Taking Shape

by Dustin McNeill

  While inside his old home, Michael notices Laurie dropping off a key through the mail slot as a favor to her realtor father. Recognizing her as his baby sister, Michael stalks her throughout the day and into the night. Laurie’s Halloween plans involve babysitting two children while her friends engage in more carnal traditions. Meanwhile, Loomis travels to Haddonfield in order to team with Sheriff Brackett to locate and capture his escaped patient before any more lives are lost. Michael attacks Laurie’s gal pals and their boyfriends, leaving only the sheriff’s daughter clinging to life. He eventually confronts his baby sister, who flees in terror. Michael kills two cops who respond to the bloody chaos and is ultimately shot several times by Loomis. Overcoming these injuries, he crushes his former doctor’s skull and pursues Laurie back into the Myers house. Another scuffle ensues and they tumble off the second-story balcony onto the front lawn. Regaining consciousness, Laurie shoots Michael in the face with Loomis’ gun. Home movies of young Michael with his baby sister play throughout the credits.

  In retrospect, the basic story of Rob Zombie’s Halloween changed little throughout its development. The remake kept in place a three-act structure that encompassed Michael’s first murders, subsequent incarceration, and escape to Haddonfield to find Laurie. Tonally, the film is jarringly divided at the midsection between prequel and remake. Many would argue, including Zombie himself, that Halloween ‘07 is nowhere more successful than when it carves out its own path. Attempts to recreate moments from the original Halloween only leave the viewer drawing comparisons between the two, something that will never end well for the Zombie film.

  If judged against the original, Halloween ‘07 is a thorough disappointment. This is a remake that, by design, works hard to stand far apart from everything that’s come before it. Yet if judged as a Rob Zombie film, Halloween ‘07 is surprisingly good. The question you have to answer for yourself is whether or not you want to see Halloween as conceptually filtered through the grimy cinematic lens of Rob Zombie. It’s no easy task for Halloween’s deeply devoted fanbase to leave their expectations at the door, but that’s a requirement for enjoying the film. This director knows what you’re expecting and will seek to sidestep that at every turn.

  Critics have accused Zombie of not understanding what made Carpenter’s film work so well, but this is clearly untrue. If he didn’t understand it, he wouldn’t have been able to subvert it so thoroughly. These changes aren’t arbitrary but quite intentional. Where Carpenter turns left, Zombie turns right - all in an effort to make this Halloween his own, especially where Michael is concerned. Zombie does understand the concept of “The Shape” - he simply rejects it in favor of a more sympathetic portrayal of the slasher. For many, this new approach is hard to swallow. If Zombie is such a diehard fan of Carpenter’s Halloween, why does he so irreverently dismantle everything in it that worked? Because to do otherwise would be pointless, he would explain.

  Halloween ‘07’s reinvention of Michael Myers taps into the age-old debate of nature versus nurture. Was he born evil or was he made that way by some external force? In the original Halloween, Carpenter took every precaution to sidestep the nurture argument. That film’s Michael didn’t come from a broken home nor was he abused. His parents were seemingly upstanding and he lived in a nice house. There was no clear motive for him to kill his sister that fateful night in 1963. (For argument’s sake, we’ll exclude the Thorn curse for now.)

  Zombie’s Halloween, on the other hand, offers an abundance of motivating factors. Michael’s father is dead at the start of the film, leaving him without a positive male role model. This has financially strained the family, leading his mother to become a stripper to make ends meet. This is also presumably why she tolerates the disgusting behavior of her live-in boyfriend, who verbally and emotionally abuses Michael. His older sister also taunts and rejects him. At school, he is bullied by bigger kids and constantly in trouble. Zombie also imbues young Michael with all the tell-tale signs of a budding serial killer – torturing and murdering animals, keeping them as trophies, and documenting his handiwork.

  Did Michael’s homelife turn him into a killer? No, not entirely. This characterization isn’t quite that simple. But at the very least, Michael’s environment helped light the fuse to a bomb that was already inside him. As Dr. Loomis tells it, “Michael was created by a perfect alignment of interior and exterior factors gone violently wrong. A perfect storm, if you will. Thus creating a psychopath that knows no boundaries and has no boundaries.” This does result in a decidedly more humanized version of the character. Behind Michael’s mask is a broken and hurting child still longing for the family and acceptance he never had. This more sympathetic approach may be counter to Carpenter’s original, but it’s one Zombie stands firmly behind.

