has a lack of empathy for others and also a similar lack of reaction to being stabbed or shot himself).

I just feel that the remake unnecessarily complicates what was a beautifully simple original. As much as I liked seeing Udo Keir, Dee Wallace, Brad Dourif et al, the fact that I was glad to see the actors might suggest I wasn't particularly engaged with the film itself. I did think the timeline of events from the original was satisfyingly jumbled up to keep viewers on their toes, but was quite shocked at the sadistic killing of Laurie's step parents (an interesting twist but I would have much preferred if they had not done this) which seemed to be a gory trade off for keeping one of Laurie's friends alive.

I missed very much the continuity of the events of that night taking place in just two houses situated opposite each other. The original features the Myers house as the site for the insight of Pleasance's Loomis into Myer's mind and Laurie Strode's house as the safe place from which she ventures to babysit, then the action starts as night falls in the babysitting houses. To violate the Strode house and to have to tie everything up with a big climax back at the dilapidated Myers house seems to also violate the beautiful structure of the original film, to make it much cruder in structure as of course Myers has to meet his end in a historically significant location.

And I also miss the pan over significant but now empty environments that have been tainted by the preceeding action from the original film.

So not hugely impressed with the remake, and I feel it was handicapped by having to work in the whole sister subplot into the concept of the original film, but I suppose it could have been much worse and done much more damage to the classic film than it did. It is certainly better than many of the sequels!

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Mr Sausage
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#79 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:52 pm

colin wrote:and feel that the 'humanising' misses the point of the original film somewhat.
Point missing that began whenever the unfortunate sequels chose to illuminate Myers' eyes behind his mask.

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colinr0380
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#80 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:00 pm

Mr_sausage wrote:
colin wrote:and feel that the 'humanising' misses the point of the original film somewhat.
Point missing that began whenever the unfortunate sequels chose to illuminate Myers' eyes behind his mask.
True, and when they gave him motivation through having a sister he wants to....what exactly does he want to do with her in the sequels and the remake? Or would it be better not to ask?

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Mr Sausage
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#81 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:23 pm

colinr0380 wrote:
Mr_sausage wrote:
colin wrote:and feel that the 'humanising' misses the point of the original film somewhat.
Point missing that began whenever the unfortunate sequels chose to illuminate Myers' eyes behind his mask.
True, and when they gave him motivation through having a sister he wants to....what exactly does he want to do with her in the sequels and the remake? Or would it be better not to ask?
A blank, empty, unfeeling, uncomprehending person who somehow decides to commit himself to making sure you do not live is a far more terrifying proposition than a damaged human being acting out against the circumstances of his oppression. The problem with humanizing Myers is it makes it seem like he can be approached on a human level. Similarly, if you can understand a thing, there is the corollary that you can fix that thing when it malfunctions.

I love your bit about the lack of proper pain sensation = lack of empathy (tho' I think what you read talked about people who cannot feel pain, or indeed any physical sensation, pleasure included, in a normal way and so are absent from the human world, rather than those whose pain or damage receptors do not function at all, since the latter as far as I know do not lack empathy or the ability to function properly in social/interpersonal contexts). Your observation raises the idea that Myers does not function on any understandable human level, down to basic physical feeling (re: after he's stabbed Paul off the ground and stands there tilting his head back and forth in detached observation). He just does not understand, rather in the way you would expect a malignant animal not to understand. So it's appropriate he's credited in the movie as The Shape, since he functions rather like an empty box into which all your fears can be placed.

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#82 Post by colinr0380 » Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:41 am

After thinking about my question about the sister I get the impression in the remake that abandonment causes him to try and find the only person who will not reject him. The suicide of his mother is an early abandonment but combined with the recent decision of Loomis to stop visiting and Danny Trejo's guard about to retire and leave him in the charge of the newer, vicious guard is likely the catalyst for Michael's rampage in the remake.

