Much of the allure to horror films is the same allure that draws us to the cinema in the first place; we get to see our collective fears, anxieties, desires, and subconscious feelings played out in front of us, but without having to actually deal with them. This is much like what happens in our dreams. Horror films take on the specific task of calling to our fears about death and the after life. Horror films speak to us in the same way a car wreck on the highway does; we don’t want to look, but we have to, mainly because we are curious, but also, and more understandably, it forces us to put things in perspective.
Throughout cinemas short history it seems that horror films have never fully received their due credit either from critics or box office success (of the top 50 highest grossing movies of all time, only two, The Sixth Sense and Jaws make the list at 32 and 45 respectively); yet they remain to be part of the Hollywood staple. It can be argued that the horror genre is powerful, relevant, and deserves to be discussed amongst other great films throughout cinema’s history. The horror genre, much like other genres, has gone through a transformation over the past 30 years. It seems, much to my disliking, that the horror genre has regressed and is danger of returning to place of insignificance within the critical film world.
In this posting I will be exploring the changing face of horror, both literally and figuratively, by comparing John Carpenters 1978 film, Halloween to its remake, Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween. I will attempt to explain how the 1978 film is, in both theory and practice, an affective piece of filmmaking while the 2007 version has fallen into the same trap that most post-modernist films stumble upon and that the knowledge and deconstruction of the original text has drastically changed the meaning of the new text and therefore has become an ineffective piece of filmmaking. It is my contention that Halloween (2007) failed in its attempt to horrify audiences due to its self-conscience approach to the new text.
In October of 1978 a new kind of evil was born. Pure evil. “The Shape”, more commonly referred to as Michael Myers is the masked stalker and arguably the star of John Carpenters horror classic Halloween. Carpenter envisioned a monster that had no purpose, other than to be evil. “The Shape”, as he saw it, was the physically embodiment of evil, darkness, The Devil himself (Muir, 79). Halloween struck a cord with its audience and can’t be dismissed as purely a teenage “slasher” film. In 2007 Rob Zombie, a musician and horror enthusiast turned director followed up his filmmaking debut of House of 1,000 corpses (2003) and The Devils Rejects (2005) and attempted to re-create and re-imagine Halloween, a series that had become laughable to most viewers after spawning 8 sequels spanning three decades.
While Carpenters original film employs conventional genre tactics it’s his use of camera movement, careful camera placement, and his eerie original score that helped to create an atmosphere of suspense. In complete opposition to the original, Zombies “re-imagination” of the film gives us all the answers to the questions that made the original such a haunting experience, while neglecting the deliberate construction of the mis-en-scene that made the original so magical.
The first example of this can be seen when comparing the opening scenes of both pictures. In the 1978 version the credits roll over the theme music composed by John Carpenter himself and sets the melo-dramatic mood for the film. We descend upon the suburban town of Haddonfield, IL on Halloween night, 1963. We are presented with a point-of-view shot (POV) via a hand-held camera of someone watching a teenage boy and girl kissing on a couch and then ascending to the second floor, seemingly to engage in what can only be interpreted as some form of sexual act. As an upstairs light is turned off, a piercing piano riff fills our ears.
As we follow the POV shot a hand reaches into a kitchen drawer and pulls out a large butcher knife and soon after puts on a clown mask left behind by the teenagers. As we follow the character up the stairs and into the bedroom we see, through the eyes of a clown mask, a knife appearing and disappearing in a stabbing motion, however, we never see the actual piercing of the flesh, leaving the real horror to the imagination. After the victim expires, we continue with a POV shot down the stairs and into the front yard where we initially started the scene. The camera finally shows us the face of the killer; an 8 year old Michael Myers. A crane shot closes the scene as it pulls away from the quite suburban home.
In contrast, the 2007 version opens with a much different agenda in mind. We are presented with a quote from Dr. Samuel Loomis who was established in the original film as Michael Myers’ failed psychologist. The quote reads “The darkest souls are not those which choose to exist within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us”. The title card slams in and rock music swells over a crane shot of an unkempt suburban home. We cut to an extreme close-up of a rat in a cage and a young boy, presumably Michael Myers and later identified as such, in a clown mask looking over the rat. We then cut to the Myers family preparing breakfast in the kitchen. In this scene we are presented with a vulgar and highly dysfunctional family. The mother is established as a stripper, the sister, a foul-mouthed scantily clad teenager, and (presumably) the stepfather who is presented as less than human as he makes fun of Michael and questioning the young boy’s manhood in front of his mother. We then cut to Michael, still wearing the clown mask, washing the blood from his hands after killing his pet rat. Later at breakfast, the stepfather threatens a young Michael with physical violence.
