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Rob Zombie's Halloween - Fear Comes Early This YearIt's the fall of horror sequels - and it actually works |
By Monica Gaza, Entertainment News Editor
3rd of September 2007, 08:20 GMT
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Rob Zombie? Now there's a name made for the horror industry. And if you're familiar with some of his filmography - particularly "The Devil's Rejects" and "House of 1000 Corpses" - you will also know this guy directs some pretty heavy-duty films and is acclaimed as a visionary director and musician. But you'll be interested (and maybe even a bit happy, if you're a fan) to learn that thanks to Rob Zombie, a new remake/ sequel comes to take its place in the most successful, enduring and influential horror franchise in film history - the famous John Carpenter 1978 classic "Halloween". This fresh installment of nightmarish vision - which keeps the name "Halloween" while tackling a slightly different time line - has been leading the box office this weekend, cashing in over $26 million.
Looks like this fall has brought back the taste for horror remakes, adaptations and sequels, and while we're not exactly complaining, I must admit it is unsettling to keep bumping into haunted rooms and be forced to dodge vicious killers every time you step into a movie theater. The new version of "Halloween" featuring the ruthless, masked killing Mike Myers is tagged "Evil has a destiny" and takes off 17 years after the initial story, with an adult Myers escaping Smith's Grove Sanitarium maximum-security mental facility where he had been locked up and coming back to...well, pardon the cliché, take care of unfinished business. Enough said, you can pretty much imagine the rest.
The truly relevant question is, what makes this movie tick? What are the elements that make the story (still) hold and bring people to the theaters 29 years after the success of the original version, which grossed $55 million worldwide and became pretty much a classic of the genre? One possible answer is Rob Zombie himself, the new perspective and vision he brings on the events of the movie, plus the fact that the new film is indisputably connected with the original, which it aims to complete and upgrade. "We're all really excited about this one and we're really thrilled to have Rob Zombie. He just brings a whole new fresh air of excitement for both fans of the original and for all the new fans as we cross over into new areas" the film's producers Malek Akkad and Andy Gould claim.
Another possible reason comes from Zombie himself, who comments that "In the original they keep telling you things happen, but you never see them. So I thought I could go in there and show all that stuff and expand upon it". The idea is therefore that the new Halloween movie fills in some of the gaps left by the original movie - in case you felt there were any gaps left. But times have changed and audiences have changed, as has the perception upon what a "horror" movie actually is. "It's a good story and it's really simple, and I thought there was a lot of places you could go with it" Zombie added. "Seeing that the first 'Halloween' came out thirty years ago, the audiences today are much more sophisticated; they expect more. The first one is a classic for many reasons, one being that you barely see a drop of blood in the entire thing. But today's audiences expect more". Right on cue. So, to use a line from another highly anticipated horror/thriller that will hit the screens...on Halloween day this year (you guessed, I'm talking about Saw IV), "there will be blood". Who knew gore could be such a magnet? Well, the movie looks good and the fans sure think so - so be sure to let us know your opinions once you've seen it.
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