It is an interesting development but I agree with Mr Sausage that the blankness is the most disturbing aspect of the original. I don't really mind the unmasking which shows the human behind the shape, something which happens in the original film at the end of the child and adult Michael's rampages, but trying to give specific motivation immediately diminishes the story from the universality of the 'boogey man' to just one specific crazy killer.

I think one of the most powerful parts of Carpenter's film is that the unmasking, something that would normally 'explain' the killer (i.e. sort of like revealing the killer's identity in a murder mystery - "it was the butler all along!") just ends up revealing a normal looking stranger whose expression is just as blank as their mask - we are left to read whatever we want into their face and get little more insight into his psychology or motivation than we had when the mask was still on while still getting the message that this is a human being and not just a supernatural force, as tempting as it may be to consider him as such and to mythologise and demonise his crimes.

However Carpenter's film also allows Loomis's view of Myers (and Tommy's) to be validated to some extent as the killer seems supernaturally powerful and disappears into legend.

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Morbii
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#83 Post by Morbii » Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:03 am

Well said - though, I would argue that Zombie's Myers was in the realm of the supernatural as well based on the damage he took without succumbing to death.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#84 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:32 am

I always felt that this project was doomed from the start. How do you improve on the original. You can't. But I think that Zombie realized that they were going to film this remake with or without him and if he did it, at least it would be by someone who truly loved and appreciated the original instead of some hack. Say what you will about the content, but it doesn't look like the other crappy Halloween sequels. It looks like one of Zombie's films.

The best part of the film, for me, is the casting of Daeg Faerch as the young Michael Myers. He's fantastic and very convincing as the disturbed killer-in-training. It’s all in the eyes which look dead and only get worse as he gets older until nothing good is left. It’s a very impressive performance, I thought.

In this film, we get to hear Michael talk in these fascinating scenes with his mother and with Loomis that humanize him and also show his gradual de-humanization. They are simple, yet effective scenes with two people talking and are a nice breather from all of the carnage.

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Rob Zombie's Halloween: 3-Disc Collector's Edition

#85 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:38 am

The Unrated Director's Cut was just fine but this one does have what looks to be an exhaustive Making Of doc a la The Devil's Rejects DVD.

Artwork & Specs:
Genius Products has provided us with final artwork for a 3-disc collector's edition of Halloween which stars Malcolm McDowell and Brad Dourif. The Rob Zombie directed film will be available to own from the 7th October, and should retail at around $24.95. As well as the directors cut of the film, the 3-disc release will also include a 4 and a half hour documentary, a commentary by Rob Zombie, 17 deleted scenes, an alternate ending, bloopers, featurettes (The Many Masks of Michael Myers, Re-Imagining HALLOWEEN, Meet the Cast), and more.

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#86 Post by CSM126 » Tue Aug 05, 2008 9:48 am

"Well, in this scene, we decided to totally fuck up everything John Carpenter got right..."

Four and a half hours of Rob Zombie saying that.

Also, did a dotcom member design that cover?

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#87 Post by CSM126 » Tue Aug 05, 2008 10:02 am

I'm mystified by the idea that anyone could like, let alone love, such a wretched film as this. It's like forty minutes of Malcolm McDowell's Toupee interviewing the damn kid (with those wonderfully pretentious "impressionistic" 16mm B&W inserts from Loomis' work-in-progress documentary), followed by John Carpenter's Halloween as watched on fast forward and occasionally hitting the chapter skip button because it isn't fast enough for you. Boredom followed by confusion leads to me, at least, giving the fuck up.

When you make a horror movie...don't make the evil murderer seem all sad and sympathetic and the victim annoying. Why the hell should I root for Laurie to get away when all I know of her is that she makes repulsive molestation jokes to her mother and performs Myspace role playing games (IE, endless pointless chatting) with her friends, while meanwhile the killer is this guy I feel bad for? If anything I wanted him to win so she'd be shut up and he'd finally vent that anger of his.

