In 2009, Rob Zombie is the only gorenographic director I had not give a chance to. I was originally psyched about him getting behind the camera because of his animation and outspoken love for the horror genre. Hearing about his battle with the MPAA over his debut "House of a 1,0000 Corpses" also fueled this interest, but with the time between the rumors and release being lo long, I thought the film's delays were based around it not being any good.
Everything that I have seen from H1K only seemed to be disturbing, not necessarily gory. I thought it just seemed sloppy. Yes, that may be due to not watching the film from its beginning. Regardless, I was not inspired to see the sequel "The Devil's Rejects". If I was not going to see the film that was the basis for "Rejects", it would not be fair to myself to be lost in that tale.
Needless to say, I did not want to initially see him take on "John Carpenter's Halloween", an undisputed classic. Fortunately, it seemed like he took the right approach by giving Michael Myers a back story that most of my friends praised, but this did not reduce my skepticism.
It was going to take more to entice me to see a Rob Zombie flick. Unfortunately, the plot discoveries from the sequel and knowing Zombie did not want to initially direct a sequel to his vision, I spent my nine dollars on another 3-D horror flick that October. To bring order back to the cinema, I have to want to see Zombie's "Halloween" sequel. To do that, I will have to approve the original remake.
18 years after Michael Myers killed his mother's drunk boyfriend, his older sister and her boyfriend, and a school bully, he has broken out of the Smithgrave Asylum to reclaim the family that he spared. Whatever his intention, he will reunite with his little sister, and death may come to anyone standing in his way.
Rob Zombie should be commended for making Myers an actual character. The original Myers was a badass because he was just mysterious and evil. Once Jason Vorhees came along with a better gimmick, Myers was just a killer with a mask. There were more "Friday the 13ths" and the "Halloween" franchise could not catch up.
Now we understand this masked killer and his motivation. If he did not kill a cat early on in the feature, I would say he was sympathetic. Yes, he is a psychopath, but as the film states, it is because he does not know the right way to act. His realization of it makes him the most realistic psycho to date.
Tyler Mane (Sabretooth from 2000's "X-Men") was cast perfectly as Myers, and he was able to show, despite the limitations of the mask, that Myers remains human. Scout Taylor-Compton is no Jamie Lee Curtis, and Malcolm McDowell may have been trying too hard, but the rest of the cast does a great job. I would like to add that I do not know why people complain about Zombie casting his wife in his films. She does a great job in a role that is not psychotic. So I would assume she does a good job as a psycho in Zombie's cult classics.
Good acting and a strong, unique script means only one thing can make a perspective viewer hesitant. That is Zombie's ability to direct.
I cannot say that Rob Zombie did a bad job, but "Halloween" leaves me with the impression that he has no concept of what terror is. He concentrates so much on showing the audience everything, the viewer is never caught off guard. This makes "Halloween" feel long, and that is on top of being shy of two hours. In a sense, we are just watching a table read. Nothing makes us react, so when he is out of twists in the script, it is just Michael Myers without John Carprenter.
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