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Halloween
What happened to the apostrophe in Hallowe'en? It must have disappeared sometime around my early adulthood without me noticing. Much about the same time that movies like this lost their scariness.
Halloween is a fairly faithful remake of the 1978 original, but if you treat it as a horror you'll be disappointed. Expect a thriller with some graphic killing and you might escape with your jugular intact. I enjoyed this film: I think the average moviegoer will enjoy it: Testosterone Satisfaction Rating: - graphic murder, plenty of instances of nubile flesh. To enjoy this film you should: not expect a horror movie.
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It's been nearly thirty years since John Carpenter's original Halloween movie scared the bejaysus out of pre-yuppy
audiences across the globe. Things have changed a lot since then, especially in the world of movies, where complacency
settles fast and the ever-growing budgets require ever-expanding audiences, who demand something new and exciting.
This new version of the first Halloween movie is neither new nor exciting, though it is not without merit.
I was converted to Rob Zombie's
way of filming by 
True to form, Zombie has cast his real-life wife Sheri Moon Zombie (the clue's in the name) as the long-suffering mother of
Michael Myers, showing early signs of his murderous future - I don't mean Austin Powers - and she's the only recognisable
face until Malcolm McDowell (Clockwork Orange, Mr Linderman in Heroes) turns up as the pint-sized psycho's shrink. When
the now-grown nutter escapes from captivity, which seems a VERY long way in, finally things start to get moving as he sets
about his killing spree in his home town of Haddonfield. His victims are largely teenagers - conveniently in the throes
of passion so we get to see their naughty bits - but it's really confusing telling them apart. More than once I thought,
"hasn't he killed that one already?" but no, it's just because they were all the same characters - dizzy bint and stoner
boyfriend. Oh, except for the one key character, but when she lost her glasses she became part of the amorphous teenage
blob as well.
So why is it not scary? Well, the build-up of suspense didn't work. We can spot Myers lurking in the background, which
is usually a good way to involve the viewer, but it doesn't work here, and I think it must be the music that's to blame.
This is a little odd, as Rob Zombie's history is in music rather than direction, so you'd think he'd have nailed this
aspect, but it simply does nothing to raise any tension. The only bit that'll make you jump is a traditional
we-know-it's-coming when-is-it-when-is-it moment that eventually jolts you by making a loud crash - not the most inspired
solution. Having said that, the movie actually works reasonably well as a thriller - not something you'd ever think about
the original - so with some more appropriate marketing it could've been a success. Pity that.