And really, that finale. Tiny little Laurie can survive beatings and falling straight down a full story and all that, but Michael, the unstoppable monster, tackles her off the balcony and he's done for, while she's alive and kicking and plugging a bullet into his head. Now, I can understand dropping the whole "supernatural" angle from Michael (I do believe he was invincible in the original series, right? Like Halloween 6 I think explained he was cursed to live until his sister died), but really...His first significant damage of the movie and he's gone. I laughed.

It's like this movie's whole purpose was to make Michael Myers a bitch.

"JESUS CHRIST!" indeed, Dr. Loomis.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#88 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:23 pm

CSM126 wrote:"Well, in this scene, we decided to totally fuck up everything John Carpenter got right..."

Four and a half hours of Rob Zombie saying that.

Also, did a dotcom member design that cover?
Wow, you really have a hate-on for this film.

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#89 Post by Cinephrenic » Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:37 pm

The DVD is already 3-discs too many.

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#90 Post by CSM126 » Wed Aug 06, 2008 1:59 am

Fletch F. Fletch wrote:Wow, you really have a hate-on for this film.
Most rational people have an intense dislike for shit.

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#91 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Wed Aug 06, 2008 9:33 am

CSM126 wrote:Most rational people have an intense dislike for shit.
Yeah, I'm funny that way.

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Re: Halloween (Rob Zombie, 2007)

#92 Post by John Cope » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:01 pm

God knows I didn't want to start a whole new thread on this, but here's Zombie talking about his sequel and reflecting on his "original".

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Re: Halloween (Rob Zombie, 2007)

#93 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Mar 18, 2009 6:09 pm

It is always best to reserve judgement until you see the film but I would actually agree with many of Mr Zombie's (is that the correct form of address?) points - the major flaw of the remake was a sense of redundancy. Why exactly is this being made now? (This might actually feed in to the debate Mr Sausage has just been having on the Watchmen thread about films not having to be about their times. I would agree on that with reservations - if you focus too much on the social and political subtext of something like Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Carpenter's Halloween or Craven's Hills Have Eyes or Last House On The Left, to name but four, they do seem ridiculously overblown. But the times in which they were made did have an effect and fed in to some extent to their success. All films take ideas from and feed into the zeigtgeist to some extent, and the big successes even influence it. However you only need to look at the recent spate of remakes that have been assiduously stripped clean of any social or political comment and have their gore level proportionately ramped up to compensate, and the sense of emptiness that they leave behind them to see the importance of a film having some sort of relevance to its times.)

So to get back to Halloween, the big problem with the remake was simply "Why?" - why revisit the story now (for anything more than the money)? why feel the need to do an origin story? why feel the need to add in the sister subplot from the second Halloween? The film could have been well made (and it looks more interesting if you compare it to Zombie's other films than with the Carpenter original), but it could never really overcome these fundamental questions.

But now that he has retrodden old ground and 'rebooted' the series he can move into different territory. It is not as if Halloween was a perfect franchise before Zombie came along, so it is not as if it is the film that will ruin the series (remaking the classic first film on the other hand was a different situation), and maybe Zombie could find new blood in his version of the story. I'm not confident that there is much left to mine from the story but at the same time not as concerned as I was with the initial remake.

The comment that Zombie does not like the idea of the killer being supernatural is a little worrying in that respect as it seems like he may not have grasped that this state of affairs is just a development of a long running series and filmmakers looking around desperately for ways to keep their franchise going - that was the case with Jason in the Friday The 13ths, or the introduction of the cult in the Halloween sequels. Even Bond becomes impervious to bullets after the seventh or eighth film! So it does not seem that Zombie has grasped the idea that you always start out with the best of intentions that you are not going to get involved with supernatural crap, yet by the fourth film you are throwing in back stories, long lost relatives, yet more expendable teens with tired back stories, blood cults predicated around serial killers and ghostly shenanigans in desperate attempts to keep the audience coming back and the plot to continue!

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Halloween Franchise (1978-?)

#94 Post by scalesojustice » Tue Apr 28, 2009 4:32 pm

I was a fan of the first Rob Zombie remake as a companion piece to the original film. (Really i was just sitting in anticipation to see if Zombie would mention the Red Rabbit Lounge and Ben Traimer). Not sure if he can capture my interest twice remaking a sub-par sequel.