Comparing the opening scenes in each movie offers us a considerable amount of insight into how we interpret the horror genre and what constitutes as horror in the new millennium. Lets first try to understand the opening scenes of the 2007 version.
First, we open with a quote from a fictional character that plays an integral role in the film we are about to view. In essence, it’s fiction commenting on fiction, something that can only really be understood with an understanding of the original 1978 film. While assuming that the audience is fully aware of whom Dr. Loomis is we must also assume that the audience is aware of who Michael Myers is and what he represents. Moving forward we are presented with a dysfunctional look at the Myers household. The Myers family can be summed up by as the stereotypical “white-trash” or “trailer-trash” family that has become a common archetype in American culture. Everyone in the family has some kind of identifiable problem that presents them as inferior to the audience. The Stepfather is a vulgar, unemployed, middle-aged man with no respect for anything. The Mother is a stripper, an occupation that is generally looked down upon, and the sister is the archetypal unruly teen. They live in a filthy home, lead stereotypically filthy lives and in general do filthy things. Young Michael, in essence, is a rat trapped in a cage. This portrayal is in direct opposition with the family that is portrayed briefly in the 1978 film.
In the 1978 version, at the end of the opening scene, we see Michael’s parents, presumably driving a new vehicle returning to their well-kempt home after presumably attending some kind of social function. This portrayal of the family would generally fit into the “normal” standards of 1978’s culture and equally in 2007’s culture. This raises a question as to why Zombie would decide to present us with a completely different world 29 years later.
Let me digress for a moment. Generally speaking, movies tend to tap into cultural fears of the time in which it was made. Most notably this is seen within the Sci-Fi genre, with remakes of movies like War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (Derrickson, 2008) updating their general themes to reflect the modern problems society faces today. Horror, however, seems to be updating their remakes with a much different rational in mind. They assume once again that the audience is familiar with the original text and it seems that the re-make becomes not a remake or “re-boot” per-se, but an explanation or a defense against the original text, possibly do to our post-Columbine anxieties. During my critical analysis of Halloween 2007, this fact became painfully obvious.
Zombie presents Michael Myers as the victim in his remake. It seems that Zombie is encouraging us to sympathize with the killer, and how can we not? In the re-make, the Myers family, as noted earlier, is the archetypal dysfunctional family. We are left to assume that Michael has an overall unhealthy view of the world. As a result he decides to hide behind a mask and kill rats and neighborhood cats. All these action are justifiable based on his environment. During the first act, he is bullied at school, and later, gets his revenge by beating the bully to death with a tree branch on his way home from school. Given the events preceding this action it is obvious why this child is acting out the way he is. Which begs the question, what is the desired response the filmmaker is attempting to elicit from the audience? Is this a call to action in order to initiate better parenting? Let it be noted, the set-up of the original film presents us with a problem and no answers, little Michael is a killer, and there is no obvious reason why. The re-make presents us with all the answers to the problems we already knew, or imagined existed, a prime example of self-conscience filmmaking.
