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Halloween (Frank's take)
01/10/2007 . Source: Frank Ochieng 
Writer-director Rob Zombie heavy-handedly revisits filmmaker John Carpenter's 1978 classic Halloween, finds Frank, with an audacious blood-spilling banality that pretty much is business as usual given the crude content of slash-and-splash expectancy. To Zombie's credit, he doesn't want to shape the legendary lunacy that made Carpenter's entry a celebrated creepfest. Instead, Zombie's version is actually an inspired albeit uneven take on his particular visionary landscape of senseless slaughter and bouncing breasts. Buy Halloween in the USA - or Buy Halloween in the UK  However, Zombie never really imaginatively elevates the morbid madness beyond the cringing clichés that usually befalls the convoluted confines of overwrought shock-driven cinema.
Zombie, the meat clever-loving mastermind behind 2003's House of 1,000 Corpses and 2005's depraved ditty The Devil's Rejects, spins a warped web of recollection that recalls Halloween's hellish anti-hero Michael Myers. The problem remains that Zombie struggles to say anything revealingly distinctive in terms of his justification for tapping into the turbulent territory that Carpenter explored with creepy curiosity almost three decades earlier. The film has its exploratory bouts with erratic elements of stylistic flair and familiarity.
One is definitely not spared the excess of Zombie's devilish penchant for empty-headed clumps of gore. Plus, arbitrarily serving up Michael Myers on a perverse platter for another rakish round seems tediously desperate. Overall, this severed slice of Halloween havoc doesn't quite make the furious and frightening frolic that looks to revive an outdated horror franchise.
In all fairness, Zombie aimlessly gives the targeted audience what they want which shouldn't be too hard given the demand for the numbing showcase that persists. The screen screams of blood buckets and victimized vixens but surprisingly the stagy antics lack any cynical spunk. The spirited tension-if you deem Zombie's efforts as such-roll on with all the urgent skill of an overactive eggbeater. For horror fans that cherish yesteryear's Halloween (all seven previous editions) they will probably admire Zombie's hunger for dicey decadence but otherwise expect nothing out of the ordinary behind Myers' menacing mask.
The film does elaborate on Michael Myers' beleaguered back-story starting with his chequered childhood then spiralling into the frantic foundation that saw our cinematic slasher graduate to the notorious murderer that would chronicle his troubled adolescence behind institutionalised walls. We get a disturbing glimpse of the young Myers (Daeg Faerch) as he's subjected to the gross neglect at home as well as at school. The personal suffering leads Myers to doing all sorts of bizarre rituals such as torturing animals. Of course the mask-wearing phase begins to rear its ugly head as our harried hacker descends into his monstrous mode.
Specifically on one horrifying Halloween, the miffed Michael Myers demonstrates a rage resulting in the nasty-minded execution of his slime ball stepfather (William Forsythe), his sister and her lover and a classmate. Psychiatrist Loomis (Malcolm MacDowell in the role made famous by Donald Pleasance) tries to invade the nefarious thoughts of a distraught Michael but to no progressive avail. Basically, the punishing punk cannot seem to remember his terrifying tendencies. In addition, he turns himself into a mesmerizing mute and never utters a word for the next seventeen years. He's a lumbering lost soul and as time passes the ticking time bomb Myers finally escapes the facility with revenge boiling in his blackened heart.
It's not long before Michael Myers is back to doing what he does best-putting the frenetic fear into the convenient prey that crosses his perverse path. Naturally, Myers heads back to the old stomping grounds to unload his generous angst on the unsuspecting saps that unknowingly await his twisted wrath. Among Myers' desired target is a bunch of amorous cheerleading tarts (most noticeably Scout Taylor-Compton filling the Jamie Lee Curtis vacancy). Still, the motif to Myers' mindless and maddening methods are set in stone-his carnage doesn't register unless that special time of year (yes, Halloween) serves as his macabre motivation.
The haunting high jinks of Halloween's jolting insanity may trigger some segments of guilty pleasure absurdity. The movie has its grand moments of energetic naughtiness. Nevertheless, Zombie's pacing plods intermittently and the intrigue to Michael Myers' sordid alienation becomes ruthlessly mechanical if not tiredly telegraphed based on the manufactured mayhem. The suspense chips away but the viewers are never really invested in the periled personalities that appear indistinguishable and/or indifferent.
The trademark ominous music plays obediently and we do look forward to Myers' hatchet job especially when shunning the bubble-headed babes that prance around like one-note curvaceous crumbs. Consequently, the onslaught of blood-soaked shenanigans wears thin and you start to wonder if the sensationalism behind Zombie's directorial demeanour is merely a follow-the-dots frightfest with an exaggerated twitching disorder.
The gimmicky casting can only sustain itself to a certain point. Look for Zombie's wife (Sheri Moon Zombie) as Myers' loose-in-the-caboose mother. Also, Sid Haig's obligatory cemetery caretaker and Bill Moseley's security guard are routinely front and centre. Forsythe is somewhat winning as the detestable substitute daddy for the distraught and demonic Myers. Taylor-Compton makes for suitable eye candy when being taunted by our beastly butcher but she fails to usurp Jamie Lee Curtis' mantle as the "queen of scream" in this latest chintzy chapter.
Halloween maybe Zombie's ambitious but staid wild turn as a freakish trick but as a treat...well, you'd get better chills and thrills by trying to stab a stale celery stick into a suggestive blow-up doll.
Frank Ochieng
© Frank Ochieng 2007
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