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Classic Movie Monday: John Carpenter's "Halloween" vs Rob Zombie's "Halloween"



            We live in an era where remakes and sequels of beloved films are constantly coming out. Every once in a while, a classic or a highly popular film gets remade and it turns out so bad that people claim it “ruined the original”. One such case is Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic, Halloween. The purpose of this article is twofold. As always, I want to encourage readers to watch a classic film. With this article, however, I also want to try and dispel this notion that bad remakes/sequels ruin the original film.
            John Carpenter’s original is widely considered to be a masterpiece and one of the founders of the slasher sub-genre. The story is a relatively simple one. It starts off in Haddonfield, Illinois in 1963 on Halloween night where a 6-year-old Michael Myers kills his older sister shortly after she has finished having sex with her boyfriend. On the eve of Halloween 15 years later, Michael escapes from the psychiatric hospital in which he had been placed and returns to Haddonfield. The film then introduces the heroine, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis), and we see Michael constantly stalking her from afar. That night, on Halloween, Laurie finds herself babysitting Tommy and Lindsey. As the night progresses, people begin to die as Michael Myers makes his way towards Laurie.
           The horror genre owes a lot to this film. While slashers originated in 1960 with films like Psycho and Peeping Tom, it is mostly because of Halloween that these types of films went mainstream. John Carpenter’s Halloween laid the groundwork for what the genre would become in the coming years. One of the major tropes introduced in Halloween is that of the “final girl”. This film, like many of those that came after it, sees the killer going after those who are sexually active. The hero, or “final girl”, must be considered to be morally good which means that they don’t engage in the use of drugs, sex, or anything else that might make them appear as anything other than pure good. This trope put women in the spotlight and led to them usually being their own heroes in the face of certain death.
          One of the scariest parts about the original Halloween was the fact that we knew next to nothing about Michael Myers. He never spoke, never showed emotion and we only see glimpses of his real face. When Laurie asks if Michael Myers is the boogeyman, it’s hard not to say “yes”. Rob Zombie’s version of the film completely throws that out the window. Where in the original we knew almost nothing, Rob showed us too much. He tried to humanize this villain who is supposed to be a force of nature, more so than a human being. Zombie spends a lot of time unnecessarily trying to flesh out Michael’s family when they are completely irrelevant. There is roughly 45 minutes of trying to understand Michael Myers before he even becomes an adult and escapes his prison. By trying to make the audience sympathize with Michael, the thing that should actually be scary isn’t anymore. Zombie then tries to make it feel scarier by making it an ultra-gory and unnecessarily violent film, but it’s all meaningless and doesn’t actually succeed in scaring you.
            If the only thing you know about Halloween is the Rob Zombie remakes, then I strongly encourage you to watch the original. Rob Zombie took a film that followed a very simple formula and over complicated it for no real reason. The thing is that despite how bad Rob Zombie’s remake is, it does not erase or change the fact that John Carpenter’s original is a landmark in the horror genre. The 1978 film inspired many other films that would become classics of their own such as Friday the 13th and Scream. The legacy of John Carpenter’s Halloween goes beyond its own sequels and remakes. The effect that it had in the horror genre is still felt today and there is nothing that could ever change that. So, no, bad remakes shouldn’t ruin the original for you, but they should make you appreciate them more.

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