Trailer

However, i am interested in how he seems to be moving away from the iconic Myers' mask, presumably to continue making Mikey more of a human character rather than the embodiment of evil.

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Re: Halloween 2 (H2) (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#95 Post by Barmy » Tue Apr 28, 2009 5:10 pm

Nice to see Sheri Moon Zombie getting an opportunity to showcase her talents. :shock:

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Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#96 Post by paranoid-knight2008 » Sun May 02, 2010 10:52 pm

For anybody that loves the horror genre and wants to see originality in their slasher films, look no further than this film. Here's my review on what I feel is the most underrated film of 2009. (With images from the film in hopes of stimulating your hunger for some gritty eye candy. Lol.)

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Rob Zombie is an auteur, whether you like to admit it or not. When it comes to mainstream horror filmmaking, no other director this decade has managed to create a group of horror pictures so stylistically different as Zombie has in such a short timespan. His directorial debut, House of 1,000 Corpses is like a carnival freakshow rotting under a colorful assortment of bubble gum imagery. His second film, The Devil's Rejects, manages to be a full-blown neo-grindhouse flick in ways Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino only dreamed of accomplishing and a completely exhilarating and surprisingly moving meditation of violent human nature. Zombie's third film just so happened to be a remake of the 1978 classic Halloween; however the film wasn't as much a remake as a re-imagining. Somehow with that film, Zombie managed to skid a thin line of being one of the dumbest films of its year, but also one with a few brilliant moments. From a stylistic approach, the film felt uneasy, as if Zombie was trapped inside a box, trying his best to break free and take over and feed what he wants to personally provide for us. Now comes his sequel to that film called, unsurprisingly, Halloween II; not a remake of the 1981 film, but Zombie himself taking complete control over his own demented version of the Myers story – delivering his deranged breed of filmmaking in all of it's beastly, compelling glory. This is Rob Zombie out of the box, and showing us what he's made of.

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One year after Michael Myers wrecked massive bloodshed on the sleepy town of Haddonfield, his sister Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) approaches the following Halloween in fear of his return. The girl now lives with her friend Annie (Danielle Harris), who also survived the massacre, and Annie's father Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif), who also become weary of the serial killer's possible return. Throughout the film, Zombie takes complete control of the character Laurie, creating a very believable girl who now suffers from a devestating amount of traumatic depression. This is something many horror sequels from the past fail to touch upon, but here – Zombie approaches it because he knows that this is a reality for anyone. Who wouldn't change for the worst after spending a whole night running from a sadistic killer who slaughtered your foster parents and friends? And with this character arc, and similar albeit personal ones given to the Brackett characters, Halloween II gains a poignancy that you normally wouldn't expect. Zombie actually establishes these characters as human, therefore we naturally worry for their safety when Michael Myers does make his way back to repeat his acts of ferocious carnage.

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Halloween II touches on the character of Laurie far more than the first film, as she was presented as a one-dimensional bore there. When Laurie tried to escape from Michael Myers in 2007's Halloween, we never respond to her cries for help because the screenplay drew attention to the fact that she was nothing more than a paper-thin, generic horror movie heroine. Here, however, Laurie is the absolute main focus, her life so messed up and off-balance that you just want to lend a hand and help her, even though she'd probably still just push you away. There is a scene in which Laurie breaks down in her car that is a testament to how much of a well-developed character she has become, and Taylor-Compton's performance only helps bring out Laurie's deteriorating grip on humanity. Those who connect to human drama will undoubtedly love this film more than those looking for the typical Michael Myers fodder. This is a surprisingly deep picture.

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But don't think Laurie is the only focus of the story, of course the iconic ghost-faced killer is too. But instead of creating him as a hellbent psychopath, Zombie pulls through to some inner-mind sequences of such hypnotic and orgasmic imagery that bleeds with an eerie atmosphere of dread. Instead of just following Myers through his killing spree, we are treated to the workings of his mind, further giving an understanding to his animalistic urges to slaughter. Does he become sympathetic? No, and he's not supposed to be. Instead we are peering completely into an allegorical mindset that works metaphorically for where the film ultimately ends up in its devestating and disturbing final minutes.

