Halloween (2007) - 3.5/4

Filmmakers of any sophistication, when embarking upon a remake, must take firm hold of two major horns: Agon and Interest. Agon is competition, the struggle of one artist to assert his uniqueness from and superiority over other artists. Not only is the artist in competition with artists of his own generation, but also with the artists of previous generations. If he does no more than what they did, he is doomed to unoriginality. He must outstrip them. Any American horror filmmaker in the 2000s must be in an agonistic relationship with John Carpenter. Carpenter is one of the best horror film artists. Howard Hawks used to say one need make only a single great film to be a great director. Carptenter has made at two great horror films, Halloween and The Thing. Rob Zombie, one of the latest generation of horror filmmakers, has taken up agon in the most serious way possible: he's remade the greatest film of the Master, Halloween.

Taking the agonistic angle seriously is important for taking Zombie's Halloween seriously. Much discussion of the film has involved the alterations Zombie made to Carpenter's original vision. While I'm certain Zombie is respectful, even admiring, of Carpenter and his film, he's a serious artist and his relationship to the original Halloween will have to be one of rivalry. Rather than viewing the alterations Zombie made as blasphemous or an ignorant step down, it's worth seeing them in the context of a new artist asserting his own voice.

To illustrate my point, let's take an important scene from the film: Michael's first kill. Much of what is used and revealed late in Carpenter's film is given away in this early moment in Zombie's film. By 'later' and 'earlier' I don't mean merely in terms of narrative progression, but also the progression of Michael's existence. Carpenter saves most of what we see and know of Michael until he's an adult. Zombie deliberately transposes those behavioural traits to his child-Michael. Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) arrives in the principle's office to tell Michael's mom that he's a sociopath. While he's talking, Michael slips away to stalk and murder the bully who got him in trouble. While Michael slips away, the famous Halloween theme (composed by Carpenter) begins to play. The use of this music at that moment is very important. So is, moreover, the stalking of the bully, which deliberately quotes the stalking of Jamie Lee Curtis in the original film. There are a few points being made. One is that Michael's behavioural traits began young and, to some extent, chastising Carpenter for neglecting Michael's childhood. More strongly, however, we're being told that Carpenter's Michael is child's play compared to Zombie's Michael. Carpenter's Michael is totally expressed and used up in that childhood moment. Carpenter is out of the way and left behind: now let's see Halloween for grown-ups.

That message is compounded when, a little later, the boyfriend of Michael's sister wears the classic mask from Carpenter's Halloween and the teenage girl is not the slightest bit terrified. The old Michael Myers is no longer a sufficient force for terror. He has become juvenile. I doubt all of this is intended to be a disrespectful statement by Zombie; agon is, as I say, necessary in the artistic order. Zombie is asserting his vision against the Master. His is a unique authorial voice and it must be in competition with its most powerful influences.

These influences are not limited to John Carpenter's films. The sheer number of cameos from the horror and exploitation genres are indicative of an agonistic struggle with the whole of horror history. Multiple things can be true at once. If one asks, "Why is the water boiling?" the answers "Because I want tea," "Because I put it on the stove," and "Because the water has reached a temperature of over 100 degrees centigrade," can all be simultaneously correct. Similarly, claims that Zombie is adding cameos because he's a horror fan and because he wants to please horror fans are very likely true. But as a filmmaker and horror fan, he is in a position of knowing the history of horror cinema and wanting (no doubt) to be a unique presence within the genre. After all, how can one sincerely like a genre and not want to contribute something meaningful to it? His casting of cameos is in some sense his way of appropriating the horror tradition for his own voice.

So much for Agon. Interest is perhaps more important. As when a play is directed by two different directors, the look and weighting of sympathies may be entirely different, a remake naturally centers upon what interests the filmmaker. The original Halloween completely glosses over Michael's childhood and the relationship between Michael and Loomis. Zombie takes a very keen interest in both of these points and in doing so he brings out a lot of valid questions that are lurking in the back of Carpenter's Halloween. Despite opposition to questioning a masterpiece, some of the questions Zombie raises do suggest some flaws in the original Halloween. Or rather, one major flaw: depicting Michael as a supernatural evil, or 'soulless'.

