From Zombos Closet

August 31, 2009

Zombie’s Halloween II (2009)

/ Movies (Slasher) / 2 Comments

Michael myers Zombos Says: Very Good

I did not expect Rob Zombie to surprise me with Halloween II. Beyond his unavoidably repetitious metal-rockers, hippie-hillbillies, and tattoo-punkstering of Laurie Strode and Haddonfield Illinois’ social set, miring Halloween II in a seedy glaze of grunge, strip joints, and Alice Cooper and Frank Zappa posters, he surprised me.

Probably many horror fans are surprised, too, and will be dismayed or downright violently annoyed with this bold mashing of J-horror’s quintessential rage-filled imagery into Myers’ endless angst-driven slashing ouevre.

In this brilliantly audacious diversion from John Carpenter’s classic bogeyman, Michael Myers (the towering Tyler Mane) becomes a deadly juggernaut guided by a mysterious other embodied in the white gossamer spectre of his dead mother and her majestic white stallion. But to what purpose? Is she a vision of Shiva the Destroyer? Or is she a demonic chaos seeking succor? Or is she simply a confabulation in Myers’ tortured mind? Zombie builds mystery by confounding us with this and an unexpected folly a deux between Myers and his sister, which now takes the Halloween franchise into a strikingly new direction.

My surprise comes from how Zombie’s bizarre imagery grates against my expectations (and probably those of most of the audience): a mad-hatter’s kind of tea party in Hell; Myers’ adult skeleton–its skull wearing his scarecrow-like mask–eerily hanging in the background as young Michael and spectral mommy chat about the future of the Myers family; and then the final jarring image that completely displaces Halloween II from its slasher underpinning by invoking the psychologically terrifying hallmarks of Samara from The Ring and The Grudge’s unstoppable curse of violence. I am more than surprised: I did not think Rob Zombie capable of such creative impudence.

Halloween II 2009Teasing with a beginning that makes us believe he is comfortably rehashing the hospital mayhem from 1981’s Halloween II, Zombie instead drops us off in Haddonfield a year later. Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) now lives with long-haired–and burned-out–Sheriff Brackett (Brad Dourif) and his short-haired, more healthy-eating, daughter Annie (Danielle Harris). Laurie suffers from horrific nightmares and attends therapy sessions. She is a wreck physically and mentally, and cannot get her life–after that night Michael came home–jump-started again. Meanwhile, Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) is doing smashingly well. He is promoting his succcessful book on Myers. Zombie alternates between showing Laurie’s ongoing struggle with her trauma and Loomis’ unsympathetic attitude to the fallout from Myers’ serial-killing as he tours the book-signing circuit. More and more, the limelight reveals Loomis’ callousness in contrast to Laurie’s growing despair when she cannot find forgetfulness in the shadows.

There is no suspense generated from this shifting focus between Laurie, Loomis, and Myers’ continuing killing spree, even after Zombie gives Myers a shiny new knife, one Jim Bowie would be proud of, and sends him off, guided by his visions, to bring Laurie home. I wondered how all this carnage leading up to another Halloween night with Michael Myers could leave no room for suspense. I will pin it on Zombie paying greater attention to his imagery, which is wonderfully macabre and wicked and filled with malevolent long-haired spectres (although in a Zombie movie just about everyone has long hair), to the detriment of his more perfunctory treatment of Myers. He is big, he is bad, he is unstoppable; yes, we get that. Having Myers kill and eat a dog, uncooked, also seems a gratuitous gorehound moment, which Zombie seems to relish. Missing from this Halloween movie is the signiture music, which only comes into play at the end for the revelation that, ironically, changes everything. Carpenter’s music would have been out of place here anyway. This is no longer Carpenter’s classic vision: it is Zombie’s.

There is a sad flashback involving young Michael at the sanitarium. Michael wants to know when he can go home, while we know he can never go home; making him a lost soul who will stay lost. The gift of a toy white horse figures prominently in adult Michael’s visions. But the ultimate meaning and significance of those visions will have to wait until Halloween III.

