Halloween (2007)

No, to go on and on about something without just a simple end to it is a waste of my time


Right on Escape!!!

Hold on a minute here. Maestro? LOL. Really? Are you telling me you've never seen a slasher flick that came out before Halloween? What like they didn't excist or something? I'm not entirely in disagreement with you here I grew up watching this flick and The Friday movies too. But honestly this word classic gets thrown around a lot and it doesn't merit that kind of praise IMO.

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We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

Black Christmas was the first teenage horror flick wasnt it? Halloween to me was always considered a Classic anyways.

Was going to say Black Christmas was the only one pre-Halloween, obviously not including the likes of Psycho. I think it definitely deserves the 'classic' title for not only being the start or major influence of the teen slasher, setting the generic codes and conventions. That's not to mention it is an extremely well made film imo, from the eerie and perfectly fitting score to the creation of the The Shape- was that bit where we think he's dead and slowly rises in the background not rather scary?

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That was pretty sweet wasn't it Pyro. I remember a 'Making Of' documentary, where they actually test screened it in front of an audience without the score and it failed miserably. Well I mean any movie pretty much would. But with this one, they would observe the audience's covering there eyes and awaiting something terrible to happen and all because of the score.

I'm not sure if that was the dude in the actual Shape outfit who decided to go on his own and try that out or if it was at the director's direction. I do know it was the Shape who did the moving the head back and forth on his own while staring at his latest victim being the guy he stabbed to the wall while trying to get a late night snack there.

There's so many aspects that make it classic, even just as a classic within the genre. Criticise Carpenter but he did make it more than a factory line clone.

You know, I'm not sure that I necessarily disagree with you. There are definitely some some serious points to be made that there is some classic material there. I mean who doesn't know that song even if you've never seen the film right? I'm also not interested in taking shots at Carpenter. I grew up watching his bad movies (rather enjoy a good many of them too) and will continue to watch them. Really my intention in my earlier statement was this, while some of you may think this is "A Classic" that no one has the right to re-make ,re-package, re-produce, re-translate, re-whatever... I say it depends on who is re-making the movie and since I'm in the bag for Rob Zombie I'm pretty certain that I'm going to enjoy his version of the movie. This is made easier for me because I don't have this movie up on a pedestal that no one can touch. Blasphemer! I know but I'm sorry this just isn't a great film and IMO, never will be. So knock yourself out Rob and do me proud.

That song was so embedded in me as a kid, that as soon as I was close to a piano, I'd start trying to play it. Even though I couldn't play the piano, it wasn't hard to figure out. A simple yet chilling score.

Ok, I just got back from seeing this and for some reason lately, I'm actually getting sick of seeing allot of blood in movies. I used to be able to tolerate it but now I get sickly.

The Original still kicks ass of course. I didn't really like the aspect of them showing any kind of love in Michael which it did with the little precious tiny baby 'Lori Strode'. That little darling looked so cute and innocent heheh. I can't stand to see little baby's get injured EVER in movies though. I don't think I know any movies that......well the omen showed the little baby bones in the grave but that's different I suppose.



I did like a bigger Michael though. Looks more intimidating like the TCM remake dude.

Baby's in danger- see Hills Have Eyes remake. Or not.

I think part of what Zombie attempted was to make Myers a character that could inhabit our world, not like the lurking, supernatural original, hence the lengthy attempt at justifying his actions, which is one of the reasons the film didn't work when Zombie went to copying the original, it often included some of the more supernatural elements of the Myers character which contradicted the Zombie's own logic to an extent. I need to see the theatrical ending but in the workprint, he was never out to hurt Laurie i think.

How did you find the blatant copying? When it moved to the second part and Tommy asked Laurie about the Mexican Wolfman, i thought it was a nice tongue in cheek nod back to the boogeyman speil of the original, of course it was just the start of the many apings.

Sh*t you're right Pyro. I did see that and it just resurfaced in my brain. Didn't care for it at all.

Yes, I agree. One thing popped in my head was when Donald Pleasence said that line about seeing nothing but blackness and pure evil in his eyes when he was doing that seminar. I even wondered earlier if he'd say that line because there was no pure evil as a boy. He was talking and crying so yep, like you said, that right there didn't work.

Honestly, I enjoyed the copying. Brought me back to the good times there heheh. I liked that little 'totally' line that chick said too though she only said it once I think.

I enjoyed the scene extension after the falling out of the window routine near the end there though that wasn't an exact copy by any means.

And the sheriff's daughter, played scared the best out of them all. Just the way she was covered in blood there and those blood curdling screams actually made my heart go out for her and want to drag her the hell outta there heheh.

Well she has had plenty of practice already playing Michaels main victim in Halloween 4 and 5.