  “The mystique of the original Halloween has been trampled and flushed down the toilet by the seven shitty sequels that followed Carpenter’s movie. Michael Myers had no mystique left. It was just a stunt man [..] getting beat up by Busta Rhymes. I felt that giving him a back story and presenting him in a new way was a much more legitimate approach.”

  - Rob Zombie, NoiseCreep.com

  Zombie further throws subtlety to the wind by making Michael a hulking behemoth in the remake, towering well above the other characters at 6’8”. In Carpenter’s original, the Shape was both average-size and average-strength. In Halloween ‘07, adult Michael manages to break multiple sets of metal chains during his escape from Smith’s Grove, an arguably superhuman feat of strength. For many, this take on the character was too far removed from the original depiction. Even Carpenter himself spoke out against it while addressing an audience at the New York Film Academy. “I thought that [Rob Zombie] took away the mystique of the story by explaining too much about Michael Myers. I don’t care about that. He’s supposed to be a force of nature. He’s supposed to be almost supernatural. And he was too big. It wasn’t normal.”

  Halloween ‘07 is fascinating for being the first theatrical Halloween to take us inside Smith’s Grove during Michael’s incarceration there. We’re even allowed to see his therapy sessions with Dr. Loomis. It is heartbreaking to watch the doctor’s spirit slowly crumble as he is unable to connect with his patient in any meaningful way. As with Michael, there is a marked difference between this film’s Loomis and the original character. In the Carpenter film, Loomis looked upon Michael as pure evil, no longer sympathizing with or wanting to help him in any way. Malcolm McDowell’s Loomis is quite different. This version of the character never stops wanting to help Michael. His eventual resignation is but a sad concession of defeat. (“In a weird way, you’ve become like my best friend. That shows you how fucked up my life is. I’ve done all I possibly can for you. I’ve given you everything.”)

  In the Richard Curtis novelization of Carpenter’s Halloween, Michael is depicted as a frightful force to be reckoned with inside Smith’s Grove, feared by both staff and patients alike. Halloween ‘07 takes an entirely different approach to this part of the timeline. Instead, Michael becomes mute, keeps entirely to himself, and doesn’t hurt anyone until his escape. This gives the staff a false sense of security, which causes them to lower their guard – all despite Loomis’ assertions that he remains dangerous. Zombie has cited Will Sampson’s role as Chief Bromden from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as having inspired this part of his Halloween. In Cuckoo’s Nest, Sampson plays an electively mute giant in a psychiatric hospital. Many assume him to be deaf and dumb, though he is keenly aware and intelligent. This gross underestimation, coupled with his enormous strength, eventually allows him to escape the facility.

  Dr. Loomis’ ultimate failure to help Michael is a major theme running throughout Halloween ‘07. This is something Carpenter’s Loomis never alluded to feeling as he would argue his patient was beyond salvation. This film’s Michael is also beyond salvation, but that doesn’t stop McDowell’s Loomis from taking this failure personally. In this retelling, Loomis was a part of Michael’s story from the very start
. He was at the school on Halloween day pleading with Deborah Myers to have Michael psychologically evaluated. Loomis doesn’t give up on Michael that day nor in the years that follow. Even with his resignation, he still wants to help his patient. Consider the endings of both Halloween’s - they each see Loomis shooting Michael multiple times. Loomis ‘78 shoots to kill. Loomis ‘07, however, agonizes over each pull of the trigger, begging Michael to stop so that he won’t have to fire another round. Even in this horrible moment, he hasn’t given up on his patient. It’s an altogether interesting revision to the character.

  This Loomis is not without ego, however. Upon retiring from Smith’s Grove, he pens a sensationalized tell-all book about his most famous patient entitled The Devil’s Eyes: The Story of Michael Myers. (Recall that Donald Pleasence’s Loomis had also written a manuscript in Halloween 6 entitled Evil Incarnate: A Study of the Crimes and Pathology of Michael Myers.) The problem here is that Loomis has now achieved celebrity and wealth from being Michael’s doctor without ever having helped him. Loomis has instead helped himself. As Sid Haig’s cemetery caretaker says in the film, “Fucking blood money.”

