Rob Zombie's Halloween (movie review)

OK, as promised on this week's saladcast, here is a review of Rob Zombie's Halloween:

The first thing you should know before reading this review is that I'm not a huge fan of the slasher genre of horror films. I feel that, for the most part, the whole genre is devoid of any real substance or anything for the viewer to empathize with. With that said, I think that Rob Zombie did a good job of making a film that is, by default, an exception to this rule.

I think that the best and most profoundly felt dynamic this film has to offer is the inclusion of something that has been absent from almost all of the slasher flicks to come out of the new millennium: use of characterization. Through use of a very long back story chronicling the early years of Michael Myer's life, Mr. Zombie has made it easy for the viewer to really get inside the head of this killer. You almost feel sorry for Michael as you watch him brutally murder his abusive stepfather, insensitive sister, and her boyfriend who is just looking for some quick "action". These characters just don't care about this troubled youth and you almost see justification in his murdering them.

Now for a brief synopsis of the plot. Michael Myers is, as stated by the psychoanalyst that was in charge of his care, the perfect combination of all the right characteristics of abuse, genetics, and circumstance to form the worst kind of sociopath. The film starts out when Michael is about 10-12 years old. He goes to school one day and is harassed by a local bully. In true psychopathic style, he exacts his revenge on said bully by killing him (by beating him to death with a giant stick none the less). Later that night, which happens to be Halloween, Michael returns home and wants to go trick or treating. His abusive father, and sister that likes torture him are less than eager to take him though, so he does what any normal prepubescent boy would do when they don't get their way, and kills them too. When his mother, who was away working at the time, comes home, she finds her son sitting outside on their porch, his baby sister unharmed in hand, and a pile of dead bodies just through the front door. After this tragic incident, young Michael is sent to spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison, and the next 20 years brooding into a mute homicidal maniac.

Flash forward to the present year. Michael is now a much larger and more intimidating killing machine then he was before, he's developed an acute fetish for mask wearing (he makes them from his cell room out of papermache) and his mom, after finally realizing how much of a psycho her son really was, took her own life many years ago. When the opportunity finally presents itself, in one of the strangest and most bizarre scenes I've seen in a horror movie since Hostel, for Michael to escape, it's time for the real movie to begin.

Without saying much more, for fear of getting into spoiler territory, Michael's newly found freedom leads him back home to his small town of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween night, and straight into the lap of the only member of his family that's still alive, his baby sister Laurie (who, incidentally, is now an 18 year old beacon of beauty), and her two model hot friends.
Sounds like a good premise for a horror movie to me!

As far as content goes, Halloween has what everyone is looking for in a good slasher movie. Lots of naked bodies, graphic violence, and chicks screaming in this one. But, like I alluded to before, it also has a lot more substance, characterization and well written compelling dialogue than your average horror film does. Lately, slasher films have been replaced by the supernatural thriller as the dominating genre of horror, but if Rob Zombie's Halloween is any indication of a shift in the way murder flicks are being handled today, then we might just see a reemergence of this ever popular genre of the 90s and early 21st century.

Rating: 7/10 (Recommended)

That's it for today, I will hopefully have a review of the anime Black Lagoon's first season sometime before the end of the weekend.