Still haven't seen this but going as soon as possible, don't like to turn down the chance to see Michael do what he does best

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"A good film is when the price of the dinner, the theater admission and the babysitter were worth it."
- Alfred Hitchcock

Omg I had a feeling that was her. I just had major doubts cause she still looks 16 and not 30. I was meaning to look that character up on the net actually. It was bugging me yesterday throughout the film. But yeah, damn she was good. Surprised by her nudity though. One reason I seemed to doubt along with the look of her age. Didn't think she'd go for that.

Ok back to this quote and the original for a second.

Dr. Sam Loomis: I met him, fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blind, 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 for I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... EVIL!

Here is one thing that always bothered me about the original. Little Michael after his first kill always had that 'oops, I'm in deep sh*t now' look on his face that really annoyed me that I wanted changed.



Now if we go by that quote of Dr. Loomis above, his face should have had a more menacing look on it. Not a scaredy cat look. Something more on the lines of this.

As a matter of fact, I'm so bent on wanting it my way, I'm ingraining that menacing picture, into my 25th Halloween Anniversary DVD. Sort of giving it, its own needed upgrade.

Anyone want any, I'll be selling them for 30 bucks a pop.

Lol.

I do quite want to see it properly, a pirate isn't the best way since dark scenes are way too hard to see all the blood and of course the alternate cut but it's not even got a feckin release date for UK. I mean W-T-F?

Just saw this last night and while it didn't blow me away it was definitely a good time especially since I'm a big fan of Halloween and this was the first one I got to see in theaters. Thought the back story parts were interesting but the film felt pretty uneven to me. The stuff with him as a child and in smith's grove was very slow moving and had potential to really get a feeling of who Michael was as a kid and create some sort of sympathy for him, even though I kind of prefer him being a shapeless killer.

Then when he gets to Haddonfield it seemed more like a Friday the 13th sequel than a Halloween movie. Michael was inexplicably unstoppable and huge killing absolutely every one with no reason for it.

In the original he set his eyes out for 3 girls and stalked them until he closed in for the perfect kill. In the new one Laurie and her friends are barley introduced before they are senselessly and very violently killed for no reason other than they died in the original.

If Michael only wanted to find his sister why go into Lindsey Wallace's house and stand there look at her then leave, seems very pointless and why kill the Strodes as well.

All in all Rob Zombie really made the beginning his own and it was actually really interesting but when it comes to copying Carpenter's original scenes he fails and replaces the suspense and mystery with a Shaky cam and tons of blood.

And seeing Michael throw down his knife and do a football tackle was just something we shouldn't see Michael Myers do in a film.

I felt that he killed the Strodes because they were trying to be his baby sister's parents and he hated it. So he killed them.

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"...I'll see you in hell!..."

I thought that overall the film was very watchable and there were parts of it that I really enjoyed (particularly in the first half).

What bugs me about it is what I'm going to call the Zombie effect. The Zombie effect is present in nearly every piece of Rob Zombie's work. What I'm referring to is Zombie's seemingly ingrained persistence in pushing what he percieves to be 'the envelope'. For example, if Zombie thinks the "F" word is a hot button he won't push it once or twice to get a reaction. No, Zombie will push it 50,000 times in succession in mind numbing repetition to drill in the point that he wants you to get and that point is that he wants to be perceived as edgy in whatever he does.

In the Halloween remake Michael couldn't just be from a troubled family. Michael had to be from the worst dysfunctional situation nearly ever seen and that was never even hinted at in the original storyline. It would be an odd enough situation to see a family drop the "F" bomb around the breakfast table in today's society, but in a Zombie movie people actually converse with the word as noun and verb. To me it seemed every character was playing to the extreme (except young Daeg who was fantastic) and written as such in the script. The story as written is almost translatable directly to the comic book form, which is fine, but not in a case where we were promised something much better than that.

Personally I really liked the original storyline where Michael came from 'normality', or from what we call normal. It's much more frightening to me to think of evil breeding in pleasant surroundings versus a story giving a 'reason' and almost an excuse for it to happen. I think the most chilling scene in any Halloween movie is in the original where Michael is standing, mask off, dripping knife, vacant expression in front of the house with his horrified parents asking him what happened.

Final word on Zombie's remake; it was pretty good as modern horror flicks go. It could have been MUCH better with the wealth of available storyline, but Zombie chose to go style over substance which he nearly always does with the exception of several redeeming scenes in each movie.



As an aside on Zombie, I think he is obsessed with Charles Manson and the effect that The Family had on SoCal (and the world) in the early 1970's. The Devil's Rejects and House of 1000 Corpses are full of references to the Manson case and I believe Otis himself to be Zombie's interpretation of Tex Watson. He even utters Watson's famous phrase "I am the Devil and I'm here to do the Devil's work". I think Zombie has crafted himself in both action and physical appearance (look at the cover of Hellbilly Deluxe if you don't believe me and you'll see something that is Zombie meant to look like Manson, complete with X on the forehead) to be a sort of Manson evil ringleader (if you believe that's what he was). His ploys aren't nearly complex enough to pull it off to those who pay attention, but it seems to be working for him in that he's raking in the dough.