  Zombie’s film depicts Smith’s Grove in an extremely unfavorable light. Michael’s nurse is apathetic and rude. The orderlies are degenerates who verbally, physically, and sexually abuse the patients. The administrators are woefully inept. The only ones to show any kindness to Michael are Loomis and Ismael Cruz, who has some experience being locked up. He encourages Michael not lose hope. (“You can’t let those walls get you down, Mikey. You gotta look beyond the walls, learn to live inside your head. There’s no walls that can stop you there.”)

  As with Loomis, Zombie presents a much richer characterization for Sheriff Brackett than in the original film. This version of the character has harbored a dark secret for many years. In responding to Deborah Myers’ suicide, a younger Brackett discovered Angel Myers abandoned in her crib. Not wanting the child to grow up with the stigma of her birth family, Brackett omitted her from his official report and dropped her off at an emergency room in a neighboring town. Three months later, she was adopted by the Strode family, which brought her back to Haddonfield. Having read The Devil’s Eyes, Brackett both dislikes and distrusts Loomis, whom he believes has capitalized on the blood and pain of an entire community.

  Halloween 07’s Laurie Strode is also updated from the original film. No longer the shy, virginal bookworm, this new Laurie is, as Rob Zombie sees it, much more of a typical teenage girl. Born Angel Myers, Laurie was given a new identity when adopted by the Strode family. Brackett’s confession would suggest than even the Strodes are unaware of their daughter’s true heritage. In the original Halloween, the Shape appeared intent on murdering Laurie from the start – with or without the sibling connection retroactively applied. In Halloween ‘07, Michael’s goal isn’t to kill her, at least not initially. Taking her to the basement of their former home, he shares an old family photo and removes his mask in an intensely vulnerable gesture. It would seem that what little humanity Michael still retains is crying out for that lost familial connection, which Laurie represents. Quickly reading the situation, she capitalizes on this moment by feigning empathy before stabbing him in an effort to get away.

  As on previous Halloween’s, Dimension had more than their share of heavy-handed suggestions on how to make the film better. Some of these were incredibly beneficial and helped reign in Zombie’s more depraved creative urges. Venting to Fangoria, the filmmaker expressed his dislike for taking cues from execs. “It wastes a lot of your time because you’re dealing with nonsense. That’s not to say that no one else can ever have a good idea, but it wasn’t really like that. It was like the notes were for a different movie.” The majority of these suggestions came from the Dimension side of production as producer Malek Akkad encouraged Zombie to make the film his own. A cursory glance at any version of the remake would suggest that the filmmaker enjoyed enormous creative freedom in re-envisioning Halloween for modern audiences.

  Regarding the remake’s development, we’re fortunate that there is ample material available to use in tracking the evolution of ideas. While Zombie has bemoaned such production leaks, they do allow us a unique if not unwelcome insight into his creative process.

  THE TREATMENT

  Our first glimpse into the remake arrives in the form of an embryonic treatment from early 2006. At thirty-eight page, this early pitch follows the same three-act format as the eventual film. Even so, there are many differences. Excessive violence, sexual delinquency, and adult Michael speaking are among the more controversial elements that failed to reach the big screen.

  The outline begins on the morning of October 31, 1978. Zombie introduces the Myers homestead as “white trash heaven.” The opening plays out similar to the final film – but far more graphically so. We find ten-year-old Michael Myers inside a blanket fort in his room. Wearing a clown mask, he is masturbating to a homemade scrapbook of pornography and animal torture photos. Judith walks in on this twisted scene and makes fun of him for it, calling him a “sick demented pervert.” Zombie writes that toddler Laurie Myers, affectionately nicknamed Boo by her older brother, is the “only truly normal member of the family.”