Which leads me to another surprise: I never thought I would be eager to see a new Rob Zombie movie. If he directs Halloween III, I will be. Hopefully he can put the suspense back into the next one.

Halloween Table Toppers:
Witch, Mummy, Vampire

/ Halloween Paper / 2 Comments

Halloween table toppers I found these irresistible table toppers at Dollar Tree for one dollar each (click the image to enlarge). A bargain indeed for these fairly large and stylish paper decorations that don't play it cuddly cute, yet don't overly traumatize with terror, either.

Just look at those faces! The witch actually leers like a creepy wicked witch should for Halloween. And both the mummy and the vampire look like they want to scare the hell out of you with their ominously gaping mouths filled with sharp teeth.

While perusing the slim offerings on the shelves (this year it looks like every store is cutting back on inventory), a little girl in the next isle over–I'd say no older than five–told her mommy to hurry up because she wanted "to see Halloween."

She ran over to the display of decorations, taking in everything with glee. She seemed most fascinated by the life-size, plastic, dismembered feet dangling in pairs from the hooks. I was going to mention they were fake, since her mother seemed not to think it important enough to tell her,  but decided not to after I saw she was not frightened at all. Just mesmerized.

I am sure most of you will recall that feeling. Why spoil it?

Meet the Horror Bloggers: Evil On Two Legs

/ Bloggers, League of Tana Tea Drinkers / 1 Comment

Corey Many fans of horror, amateur and professional alike, have devoted themselves to blogging about the thrills, chills, and no-frills side of the genre as seen in cinema and print. In this ongoing series that highlights the writers behind the blogs, we meet the unique personalities and talents that make the online horror scene so engaging. Up close and personal.

In this installment, Corey at Evil On Two Legstalks about what makes his blog unique and fun to read as well as write.

 

I’ve always loved horror. My earliest memory is of the first day of pre-school and finding the 2-XL robot hidden behind the nap mats and Legos. One of the multiple choice 8-track quiz tapes dealt with vampires, werewolves and other classic monsters. I don’t believe I ever put in the tapes on sports or history, but I must have played the monster one a 1000 times.

As soon as I could read I was lost in the public library searching out books on UFOs, Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster and horror story collections like “The Headless Roommate and Other Tales” and “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.” Early exposure to the films Halloween, An American Werewolf in London and The Prowler set me up for what’s become a life-long love of the horror film genre. My happiest memories of childhood involve roaming the endless horror aisles of oversized VHS boxes at Encore Video (a local mom & pop video store), looking for something that sounded scary but whose name and cover would be acceptable to my parents… and dreaming of the day when I could have my own video card and would finally be able to rent some of the titles that featured really graphic cover art and enticing names like Faces of Death, I Spit On Your Grave and Slumber Party Massacre.

masked corey There are thousands of sites and blogs where you can find film reviews, so when I started my own site I decided I wanted it to try to do something a little different. When I was a kid we’d argue for hours about who would win in a fight between Jason and Freddy or we’d try to rationalize exactly how Michael is walking around killing people in part 4 after clearly having his eyes shot out in part 2. Those are the kinds of things I wanted to write about. Our site also features less original things like lists of the week’s horror DVD releases and the occasional, highly biased review of the latest slasher remake; but I’m most proud of our site when it features articles that do things like analyze the fashion sense of the teens in the first Friday the 13th or pit Eli from Let the Right One In against Edward from Twilight to decide who would be crowned vampire of the year.

I created a horror blog because I needed a place to vent my love of the genre, to exercise my creativity, and as a fun project to work on with my best friends turned co-writers (Jon & Cara). My site has grown to mean far more to me than that, though, because of the people I have met thanks to it. Through email, Twitter, comments, and in person at conventions, I’ve come to meet some of the nicest people in the horror community and, through their encouragement and advice, to come to feel a part of it myself. I know that my co-writers feel the same.

I think we’ll be writing about horror for a long time to come.