For Zombie, Michael's depiction as pure evil is entirely attributable to Dr. Loomis. This is a point I had never considered in all the times I watched Halloween: that Dr. Loomis should be doubted. Why should we trust Dr. Loomis? He's a clinical psychiatrist who declares Michael the embodiment of evil and ultimately shoots him. Zombie's Halloween turns a very critical eye on Loomis. Loomis comes across as one of those 'celebrity shrinks' who take high-profile cases in order to get juicy book deals. The first frame of the film is a quote from Dr. Loomis explaining that Michael is a soul that's escaped from the pits of hell. I don't recall seeing that one in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. What follows this quote of Loomis's is a childhood that puts the sympathy on Michael. Yes, Michael is doubtless a sociopath. He's also a sweet boy who isn't getting the nurturing he needs to deal with his problem constructively. His life is full of humiliations that push him further and further within himself. The one person able to reach him and help him is his mom.

Unfortunately, Dr. Loomis prevents Michael from spending any significant time with his mom. Michael repeatedly tells Dr. Loomis that what he needs is to go home. Dr. Loomis not only ignores him, but begins to attribute Michael's worsening condition to something sinister within him. Dr. Loomis's major problem is that he takes his failure as a psychiatrist personally. This is typically masculine. The more some system doesn't work, the more aggressively a man will apply it to make the thing obey. Of course, the mind doesn't work that way. Rather than question his training, Dr. Loomis questions Michael. If Loomis is failing, Michael must be something Other, something evil that the system isn't equipped to handle. When Michael decays, Dr. Loomis doesn't take this as proof he has been mistaken in his treatment, but as proof of what he's been saying all along, that Michael is a monster. When Michael becomes pretty much untreatable, Loomis abandons him and writes--wouldn't you know it?--a bestselling book declaring Michael pure evil hiding behind angelic features. He uses a photo of Michael, a sullen-eyed boy (Daeg Faerch), to prove that Michael has no soul behind his eyes. Really, all one sees in the picture is a tired and lonely boy. The evil is purely in Loomis's mind. That is what Rob Zombie brings out and it is a brilliant point.

Michael is not, however, a totally sympathetic character. Zombie's decision was simply to show that he is a sociopath demonized by a crackpot psychiatrist, not a demon psychologized by a decent psychiatrist. Michael's behaviour certainly doesn't earn us much sympathy. Quite the opposite, Zombie is careful to let us see he is a merciless killer. We just understand that he's a product of human stupidity, not of satanic intervention.

Nearly an hour into the picture, Michael finally escapes from the mental institution and the events of the original Halloween take place until the showdown with Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). If the moments of Agon I described are promising a more gruesome, more frightening, more horrific picture, they are only partially correct. Certainly Zombie's Halloween is more horrific. Michael is described as a sociopath who enjoys watching things suffer. The camera of this film is like Michael: it lingers upon the sufferings of the characters. Carpenter's kills were quick. Zombie's kills, much more realistically, are protracted and agonizing (no pun intended). There is a lot of blood and the violence is unpleasant. The film is also quite scary where it ought to be scary. The problem is that the film is also, in these moments, tedious. I have no idea what it's like to be in such a frightening state of affairs and I hope to never have an idea, but I do know when I watch such scenes I prefer heroines who know how and when to stop whimpering, saying "please," and making typical horror movie mistakes. I won't go into them: if you've seen stupid horror movie behaviour, you'll have an idea of what to expect in these protracted chase/kill scenes. Where Zombie may have gone wrong is in trying to make these scenes too protracted, to the point that he must continue to provide excuse to keep the action going.

Coming from a musical background has also given Zombie a few additional talents. The film's sound is exceptional, occasionally realistic, occasionally ironic, and occasionally expressionistic. The use of diagetic music, such as KISS's "God of Thunder," Nazareth's "Love Hurts, and Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" provide ironic yet insightful commentaries on the action or emotional states. For instance, Michael sitting alone on his front step is intercut with shots of his mother at her stripping job while "Love Hurts" plays. Sometimes the sound effects will stop altogether, distancing the audience from the reality of the action and creating a certain discomfort. Michael's mind has taken over the audio at these moments. In his moments of cruelty, he no longer hears the outside world. Perhaps this is what's happened to him permanently after years of Dr. Loomis. He can no longer even hear the pleas of his victims.

If Zombie wanted to distinguish his voice from Carpenter's and take on the Master, he can certainly be admired for putting up a good fight. His Halloween may not be quite as good or timely as the original, but it is on its own merits a damn good horror picture that provides some thoughtful critique of the original. (Godard discovered the role of critic and filmmaker could be merged by making films critical of other films. Zombie's Halloween is in that tradition. Halloween is about horror movies as much as it's about horrific events.) By this point, it's fairly safe to say Zombie has appropriated the horror tradition for his own authorial voice. But agon never ceases and complacency is never rewarded.