In The Films of John Carpenter, Muir notes that some critics “persist in seeing the film (Halloween, 1978) as a despicable, albeit stylish, exercise in horror because of Carpenter’s adoption of the point-of-view, subjective camera”. He goes on to say that “ the long-held argument insists that this technique puts the audience in the position of (being) Michael Myers…some critics consider this a bad thing, claiming that is causes one to identify with the violence and even become numb to it”. Carpenter, with the initial point of view shot of Michael put the audience in the position of the killer, allowing us to sympathize with him once we realize it is not the brute stalker we are expecting, but a young boy. However, without a critical analysis of the scene, I would assume that most viewers are unaware that the felt any sympathy towards the killer. Zombie, however, makes us undeniably aware that we are supposed to sympathize with him. He is asking you to sympathize with Michael, pleading with you. Carpenter cleverly makes you sympathize with the killer by figuratively putting the knife in your hands with his POV shot, but in contrast he then spends the rest of the movie explaining to you and showing you why you shouldn’t sympathize with Myers through Dr. Loomis’ constant warnings of what Michael Myers is; pure evil
Suspense also seems to be missing from the remake. When making the choice to see a horror film, you intuitively know what to expect, you have been conditioned, either by the filmmaker in the set-up or by watching other horror films. Through music, in Halloween (1978), we know something bad will happen but we are unaware of where, when, and how. When we are presented with the answers, we are satisfied, because we were right, and while the remake may give you the same feeling because of the texts that precede it, I would argue that it fails at something far more important; making you care about the victims. Those killed in the original are not bad people (or canine’s). Halloween takes place in the comfort and security of a suburban town, Anywhere, USA and its victims are the everyday-teenager. It has been argued by critics that Carpenters message was that “bad” teens would die (all the teens that are killed in the original after being “irresponsible”) except for Laurie Strode, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, an innocent teen. In the remake, everyone who dies is associated in some way with bad people, either directly or indirectly, and even Laurie, (who in the remake is identified as Michael’s sister while in the original this isn’t brought to light until Halloween II, 1980 in order to reap financial benefits ) in the remake is not portrayed as the sweet and innocent girl that Carpenter depicts. He gives Michael a purpose and a reason for everything he does. In the original, he just wanted to kill.
Suspense is also lost with Zombie’s camera use. Carpenter, as stated earlier, only employs the POV shot in the opening scene for a specific purpose, and uses long sweeping shots (and subtle everyday dialog) to establish the scene and his characters. Zombie, however, uses generic camera techniques like the extreme close up shots and choppy “MTV style” editing approach which changes the whole dynamic of “Halloween”, as the remake comes across as more of a Michael Myers bio-pic than a horror film. Instead of setting up the scene and carefully showing you in the beginning of the film things that will come into play during the climax i.e. the long empty streets of Haddonfield and the distance between homes, the stalking voyeur that is Michael Myers, like Carpenter does, Zombie’s only goal is to set up the justified killing by a monster with clear motives. There is far less a sense of discovery and fear in the re-make. One of the biggest differences between an average filmmaker and a great filmmaker is their ability to make you feel and think what they want you to feel and think without you ever realizing that you are being totally manipulated. Carpenter is able to do this through his subtle use of the camera and music, while Zombie’s intentions are painfully obvious from the jump.
Yet another major difference between these two films and generally speaking, in recent horror movies, is the literal changing face of the monster. Horror stories are specific in their structure; the fear of the unknown, discovery, transformation, proof that the “other” exists, and so on. Carpenter is much more concerned with the classical structure. Michael is seen lurking in dark corners, his face hidden, a voyeur plotting his next victims demise. His face is only seen as a young boys face, and barley shown in the shadows for about a total of 4 seconds as an adult, where we are tricked into believing this is a normal human that can be defeated. Carpenter in fact, does his best to hide the William Shattner mask that serves as Michael’s face and is never explained in depth as to what purpose it serves. Zombie, and the new age of horror, is far more concerned with the justification of the killer. The star of the show is no longer the “final girl” as it seems to have been in the late 70’s and early 80’s, but the killer. Not only does the killer now receive more back-story and attention to the questions of why he or she is the killer, but they receive ample “face-time” as well, thus, taking away from the actual shock and climatic feeling in the third act.
In 2007’s Halloween, Myers goes from being an average twenty something man that he was in the original, to a beast, an unusual specimen to say the least. The original Michael Myers was all of 6 feet 180 lbs, seemingly very average, but yet he could not be killed. In the remake, Zombie cast Tayler Mane, a former professional wrestler who stands an astonishing 6 feet 9 inches and weighs over 275 lbs. For Zombie, and this re-imagination, the new face of horror seems to be a “bigger, stronger, faster” mentality suggesting that an average man could not be feared any longer and that society somehow plays an intrical role in creating monsters like Michael Myers.
Recent filmmakers, based on my understanding of the horror genre have missed the point of horror all together. It can be assumed that in a post-Columbine world there is a great deal of fear surrounding the questions as to why someone chooses to maim, rape, and kill. The ultimate horror, however, will always remain in what cannot be explained, what is unknown. Hopefully, for the sake of horror and filmgoers, this trend will fade and we will make a conscience shift back to a time when horror films were actually terrifying.
