Halloween (2007) is an American slasher movie produced, written, and directed by Rob Zombie. Zombie has a unique way of making movies, very focused on graphic violence and excessive cursive. Halloween (2017) movie review
As many people have mentioned, Zombie wanted to get approval from John Carpenter (director of original Halloween (1978) and Carpenter told him to make it his own. In that sense, the movie accomplished what it set out to do – it was Zombie’s own. However, this does not necessarily mean that the movie will be good, which in this case is true.
My main complaint for this movie is the characters. None of them are likeable. They all come off as horrible people who get what they deserve. Even the side characters are shown to be unlikable and therefore are killed by Michael during his rampage. Now, the guy playing the young Michael is a bit sympathetic, but only because he is surrounded by bullies and parents who are deadbeats.
Laurie Strode is one of the worst characters to ever be presented on film. She uses the “fuck” word so often that I can’t take anything seriously that she says or does. In the original she was portrayed as a sweet loving teenager.Her friends, a bunch of teenagers who were likable and had their own personalities in the original, are presented in this movie as cut out one dimensional props that I have no way to connect with. They smoke, have sex and get killed. That is all they do. They are completely bland and forgettable.
The movie overall is well made but it lacks any real suspense. In the original, the movie can be slow but it was building up to a satisfying payoff. In this one there was no suspense that was memorable. Instead the movie focused on characters that were horrible and the graphic violence that apparently was supposed to make up for lack of scares. Movies like these are supposed to have a balance of decent characters and decent scares. Not jump scares but earned scares.
In a lot of ways, the movie presents Michael as this sympathetic character that ignores the fact that he is born evil. Zombie might think this is scarier, but it also makes Michael come off as regular slasher villain. If his background was normal, that would make the character more relatable. We would be engrossed in the story to find out why such a nice person can be so evil. Many real life serial killers had decent parents who loved them, yet they turned evil anyway. We don’t relate to them, but we are constantly asking why they turn out the way they did if they came from a loving family.
BTW, I got to mention one scene with Loomis who was taking care of Michael when he was locked up. In one scene he calls him his friend and is sympathetic to him and his actions, while the very next scene he calls him evil and an anti-Christ in order to promote his book on Michel’s backstory. This made NO SENSE.
Anyway, do yourself a favor and watch the original. This one goes overboard with swearing and gore yet doesn’t present anything new or original. It is filled with Zombie’s tropes that just don’t work when you are making a movie about one of the most iconic slashers ever made.
Thanks for reading my Halloween (2017) movie review