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There is no doubt Halloween II received terrible reviews. This is that kind of film that is so ambitious, yet so sensational that the picture was literally doomed to experience immense words of hatred. This hate could sprout from the way Zombie completely makes the film one that easily stands alone in the Halloween series itself, or just the biased hate from fans who don't want to see the original John Carpenter masterpiece touched. (In actuality, this pre-conceived loathing for Zombie's film is something I really fail to understand, seeing as Zombie's world in Halloween II is so different on a creative and psychological level that the original film really doesn't come off damaged.) Zombie's direction in the film is like a demented mad scientist piecing together his own crackling world with an immense amount of the idiosyncratic. But he does so without becoming obvious, or ham-fisted. With all the hate this film gets, I wouldn't be surprised if, with time, the film really does gain the respect of those who originally hated it. Take, for example, 1980's The Shining, a film now considered a masterpiece but a Razzie-nominated critical failure back when it was first released. The Shining was a victim of bias due to the way director Stanley Kubrick strayed far away from the source material (a well-loved Stephen King novel) and directed the story with a very stimulating and incredibly innovative alteration of the conventions familiar in the horror genre. This way of approach is what Halloween II works with in its own macabre way.

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I will probably get flack for this following statement, but will also be smiling in about ten years when Halloween II is treated with more appreciation. I am going to go as far as to say that, with this film, Rob Zombie has paved his way to coming a fresh face in the new brilliant line of stylish, rewarding cinema directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze, and Harmony Korine, who have all proven to completely own a film in the same way Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, Louis Malle, and Stanley Kubrick put a distinctive stamp on theirs. Likewise, Zombie treads his way toward greatness in a way John Cassavetes stormed the scene with his first film Shadows and slowly arrived at his senior effort, the brilliant and bold Faces (his greatest achievement). This seems to be the way Zombie's filmography has come off, coming in with an original bang with his freshman film and paving his way to his fourth film that shows his abilities at creating his own trashy world, showing us that he can in fact succeed at bringing forth something of such radical brilliance.

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And there's a twisted beauty to his craft. The way Zombie constructed The Devil's Rejects as a reflection of the good in the bad people, and the bad in the good, was a daring and honest example of Zombie's affection for his normally vile characters. The first hour of the film examines the violent Firefly clan as they torture, abuse, and murder a motel room full of innocents, while the last fifty minutes treats us to the twisted psyche of the supposed good guy who tortures, abuses, and tries to murder the Firefly clan himself based off of a personal vendetta. With this morality dissection of brutality existing in the pit of instinctive human behavior, Zombie manages to pull through with a powerful final scene which helps give meaning to the reason he uses the grindhouse atmosphere in the wake of a blood-soaked western. The classic story of good vs. evil often associated to the genre contrasts and connects, simultaneously, to the overall motif.

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Zombie uses this similar approach to Halloween II, only this time its not a call on the clichés of the western genre, but that of the avant garde (think David Lynch shredded through a grindhouse grinder) and of grunge pop culture. Look at the way Laurie reacts with such bitter resentment to her former all-American good girl image with that of a trashy head-banger after her experience. Some negative reviews have pointed out that Laurie is not believable at all in this presentation of an unclean goon, but that's only because Laurie herself is putting on the show to impress her own personal demons. What the pop culture references of the slimy, dirty side of the entertainment industry manages to do for this film is help focus in on Laurie's proclivity, almost in the same way Michael Myers' subconscious is filled with striking similar allusions to the pulpy, expressionistic nature of Laurie's own nightmares. One that immediately comes to mind is a sequence in which Laurie nervously waits in a security office for the guard to return, the music video of The Moody Blues' “Nights in White Satin” playing on the television. In a later scene, when Michael arrives at the nightclub his mom used to strip at when he was younger, the song plays menacingly in the background. It's obvious through this, and many other scenes, that Laurie and Michael are linked psychologically. It's not until the final scene that we realize that this link reaches farther within the cerebral than the viewer would ever expect.

