Wow. Where do I start?
I guess I'll start at the beginning......
We are immediately thrust into the horrific childhood of a young Michael Myers. A shallow mother, a verbally(and possibly physically) abusive stepfather, a superficial slut of a sister, and of course, the innocent person in this chaos(besides Michael of course), his baby sister Laurie, whom he calls "Boo". Michael has major self esteem issues, and eases his pain by killing animals(sort of like how young teens cut themselves to deal with their emotional pain). To add insult to injury, he has to deal with a bully at school.
After being caught having dead animals in his locker, he is confronted by his principal, his mother, and Loomis(his introduction into the film). This discovery of his "secret life" occured after an altercation with the bully in the bathroom.
This is where the transformation of Michael begins. He has been exposed, and seems to come to the realization of everything in his life that is bad. This seals the fate of quite a few people.
The bully who threatened to tell everyone about his mom being a stripper(and made alot of juvenile sexual remarks) is walking home through the woods after school. Michael(wearing his clown mask, although cheesy is very effective) follows him. Out of nowhere, Michael knocks the shit out of this bully with a big stick. Like all bullies, turns into an immediate pussy, and starts begging Michael to leave him alone and says he is sorry. Michael makes the bully look at him, and then beats the kid to death and walks home. For some strange reason, this crime is never mentioned again.
He gets home, and his mom is going to work, and Judith is supposed to take Michael trick or treating. As soon as the mom leaves, Judith basically tells Michael to fuck off and she goes upstairs to fuck her boyfriend. He sits outside basically stewing in his own juices, and realizes what needs to be done: All that is bad in his life has to be obliterated.
He kills the stepfather by cutting his throat after he taped him up while he was asleep, and after Judith and her boyfriend fuck, the boyfriend goes to the kitchen. In what I consider to be one of the most intense kills I have ever seen on film, Michael bashes his head in with a baseball bat. While its not overly graphic, the intensity of Michael as he repeatedly hits him with the bat tells you right away this is not the neutered Mikey of prior Halloween films. He isn't going to fuck around. The film gets a little cheesy at this point, as Michael puts on the adult mask(which Judith's boyfriend was wearing) and goes to kill Judith. He stabs her to death, and goes to get "Boo". He takes "Boo" outside and waits for his mom to come home. Young Michael wearing the mask he would use later was not a good idea. It didn't look right.
The rampage is over.
The film up to this point has one major fault: The immature and constant use of profanity in almost every other word. This is really bad writing on Zombie's part, and takes what could have been a fucking brilliant opening act and drags it in the mud.
However, I will give Daeg credit where it is due. There isn't any other kid who could have done so much with what little Zombie gave him to do.
Now, onto the sanitarium part of the film.
This is a strange moment in the film, and an idea Zombie did not flesh out completely. Young Michael goes from being talkative saying things like he didn't do it, he wants to go home,etc. to becoming a mute. We are led to believe this transformation happens when his mother(who apparently has forgiven him for killing her daughter) hands him a picture of him and Laurie. Then minutes later, we hear he has been a mute for weeks. When his mother and Loomis leave the room, Michael kills the nurse watching him with a fork.
We are then presented with a bullshit sequence of Loomis and Michael's mother running back into the room to see the carnage, Loomis looking shocked, his mother crying, and Michael screaming while being held by attendants.
After not being able to handle the grief, Michael's mom kills herself.
Then we get the easy way out "16 years later" screen.
What I don't like about this part of the film is the different use of masks by Michael. I understand why he does it, but its not really necessary. Neither is his willingness to talk before he comes mute, but is reluctant to do so without his mask, and wants the mask on because he thinks he is "ugly"(where did this plot point come from?).
Also, the Loomis character is not developed properly. Yes this movie is all about Myers, but we need to see a more nemesis type role between Myers and Loomis. This is not McDowell's fault, as he is clearly capable of handling the role. I like the subtle laid back version of Loomis he presents, but the character is not developed properly.
Now for what becomes the "remake" of the original......
