| Author |
 Topic  |
|
damalc 
"last watched: Sausage Party"
|
 Posted - 08/28/2007 : 02:27:57
|
Rob Zombie, if you're going to cover a classic, you better bring it.
the original Halloween is indeed a classic, though comically dated at times during modern viewings. i met John Carpenter a few years ago and told him that i saw Halloween when i was about 11. (i really didn't want to watch it, but that damn peer pressure.) he gave me a disturbed look that said, "my god, what kind of awful parents must you have?! i didn't make that movie for 11-year-olds!"
anyway, i'm one who usually despises the lack of originality in Hollywood, with sequels, remakes, comic books and tv shows adapted to the big screen, but i'm looking forward to this one.
i've kind of liked Zombie's touch on movies too. i'll probably see it opening night, but damn that bar is high. |
Edited by - damalc on 08/28/2007 19:00:43 |
|
|
GHcool
"Forever a curious character."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 04:56:50
|
quote:
Originally posted by damalc
Rob Zombie, if you're going to cover a classic, you better bring it.
the original Halloween is indeed a classic, though comically dated at times. i met John Carpenter a few years ago and told him that i saw Halloween when i was about 11. (i really didn't want to watch it, but that damn peer pressure.) he gave me a disturbed look that said, "my god, what kind of awful parents must you have?! i didn't make that movie for 11-year-olds!"
anyway, i'm one who usually despises the lack of originality in Hollywood, with sequels, remakes, comic books and tv shows adapted to the big screen, but i'm looking forward to this one.
i've kind of liked Zombie's touch on movies too. i'll probably see it opening night, but damn that bar is high.
Halloween did 4 important things for Hollywood (in order of importance):
1. It continues to inspire low budget independent filmmakers to this day.
2. It launched Jamie Lee Curtis's career.
3. It began an entire subgenre of horror films about teenagers.
4. It launched John Carpenter's career.
That being said, I'm one of the few film lovers that dislike Halloween. Perhaps if I had seen it in 1978 in a theater, I would have felt differently, but I saw it for the first time in high school on VHS and was underwhelmed. When I heard Rob Zombie was going to direct a remake, I thought it was just another example of Hollywood's creative bankruptcy. So I will not be making a trip to the theaters for this one. Maybe I'll make a tradition out of it and see Rob Zombie's version 20 years after its theatrical release on a VHS. |
 |
|
|
demonic 
"Cinemaniac"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 05:43:26
|
| I also think Halloween is massively overrated. It's massively influential definitely, but really quite a dull, silly movie. Carpenter never made better than The Thing in my book. That's a well written, scary and intelligent film. And that's due a remake as well apparently. What are they thinking? |
|
|
|
MisterBadIdea 
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 07:30:38
|
Wow, count me surprised, but I'm going to have pile in on disliking Halloween. I just don't get that movie.
There's one scene, I think, that really makes it stand out. It's the scene where that goofy dude in the glasses takes a break from fucking P.J. Soles for a moment, and then Myers pins him to a wall. There's an odd, quiet moment immediately afterwards, where Myers just stares at his victim; it's really very eerie and sad. That scene encapsulates what people like about this movie, but I really wish there had been more stuff like that actually in the movie.
Now, the original Black Christmas, now there's a horror movie.
I think Rob Zombie is a very, very talented filmmaker and he could work wonders on this movie. However, he's a loud, gutsy splatter director, and his strengths and the original movie's strengths don't really overlap.
demonic: "The Thing" is itself a remake, directed and written by an uncredited Howard Hawks, a very well-respected American director. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 08/28/2007 07:33:55 |
|
|
|
BaftaBaby 
"Always entranced by cinema."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 08:22:55
|
quote:
Originally posted by MisterBadIdea
demonic: "The Thing" is itself a remake, directed and written by an uncredited Howard Hawks, a very well-respected American director.
I was 9 when I first saw the seminal Hawks film, which was indeed at that time called The Thing. Nowadays - and even here on FWFR - it's called The Thing From Another World. It was - to my young eyes - the most arresting film I'd ever seen and I was mesmerized by the build-up of tension.
The eponymous 'Thing' was none-other than James Arness - later to score big-time as Marshall Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke. What a great monster!
I'm not sure the credited director Chris Nyby ever directed another film. He had a very healthy career in TV. Oh, yeah, he was Hawks's editor for years before The Thing.
