Yeah, might just have to chalk this up as a case of irreconcilable differences. I thought the script was complete nonsense. The moment I gave up was about 5 minutes in, after we'd seen the opening card about "white horse" (which was frankly a little silly to begin with) and then, blam, a white horse! He just couldn't wait. He had this idea for a white horse (being escorted by Deborah Myers, no less, whose existence is explained only by the fact that she's played by Zombie's wife) and he just had to get it out there. Maybe the point was that he was going for the least subtlety possible -- that would also seem to be the case with his kill scenes-- but if so, that's not really a remake I'm interested in. I'm not even a huge original "Halloween" fan, but to me, here even more so than in his first crack at it, Zombie took a marginally interesting story, tried to cram more psychological nonsense into it, and somehow made it far less interesting.
The "White Horse" imagery I think was necessary because it shows you how the child-self of Michael imagines himself in archetypal imagery. If his mother is "the rabbit in red," suggesting a fallen woman, then he must rehabilitate that image and re-imagine her as a white godess and him the boy that will rehabilitate her.
Subtlety is not Zombie's thing so that's probably as close as you'll get to it from him. He digs the carnivalesque quality to those warped fairy tale images to just mute them and let them speak on their own terms. If you had muted Mama Meyers and taken away the horse from Michael's hallucinations, you would have had a stronger but far less boisterous set of imagery, which is very un-Zombie.
Whaaaaaaaat?!
ReplyDeleteI'm not certain there was a single redeeming aspect to this film.
I do indeed look forward to this review...
Yeah, bro. Still waiting for it to be posted but when it does, here it will go.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, here's a companion piece I wrote to that one: http://www.mapcidy.com/?q=node/3028
Yeah, might just have to chalk this up as a case of irreconcilable differences. I thought the script was complete nonsense. The moment I gave up was about 5 minutes in, after we'd seen the opening card about "white horse" (which was frankly a little silly to begin with) and then, blam, a white horse! He just couldn't wait. He had this idea for a white horse (being escorted by Deborah Myers, no less, whose existence is explained only by the fact that she's played by Zombie's wife) and he just had to get it out there. Maybe the point was that he was going for the least subtlety possible -- that would also seem to be the case with his kill scenes-- but if so, that's not really a remake I'm interested in. I'm not even a huge original "Halloween" fan, but to me, here even more so than in his first crack at it, Zombie took a marginally interesting story, tried to cram more psychological nonsense into it, and somehow made it far less interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe "White Horse" imagery I think was necessary because it shows you how the child-self of Michael imagines himself in archetypal imagery. If his mother is "the rabbit in red," suggesting a fallen woman, then he must rehabilitate that image and re-imagine her as a white godess and him the boy that will rehabilitate her.
ReplyDeleteSubtlety is not Zombie's thing so that's probably as close as you'll get to it from him. He digs the carnivalesque quality to those warped fairy tale images to just mute them and let them speak on their own terms. If you had muted Mama Meyers and taken away the horse from Michael's hallucinations, you would have had a stronger but far less boisterous set of imagery, which is very un-Zombie.
Here's my NYP piece:
ReplyDeletenypress.com/blog-4951-halloween-ii-fulfills-zombies-serial-promise.html