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A lot of the film's cynics write-off the final scenes as anti-climatic and illogical, as well as being cliché. But on deeper thought, it's easily realized that the final moments remain introspectively consistent to the logic of Zombie's analysis on the muddled perceptions of the damaged, confused and weak mind. The way Zombie connects the subconscious mind to that of art immediately reminds me of the way 2000's underrated The Cell used subliminal paintings to concrete effect in expressing art's effect on human behavior. It also reminds me, to a lesser effect, the way Marco Bellocchio used Catholic beliefs and teachings in 1965's Fists in the Pocket to create the basis for its twisted main character's views on social hypocrisy and what leads him to murder his family. Sometimes, we forget how effective the works of an artist can have on our minds. Zombie isn't the first to examine this view (obviously) but he does it in a way nobody else has and does it with such a subtle grace under the icy surface of extreme and ugly nihilism. Thinking more about the way this film treads this line of the self-conscious in terms of its genre and its central message, it makes me realize how heavy-handed Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was in handing it's similar self-conscious elements concerning film's power to dominate all boundaries including life history itself. I now can't help but wish QT's effort would have somehow had a little something more to tell me, no matter how unapologetically fun and entertaining it was. Halloween II doesn't have a fun inch in it's body, which is another aspect that puts it far outside the boundaries of the slasher flick norm. The film tests audiences expectations to be entertained, and instead confronts them head-on with the harsh realities of its story. This may be the reason why so many walked out of theater in the middle of the film looking so uncomfortable, Zombie isn't making this a pleasant time at the movies.

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In the end, my final statement on Halloween II is that it, quite surprisingly, managed to pull through and become practically the first slasher sequel to make me feel rejuvenated and full of hope in a genre that finds itself in a repetitive cycle of dumb cash-in slashers. It also comes as a surprise that I myself will be placing this film on my ten best films of the year list; and seeing as the film is, in itself, a fairly original piece of work I don't mind doing this at all. I can hope, and really wish, that this film gets fairly treated in the future and recognized for its truly well-delivered merits. With the films Rob Zombie directs in the future, I wish the best that he sticks to his personal aesthetic and is treated with a lot more respect for doing so. He is a filmmaker, not a hack and the comparisons to Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich are literally laughable. I dare you to try and name another single director, or film for that matter, that is even remotely similar to the directorial workings of Rob Zombie's films – especially this film. Can't do it can you?

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Mr Sausage
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Re: Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#97 Post by Mr Sausage » Mon May 03, 2010 2:16 am

Rob Zombie sure does like backlighting.

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Morbii
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Re: Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#98 Post by Morbii » Mon May 03, 2010 3:24 am

I thought the first one was one of the worst films in the last decade (if not THE worst). I'm not going to waste my time with the sequel, sorry.

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Re: Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#99 Post by conspirator12 » Mon May 03, 2010 1:07 pm

Wonderful stills! I thought the extended dream at the beginning approached brilliance--the scene with the cop choking on his own blood has to be one of the most surreal, grotesque kills I've seen in a movie--but I wasn't a fan of H2 as a whole. It is worth watching for the visuals, though...

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Re: Halloween II (Rob Zombie, 2009)

#100 Post by Alphonse Doinel » Mon May 03, 2010 4:25 pm

Thanks for this post. It's very rare that you see anyone writing intelligent things about horror films. I'll probably get around to seeing this now. Can't say I enjoyed his remake much, but I did like his first two films. They were very welcome in a sea of remakes.

Comparing him to filmmakers like Kubrick and Cassavetes is going too far in my opinion though. I feel he has yet to escape the genre and make a film that has something interesting to say. I think he almost went there with The Devil's Rejects, but I felt like he was trying to be clever, rather than examine the horror genre and question his audience.

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