It's more than half a century later and -- though I've seen the film once more since then - that original viewing stays with me. There aren't many films that have such power.
|
|
|
|
randall
"I like to watch."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 13:26:17
|
I thought the original HALLOWEEN was brilliant -- a truly tense, frightening movie cleverly made for peanuts, without overdoing the gross-out effects that pass for horror these days. It still gives me the creeps. Music, framing, Donald Pleasance's scenery chewing, it all worked for me.
That said, I haven't seen any of its sequels, and I'm staying far away from Rob Zombie's entry. |
|
|
|
Downtown 
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 14:12:19
|
| This is not a sequel, it shouldn't be labeled "Halloween 9" any more than "Batman Begins" should be called "Batman 5." |
|
|
|
Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 14:29:24
|
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
I thought the original HALLOWEEN was brilliant -- a truly tense, frightening movie cleverly made for peanuts, without overdoing the gross-out effects that pass for horror these days.
It really doesn't use them at all. Carpenter is one of the few directors of horror films to understand the difference between something being scary and simply being gross and unpleasant. Blood and gore aren't scary, and Carpenter doesn't really care for them.
quote:
That said, I haven't seen any of its sequels, and I'm staying far away from Rob Zombie's entry.
Well count yourself lucky for never having seen any of the sequels. Not only are they devoid of everything that made the original so good, but they introduce story elements that when applied to the original make it just downright idiotic...then if you watch the original again you have to pretend you don't know those things that Carpenter never wanted in his movie in the first place.
Anyway, Halloween is brilliant for a couple reasons. First of all, it's a rare horror movie where the "monster" - and he can DEFINITELY be described as a monster - is also just a man. That's kind of the whole point and a great deal of what makes it so frightening, that such unspeakable horror could lurk within the expressionless face of a mere boy. Michael Myers says nothing, wants nothing, feels nothing...all he does is kill. He is - as Donald Pleasance keeps reminding us - nothing but pure evil walking the earth. As scary as a "typical" monster might be, there's something reassuring in evil things looking evil. You can spot Freddy Krueger pretty easily and guess right away that he's a bad dude you probably want to stay away from. But it's scary to think that kind of evil can come in the form of a human being that can just blend into a crowd.
And I also think it's great because it really is the prototypical modern slasher movie. If it didn't really invent all the cliches that Scream was based on, it certainly popularized them and was the direct influence for all those teen scream movies that followed. |
Edited by - Downtown on 08/28/2007 15:08:45 |
|
|
|
MisterBadIdea
"PLZ GET MILK, KTHXBYE"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 15:08:45
|
quote:
Blood and gore aren't scary, and Carpenter doesn't really care for them.
He'll use them if he's got a good occasion, and for what it's worth, "The Thing" is WAYYY scarier than Halloween.
One of my personal favorite oh-my-god movie memories as a kid was watching Snake Plissken slam that spiked baseball bat into that giant brawler's head. I don't remember if there was a lot of gore effects or not, but Carpenter's stuff is still very violent. |
Edited by - MisterBadIdea on 08/28/2007 15:10:32 |
|
|
|
Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 16:14:10
|
There was virtually no blood at all in that scene you described. It's a graphic image, the big guy standing there motionless with the bat actually stuck to this head because the nails are deep inside his skull, but it doesn't really include anything I'd describe as "gore." He just stands there, and then he dies. Probably the yuckiest part is the "crunch" sound. Honestly, I don't understand why TV networks edit this particular scene so often. By the way, EFNY is one of my all-time favorite movies.
Violence? Yes. He uses plenty of it. But gore? As little as possible. Clearly he felt that "as little as POSSIBLE" in the case of The Thing was "a lot." But for the most part, it's something he stays away from.
Night of the Living Dead is another great example of a brilliant and scary horror movie that doesn't rely on "gross out" scenes. There is a very unsettling image where the zombies are outside "chowing down," but nothing even remotely like modern zombie movies where victims are still alive as they watch their entrails being pulled out and devoured. Romero's sequels seem to indicate that he actually likes gore and maybe only didn't include it in NOTLD because he couldn't afford to, but that's not the point. |
|
|
|
silly 
"That rabbit's DYNAMITE."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 17:02:32
|
I saw the original for the first time as a teen at the midnite movies.
Lots of kids shouting "He ain't dead yet!"
I thought it was good, but not "great." But with my questionable taste in what makes a movie great, that doesn't mean much.
I agree - leave the guts / splatter effects out, and I'll enjoy the suspense more. |
|
|
|
Rovark
"Luck-pushing, rule-bending, chance-taking reviewer"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 17:59:37
|
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
I thought the original HALLOWEEN was brilliant -- a truly tense, frightening movie cleverly made for peanuts, without overdoing the gross-out effects that pass for horror these days. It still gives me the creeps. Music, framing, Donald Pleasance's scenery chewing, it all worked for me.
