A Happy Halloween

This weekend I watched the remake of Halloween that Rob Zombie directed last year. I hadn't really heard much for reviews on this remake of the Carpenter classic, and I had assumed that this silence was indicative of a lackluster remake by the rocker-turned-horror-guru-turned-director. Turns out that I enjoyed the film immensely. I'm not sure why I enjoyed this film as much as I did, it could have easily just been a semi-euphoric delirium caused by starting this film at midnight and having a good bellyful of alcohol; but I think that the major factors at play were shooting style, casting and nudity.

Rob Zombie really comes into his own as a film director for this project. His last two films had their moments, but House of 1,000 Corpses felt like a huge music video to me, and while I can't remember if the specific problem with The Devil's Rejects was more a pacing or a stylistic issue, I pretty much remember just not liking it all that much. This film had a nice pace to it, especially considering the ambitious 124 minute running time. The shooting style echoed B movie seventies film, but at the same time took advantage of a larger budget and pulled off looking slick and run down at the same time. I think some of the best work was done with some point of view shots at the times of the victims' death, and Zombie definitely has a talent for painting a depressing picture of low class America that makes the viewer feel like pockets of Deliverance country exist in the middle of safe and sound suburbia. And I don't know if anybody else has ever done it, but the empty swimming pool was a brilliant little scene.

The casting was the other part of this film I loved. Udo Kier, Malcolm MacDowell, Cybil Dannning, Dee Wallace (Stone), William Forsythe and Brad Dourif brought solid acting to this project, and Danny Trejo and Tyler Mane both gave better performances than expected. This cornucopia of actors delivered smaller roles that all shine in their own way. Even Sherry Moon Zombie gave a performance that made her seem more a thespian than a go-go dancer.

That being said, the third factor that led to my enjoyment was the nudity. Nudity in wide release horror has been fairly scarce over the past few decades. At first I thought it was the greater focus on teen markets with films like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer, but even recent horror films like the Saw series (at least the first one - the only one I "saw") 30 Days of Night and exploitation films like Grindhouse have lacked some tittaykapow! Zombie brings back those extended glimpses of nudity that were like the prize in a cereal box, waiting to fall into your hands when you least expect it.

Same to same,

Capt.