Myers is now an adult. His cell is filled with hundreds of masks, and he is being transferred for some reason. While in shackles, his incredible strength is shown as he not only breaks the shackles, but kills the guards who are escorting him. A few other things happen in this sequence, although I'll move on from that is it doesn't really add anything to the story. Although when he kills the guard who always liked him, it shows he lacks emotion(except for one person), but we knew that already so the scene is irrelevant.
When he escapes and heads to the truck stop, we get another needless killing(Zombie, we know he kicks ass, now get him to Haddonfield). This is where Zombie's writing skills once again fail him and his audience as it is never explained how Myers(who doesnt drive) went 100 miles to Haddonfield.
Now we get introduced to the most shallow characters ever written for film: Laurie Strode and her two friends who are basically nothing more than brainless androids with pussies. The dialogue among these chicks is just too lame. I basically wanted them all dead the moment they opened their mouths, including Laurie. Once again, Zombie's writing skills fail him, us, these characters, and this film. When you cant identify and/or sympathize with the upcoming victims, a film is headed down the wrong path.
Which is unfortunate, and what I consider a travesty. This Myers coming to this town to unleash hell on these people had loads of potential. He is so much more intimidating, and is literally the best Michael Myers in Halloween history(in my opinion). In some of the reviews from people at other forums, all they do is bitch that this Myers is like Jason.
They missed the point. This guy(Myers) wants back the only good thing to ever be in his life(Laurie), that he is going to destroy anyone and anything who occupied her life. He clearly has no intentions of killing her. He wants to kill everyone else ever associated with her. Reviews also mention the "pointless" killing of Laurie's parents. Not pointless at all. Her adoptive parents played a part in him not having Laurie in his life(in his mind anyways), so they must be destroyed.
Then we get the shallow female characters fucking and of course them and their boyfriends feeling the wrath of Myers. The Danielle Harris nude scene was so overrated its not even funny. Zombie uses the shaky cam through most of that scene, and you wind up getting about a 2 second glimpse of her tits. Big fucking deal.
I did not like the recreation of moments from the original. It added a cheese factor to it that was not necessary. This Myers did not need kills that had to be ripped off from the original.
When Myers finally confronts Laurie, you realize that he truly loves her, and this was never really established in the original series. He basically offers his love to her when handing the picture of the two of them to her. She doesnt understand, and pretty much rebukes him, and this is when he seems to decide that nothing matters in his life anymore, not even her. We get the complimentary chase scene, and Loomis gets involved again at this point. He tells him to stop, that its not Laurie's fault, its his. So Myers kills Loomis(although they definitely leave a small loophole for him to survive, just like in II) and after an incredible scene of Myers destroying the inside of the house looking for Laurie, he lunges at her and they fall off the balcony. Laurie is on top of him, and shoots Myers in the face, splattering his blood all over her face. We then see them as children, and the film ends.
During this film, he gets stabbed and shot and it doesnt seem to phase him just like in the original. However, it will be interesting to see how he could possibly survive a closeup gunshot wound to the face.
Overall, this film had tons of potential. Young Myers is great, and adult Myers is fantastic. Each moment he was onscreen you couldn't take your eyes off of him. Loomis is very much a non factor, and while there are scenes with him in it that I didn't mention, there just isn't the nemesis aspect to Loomis and Myers this time. His only purpose in this seems to be because he is in the original.
This film needed massive rewrites. Great concepts, but the dialogue is terrible, and the ode to various scenes from the original were lame, and so was using a few songs from the original.
I will rate this a 7 out of 10, although if I have to think about the immature and extremely amateurish dialogue in the film, it will quickly drop to a 4.
I understand the opinions of people such as messiahman who consider this film a clusterfuck of biblical proportions. When looked at as a whole(and I guess most films should) it definitely reeks. But Zombie does bring moments of brilliance to the film, but he just isn't capable of writing a cohesive script and the characters are just too shallow for this film to be what he wanted it to be.
It was hard for me to even rate it a 7. The only reason I am willing to give it a score like that is mainly the potential it had, and like I mentioned, the few moments of brilliance that shows us how this film was one great writer from being a masterpiece. Put Zombie's Myers in a kick ass script, and you've got a horror film for the ages.
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