Mikey Likes It…Smokin’, Not So Much
Long time, no see, eh?
I realize my absence may have been unnoticed by some, but I also know that some of you Interwebians wondered. Let me put your basest fears to rest. Not dead, not incapacitated, and only marginally closer to the stroke that’s been impending for about 7 or 8 years now.
No, what sent me on my electronic hiatus was a trailer. One simple, short, well-disguised travesty of justice. The trailer in question is, as anyone who knows me is probably aware, Rob Zombie’s “re-imagining” (his words, not mine) of the epic slasher flick, Halloween.
For the uninitiated, the Halloween mythos follows the bloody, screamy story of Michael Myers, the preeminent slasher figure of modern film-making. The original film, written and directed by horror legend John Carpenter (who, by the by, also composed its prolific theme music), follows the story of Laurie Strode (played into cinematic history by Jamie Lee Curtis), a teenager being stalked by Myers for, at least in the beginning, unknown reasons.
As the story goes, Michael Myers viciously murdered his own sister, who apparently was not a very nice girl, with a butcher knife. In the original film, Myers’ motivations are vague, and somewhat supernatural. He stalks Laurie and her requisitely moronic friends until they’re dead and she’s saved by the inestimable Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance), who has treated Myers for years. Not much of a plot, eh?
The beauty of Halloween was not the plot, or the acting (although Pleasance is decent and Curtis is passable), or even the quintessential theme. It’s the cinematography that elevates this film beyond a simple horror flick. There is no more gripping scene than that of Dr. Loomis, standing silent and aghast as he looks down from the balcony of the old Myers house, at the pile of leaves where Myers’ corpse should be. This scene, among many, is one of the reasons I’ve always admired this film. In point of fact, critics and moviegoers of the time (the film was released in 1978) agreed. Not only does it rank as one of the most critically well received of the horror genre, but has become a part of popular culture.
Now get ready to flame, Interwebians.
Rob Zombie is a hack. At their best, his entries into the genre have been poor (House of 1,000 Corpses). At worst, they’re pretentious (The Devil’s Rejects) and a drain on a genre already burdened by the advent of what amounts to well-funded, poorly shot snuff films . So what if Carpenter himself gave the intellectual go-ahead (Dimension owns the rights to the story, so there’s not much Carpenter could’ve said from a legal perspective), telling Zombie to make it his own? Anyone who is a true fan of horror movies should know better. But we all know that this decision was not made by a horror aficianado. It was made by Dimension.
So, consider this an open letter to the people at Dimension who gave this project the green light (and before you say it, yes, I know who it was too, but I can’t type the name for fear my keyboard will go up in flames). Pull the plug on this, before you inflict any further debasement on a genre you obviously know nothing about. Yes, this movie will make money off of the hordes of teenagers who don’t know any better. Yes, you will find some critic willing to say that it surpasses the original. But you will never be able to wash the stink of this one away. It will haunt you forever. You will wake in the night, screaming, because deep down, you know what you are perpetrating on the American moviegoing public is a travesty, a mockery of something good.
And to Rob Zombie, congratulations. I didn’t think it was possible to sink any lower than you had, but once again, you’ve proven me wrong.
And…..done.
Link: Mikey Likes It…Smokin’, Not So Much
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