I couldn't agree more
I saw it on it's original release, on a big screen, in the dark - the way films used to be shown, not in the twilight of today where you can look around and see your whole row for reassurance. I sat there, isolated in the pitch black, having seen nothing like this before, being absolutely terrified. This was Carpenter's golden period when budgetry limitations forced him to be one of the most inventive and original directors around.
Superb. |
|
|
|
damalc
"last watched: Sausage Party"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 18:59:14
|
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
This is not a sequel, it shouldn't be labeled "Halloween 9" any more than "Batman Begins" should be called "Batman 5."
i know the topic is technically wrong. that was just to emphasize my disdain for all these copycat projects, and how i'll cast that aside and take a chance on this one.
 |
Edited by - damalc on 08/28/2007 19:01:00 |
|
|
|
randall
"I like to watch."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 20:36:22
|
quote:
Originally posted by Downtown
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
I thought the original HALLOWEEN was brilliant -- a truly tense, frightening movie cleverly made for peanuts, without overdoing the gross-out effects that pass for horror these days.
It really doesn't use them at all. Carpenter is one of the few directors of horror films to understand the difference between something being scary and simply being gross and unpleasant. Blood and gore aren't scary, and Carpenter doesn't really care for them.
The coat-hanger-in-the-eye was pretty grim for its era, let's be honest, but I do take your general point. HALLOWEEN works because of the edges of the frame; the gyrations you imagine that happened off-screen to the four-eyes, etc.
Somebody else pointed out THE THING, in which Carpenter seems to revel in the gross-out, but the monster in that movie is so over the top that I believe I remember one character standing in for the audience after the latest bravura Rob Bottin effect by actually saying, "You've got to be fucking kidding me." You recoil, then laugh at the audacity that allows somebody to even think of that stuff. If I worked for CAHIERS DU CINEMA, I might even postulate this may have been Carpenter's indignant response to those who found HALLOWEEN too visually decorous. [The execrable FRIDAY THE 13TH -- a pox on it and every one of its sequels -- was, I believe, the first shitty wannabe to try jumping on the HALLOWEEN bandwagon, thus beginning the process of upping the gross-out bar which continues even today, making possible a functioning magazine devoted to that and only that: FANGORIA.]
quote:
That said, I haven't seen any of its sequels, and I'm staying far away from Rob Zombie's entry.
Well count yourself lucky for never having seen any of the sequels. Not only are they devoid of everything that made the original so good, but they introduce story elements that when applied to the original make it just downright idiotic...
To me, HALLOWEEN 2 just smelled of exploitation -- I mean in the old, AIP scuzzy way, not the kind of exploitation that made HALLOWEEN 1 -- and I had too hard a time finding John Carpenter's name in the billing block, so I began my practice of avoiding these turds. You know what I'd pay money to see? John Carpenter remaking HALLOWEEN with a budget. You know why I won't? Because he won't: why do it again? |
|
|
|
randall
"I like to watch."
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 20:47:44
|
quote:
Originally posted by Rovark
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
I thought the original HALLOWEEN was brilliant -- a truly tense, frightening movie cleverly made for peanuts, without overdoing the gross-out effects that pass for horror these days. It still gives me the creeps. Music, framing, Donald Pleasance's scenery chewing, it all worked for me.
I saw it on it's original release, on a big screen, in the dark - the way films used to be shown, not in the twilight of today where you can look around and see your whole row for reassurance. I sat there, isolated in the pitch black, having seen nothing like this before, being absolutely terrified.
Now, finally, we are arriving at an era in which you can have that same performance experience on any movie you like. If you have a large-screen video monitor, or have a friend who does [bring popcorn; be nice], turn the lights off and the sound up one night and plop in either HALLOWEEN or THE EXORCIST, both from the distant Seventies. You'll jump out of your seat at each of these "fossils." You'll also be struck by how much the sound contributes: remember, lights off! |
Edited by - randall on 08/28/2007 20:48:59 |
|
|
|
Downtown
"Welcome back, Billy Buck"
|
Posted - 08/28/2007 : 20:56:58
|
quote:
Originally posted by Randall
You know what I'd pay money to see? John Carpenter remaking HALLOWEEN with a budget. You know why I won't? Because he won't: why do it again?
An interesting idea...but by remaking their own movie, wouldn't a filmmaker be sending a message that they didn't do a good enough job the first time? |
|
|
|
Topic |
|
|
|
Halloween 9
