Halloween (The movies, not the holiday)

[PhoenixHope]

As usual I posted this on my LiveJournal, but then decided it would probably see more action over here.

There's not really anything spoilery here, unless you didn't see Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween "remake," and if you haven't count yourself among the lucky ones.

Anyway... On with the show!

So, keeping in mind that I haven't seen the "remake" of Halloween II (which is coming out today/tonight, and I hadn't seen before typing the orginal post, but there is a blurb at the end added after I saw the movie - don't worry about spoilers), but here are my comments on things I would have liked to seen the "remakes" tackle instead of making Laurie Strode insane or at least quickly losing sanity.
I also freely admit that I have NOT seen Halloween Six, nor have I yet seen Halloween H20, both are on my Netflix list, but they keep getting pushed back by other movies I want to see more.

Anyway, this "rant" started building when movie channels started rerunning (or debuting) the original movies. Now I know this is going to make me sound like a Halloween purist or whatever they're called, but the very first Halloween is (and probably always shall be) the best. There's just something very scary about that first movie that even the original Halloween II couldn't match, though admittedly the original Halloween II does better than some of the later ones.

Now before I continue I want to say that I don't really have a problem with portraying Laurie Strode as borderline insane, it just didn't really work for me. Nor, for that matter, did trailertrash!Michael work for me. Keep in mind that I an NOT in the group of people who believe that Michael's motivation should have never been explained, but I think Zombie completely missed the entire motivation that was plainly laid out over the series between Halloween and Halloween Five (H5 in my opinion really laid it out - homeboy just wants some lovin', and by that point any gal would do, more in a bit). The boy wanted his sister (yes in that skanky incest way), and killed the first one when she started getting "skanky" with someone who wasn't him.
To be fair, I do think in his own way Zombie did get the idea behind Michael going after Laurie, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from making the whole thing trailer trashy when it didn't need to be. Incest, it isn't just trailer trash who do it!

Seriously, though in the first movie, at one point, (actually two, I think) Michael is standing right behind Laurie when he swings his knife and misses... Yeah, right, and it's for that reason that I've always believed all the things he done was his twisted way of wooing her. (He is nuts, after all, so I think he was saying "I want to poke you.") And then when she pretty much rejected him in Halloween II he went for the actual kill.

Before I go any further, I'll tell you the main thing that I would have loved to see the "remakes" actually address, rather than making Laurie half crazy and Michael trailertrash is the weird relationship Michael seemed to have with Doctor Loomis. I'll admit that I've wondered this since the very first movie, but admit that in the first and second movies it really doesn't stand out all that much. However, by the forth and fifth movies Michael actually goes out of his way numerous times to avoid killing Loomis. WHY? That's what I had hoped the remakes might attempt to address, because it is one of the few things the originals never really gave enough detail about. Honestly, Michael's "mission" would have been made ten times easier without Loomis rushing to Haddonfield to warn everyone, and Michael was (outside of that) very good at getting rid of people who stood in his way.

Part of the reason the original Michael was/is scarier than the remake Michael, or even the latter original Halloween movies is that originally Michael didn't just kill everyone who crossed his path - somehow that scared me more than if he'd just killed everyone. I guess because it did add something of a sense of mystery. I also liked that Michael wasn't a big hulking monster of a man, and I loved that if Michael had removed the mask and wore normal clothing he could have easily been just another normal face in the crowd. Again, though that isn't just a flaw of the remakes because the sequels started to follow the Michael just kills kills kills route.

Now (finally) back to my comment about homeboy just wanting a girlfriend. In Halloween Five he has Tina in the car with him, and could have killed her any time he wanted, but on her insistence he actually stops and lets her out of the car, which is pretty much the stupidest thing (outside of letting Loomis live) Michael could do, and as I've said before most of the time Michael while insane is NOT stupid. That's when (originally) I started believing all these half thoughts about why he killed his older sister and why he went after Laurie were correct. Michael just wanted love, and because he wasn't quite (understatement) right in the head he wanted love from his sisters. Once they were gone I think he was just looking for love, and I think that's why he stupidly stopped the car and allowed Tina to get out - I think for one shinning moment he actually believed that she was really his girlfriend - I mean that's pretty much the only thing that explains why he would have allowed her to get out of the car and potentially escape him, which of course she did, though it was more the "fault" of the cops than any brilliance on Tina's part, cause honestly that chick was dumb as a post, dumber even.