  Later on at school, students gather in the assembly hall for a festive treat – a screening of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. During the feature, two bullies show Michael a nude photo of his mother from the Rabbit in Red, which sparks a fight. The scuffle causes Michael’s scrapbook to fall out of his bookbag, landing him in big trouble. The school principal encourages Deborah Myers to contact Dr. Samuel Loomis for a psychiatric evaluation. She initially resists, but sobs upon seeing the scrapbook. As in the film, Michael runs away from school. This would’ve been the part where he murders one of the bullies, except that he doesn’t. He instead lures a nine-year-old girl deep into the woods, beats her to death, and urinates on her corpse. You can easily imagine a studio exec’s horrified reaction to such a depraved scene.

  Halloween night plays out a little differently as first envisioned here. Deborah is uncomfortable leaving Michael alone with Ronnie, so she drops him off at a school function that he immediately leaves. Michael heads home to murder Ronnie, Steve, and Judith. Deborah returns from work to find him sitting outside with Boo and, a short while later, the three bodies inside the house. Michael smiles from the backseat of a police cruiser as paramedics wheel out his victims on stretchers. He is soon committed to Smith’s Grove under the care of Dr. Loomis, who insists he be kept away from the other patients. The nursing staff fail to comply with this order, resulting in Michael attacking a patient who messes with his drawing in the art room. The treatment next features a long montage of Loomis trying to reach Michael and failing miserably.

  Zombie’s treatment then jumps ahead seventeen years to the Loomis household where we meet Ellen, the doctor’s wife. The couple discuss Sam’s upcoming retirement and also his guilt over having written several successful books on Michael despite having never actually helped him. He soon receives the alarming news that Smith’s Grove will be closing and Michael transferred to a minimum-security facility. On the hospital’s final night of operation, two drunk orderlies force a female patient into Michael’s room where the infamous rape escape sequence plays out. (More on that later.) Worth noting: The treatment doesn’t have Michael wearing the pumpkin mask as in the film, but one with the word “Boo” crudely scrawled across the forehead.

  While reviewing security footage the following day, hospital administrators observe Michael stealing a car outside the hospital and driving away. This detail’s inclusion is interesting since Zombie has publicly criticized Michael’s ability to drive in the original Halloween and later withheld such a moment in his own film. The treatment further strays by having Michael initially venture away from Haddonfield, not towards it. This leads authorities to dismiss Loomis’ theory that Michael will return home to find his younger sister. In actuality, Michael heads away from Haddonfield to find his moth
er, who now lives in a rundown trailer park. Having learned of Michael’s escape, she is waiting with a loaded gun when he bursts inside. The hulking slasher holds up a baby photo of Boo, whom Deborah says he’ll never find because she’s gone forever. Tears stream down Michael’s face as he angrily grunts Boo’s name. He turns to face his mother, who by now has placed the gun barrel in her mouth. She pulls the trigger, taking her life.

  Loomis connects with Sheriff Brackett upon arriving in Haddonfield. Together they discover a series of murdered dogs, all similarly hanged, en route to the Myers house. Brackett initially dismisses these as bad Halloween pranks, but is forced to buy into Loomis’ theory upon finding yet another animal corpse within the Myers house. The two men split up so that Brackett can look into Angel Myers’ adoption records and find her current location before Michael does. The remainder of the treatment plays out similar to the final film with Michael stalking Laurie and her two friends, eventually murdering the latter two and their boyfriends. One fun detail: Halloween ‘07 was originally set to feature a cameo by a character from House of 1,000 Corpses. Per this treatment, Tommy and Laurie would have been watching Dr. Wolfenstein’s televised Horrorthon throughout the night. (Recall that the fictional horror host appeared in the opening scene of House of 1,000 Corpses.)

  Michael eventually gets Laurie alone in the basement of their old home. He hands her a photo of them both as children, though she doesn’t yet understand its significance. Michael then takes off his mask and grunts Boo, frightening her. Laurie uses this opportunity to stab him in the neck and get away. She runs into Loomis while escaping the house, who shoots Michael several times. This sends him crashing down a staircase into the basement. Brackett soon arrives with backup, though his men are unable to find Michael’s body. A fearful Loomis gazes out upon Haddonfield’s quiet streets. The treatment’s final words: “Michael is gone.”