Yes, I know that some of my theories take a beating when it comes to Jamie (the niece from Four and Five), because it is hard to fit her into this. She's a bit to young to be his bride, and he also seemed more seriously devoted to killing her than he was Laurie. So, this is all I got, perhaps after having been rejected by the sisters he decided to wipe their "skank" off the planet.

PS - Yes, even though I have not seen the sixth movie I do know a bit about the story, enough to know it screws with all my theories, but I am happily ignoring that because I arrogantly believe I make more sense than it does.

*grins*

I see you are starting to understand why I stopped at Five originally (though sometimes I feel I should have stopped at Four). But I do finally plan to watch Six, if I don't start bogarting the Netflix it should happen sometime next month, also when I expect to finally watch Halloween H20, which I suspect I'll find more to my taste than Six even if HH20 ignores 4, 5, and 6.

PPS - I suppose you can also see that I've always been kind of anal when it comes to my theories, unless the show/movie/book comes up with something better (which does happen on occasion, but), and in this case Halloween did not.

Now after having seen Halloween II I have this to say: In the end, I think Rob Zombie would have been better off working on the Friday the 13th remake(s) instead of the Halloween remakes. After Halloween II it appears that Zombie has his movies confused - Michael Myers is a completely different character from Jason Voorhees. Yes, they both wear a mask and kill an impressive amount of people, but that is the extent of their likeness, yet Zombie doesn't seem to think so. *sigh* Hey, Zombie, Michael always seemed to be working toward some (evil) goal all on his own, unlike Jason, who was simply a good ol' boy defending his land while trying to impress his (dead) mother with his over the top kills.
(Which makes sense since in the first Friday movie even his mother (Pamela) was a bit creative with her kills. Though you don't want to get me started over the fact that she wasn't good enough to be the ultimate bad guy there... Noooo, they had to turn to a man, Jason to be the ultimate bad, but since it works(ed) I try not to bitch to much.)

[RJDiogenes]

I'm not that familiar with the Halloween movies, but I feel your pain when it comes to inferior remakes by people who just don't get it. It happened to me just last May.

And it's good to be anal about these things. That's where high standards come from. People these days think it's kewl to just brush off continuity and consistency as if they don't matter at all. That's just lazy and stupid, in my opinion.

[PhoenixHope]

Hmmm, I've been racking my brain trying to figure out which movie you're talking about but I keep coming up empty. So, please tell me, I'm curious.

As for my gripe about the Halloween remakes, when you're watching a movie (you were conned by a friend into going to, despite the fact that you hate going to movies) that's supposed to be about Michael Myers and it's all you can do (in more than one place) to keep yourself from screaming (at the screen) "Dude, you're not Jason Voorhees!" you know whoever made the movie had no real clue about the character he was writing for.

[Theophilus]

He's taking another jab at nuTrek.

[RJDiogenes]

Indeed I am. It sounds like a similar situation-- and typical of the times. Characters and situations changed for no apparent reasons other than ignorance or laziness; basically just using names and terminology from an older concept and slapping them on something third rate.

[PhoenixHope]

DUH! I should have known that, shouldn't I?

In my defense I have not seen the new Trek - waiting for the DVD and even then I have many movies in front of that I want to see, so it might be the end of next year before I get around to the new Trek.
Though in defense of the new Trek, didn't the movie itself admit that it was an AU and not necesarily the same as the Shatner Trek?

[RJDiogenes]

Oh, yes, it was a very self-conscious reboot; but all of the problems that you noted with Halloween are still there-- that's just their justification for it.

[PhoenixHope]

*grins* I just mentioned that because it would probably be hypocritcal of me to say an AU can't be different from the real/main/whatever universe...

In fanfic I often play in so-called AUs where one event does or does not happen, or does happen but differently that has a butterfly affect on other things.

...though that doesn't mean I won't complain if I do find it to be horrible. Especially if the "changed" characterization (or whatever) sucks, and just going by what I've heard about the "new" McCoy I think I will hate what those &^%$#@# did to his character.

[PhoenixHope]

Okay, I'm returning to this thread because I recently watched more of Halloween saga.

Yes, I still (mostly) loath the Zombie remakes, but I did finally watch Halloween H20 and Halloween: Resurrection, and I was right! Halloween H20 handled the potential insanity of Laurie Strode much better than the ZNuWeens.

But what really brought me back here was that I finally started looking for reviews just to see if people loved Halloween H20 as much as I did. No, it isn't as good as the original, though the big flaw of H20 (for me) was that there were too many false scares. Sometimes those false scares work and sometimes they don't, and they especially start to grate when they are over-used. There's a difference between genuine tension and false scares, but few film-makers seem to get that these days, but otherwise H20 was a good solid film that comes closer than ANY of the other Halloween's at matching the one the only the original Halloween.

Anyway, there seems to be a real split between people who liked Halloween 4 - 6 and those that like H20, and I'll admit that I'm one of those that liked H20 better than 4 - 6 combined. However, I am mystified at the lack of imagination of people. Everyone seems to declare that H20 de-can(n)ons 4 - 6, and on the surface it appears to, but seriously am I the only person who can come up with a way for all of it to be canon? Apparently.

How?

Well, I've decided that Halloween, Halloween II, and H20 (and Resurrection, if I must) are direct sequels to each other, and Halloween 4 comes after Resurrection and so on and so forth. Okay, sure 4 - 6 are a bit dated, but I can still make it work.

So, now you just have to fit Jamie (as Laurie's orphan daughter) into that, and that is easy. John (Laurie Strode's son from H20) and his girlfriend from H20 LIVED at the end of the film, so why couldn't it be that they had a daughter that they named Laurie, who then had a child she named Jamie? See, it's not that hard to WORK IT OUT! Okay, sure you have to ignore a few bits of info in 4 - 6, but shockingly not all that much.

As for Halloween: Resurrection I don't hate it as much as others, and I certainly like it better than the ZNuWeens, but it never quite managed to FEEL like a Halloween movie, despite the fact that Michael Myers was running around killing people and we can't forget the poor rat - I CALL HIM RUDY!

Plus you only think LL Cool J was bad in H20 (and I didn't think he was bad, I actually liked his shitty writing) until you see Busta (or is it Buster?) in H:R. Actually, to be fair, Busta (or Buster?) was fairly good in the beginning of the movie, the whole thing only started to suck when he was shown to be able to beat Micheal Myers - seriously, people (behind the movie), SERIOUSLY, JUST NO!

However, to be fair, H:R did manage (once or twice) to actually scare me, so I'll keep it in my personal Halloween canon for that reason alone.

Okay, yes, there is the LEETLE problem of Dr. Loomis being dead in H20, but then alive again in Halloween 4, but again I can simply pretend that Dr. Loomis in 4 - 6 is actually the son/grandson of the original Doctor Loomis, and again you don't have to ignore/add that much to make it work, just pretend he says "my dad" or "my grandfather" a lot.

[RJDiogenes]

I'm not that familiar with the Halloween series; how did H2O decanonize 4-6?

[PhoenixHope]

Ah, you see in Halloween 4 they had Laurie Strode all ready dead - I think she was killed in an auto accident, but off the top of my head I can't be sure, but that would fit since H20 puts forward that Laurie Strode faked her death by auto accident.

So, in H4 it was Laurie's 10(ish) year old orphan daughter (Jamie) who became Micheal's target in Halloween 4 (and 5). But in H20 Laurie merely faked her death, took on a new name, and ended up with a son named John - no mention of her "daughter," and worse for those who want 4, 5, and 6 to remain canon is that in some point (maybe more than one) it is mentioned that Michael hasn't been seen or heard from since the original Halloween attack on Laurie Strode and friends, which outright decanons them more than no mention of Jamie.

So, yeah, H20 does decanon Halloween's 4, 5, and 6, or you must consider H20 the non-canon version, you know unless you're me with the fanwanking and all.

[RJDiogenes]

I like creative fanwanking. It's more interesting than lazy reboots or the so-what-it's-just-a-show attitude.

Why would they want to decanonize half of their own movies, though?

[PhoenixHope]

See, this is where I'll be declared a heathen, because aside from Halloween 4 I must admit that I didn't really care much for the latter Halloween's. Okay, fine, there is a certain charm with Halloween 5, but there is nothing good about Halloween SUX, er, I mean six. So, I don't exactly mind that the franchise decided to decanon them.

However, I'll admit that Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 are much better than Halloween: Resurrection, though to be fair that is really because (as I said) H:R just doesn't feel like a Halloween movie, where at least Halloween 4 and Halloween 5 did feel like Halloween movies. Still as a scary slasher movie H:R isn't a bad movie, it's just bad as part of the Halloween series.

[RJDiogenes]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Still, I always prefer that people find some creative way to fix things rather than decanonize or reboot; that's just lazy to my way of thinking.