Rob Zombie is about to rape my childhood...

All during the past year, during the "prehype" for the Transformers movie, I kept hearing the same thing. "Michael Bay is going to rape my childhood." I first saw this in reference to the re-release of the Star Wars Trilogy, when people claimed that George Lucas' changes raped their childhood. I always sort of chuckled when hearing this. But now, obviously, I've used it.

And I believe it.

When I first heard that Halloween would be "remade," I was cautiously optimistic. Especially since Rob Zombie was involved. Schlock horror seems to be his way, based off House of 1000 Corpses, and The Devils Rejects. But when I heard Malcolm McDowell was cast as Dr. Sam Loomis, I got very optimistic. That's awesome casting.

Then the caca hit the revolving cooling device.

Script treatments were released. These have been subsequently validated and confirmed. Rob Zombie screwed the pooch. His "re-imagining" of the concept behind Halloween fundamentally changes, and essentially makes his film a crap copy, not unlike several dozen slasher flicks from the 80s.

Let me break it down. Rob Zombie has given Michael Myers reason. He gives him a tortured childhood. A back story. A reason to be pyscho-sociopathic. He hurts people because he wants others to feel his pain. Hell, HE TALKS.

This is wrong. Period. Michael Myers has no reason. In fact, let me quote the original film.

Dr. Loomis: I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes.

I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply...evil.

Michael Myers is indicative of higher evil. In the original movie he's not even credited as Michael Myers. He's "the Shape." I highly doubt John Carpenter made that decision on a whim. The ending of the movie is also a sign. After they look down to where he fell, there are numerous shots of places Myers has been...he's everywhere, and nowhere. The boogeyman.

The final straw was a new TV commercial I saw today, where Loomis is right in front of Myers and says "I failed you, Michael." One, this is lifted pretty much directly from Revenge of the Sith. Secondly...Loomis would NEVER have said this. Loomis never felt he failed Michael Myers. He felt he failed humanity by allowing Myers to rampage! When he is introduced in the original, he's fetching Michael for his adult hearing, getting ready to dope him up with enough thorazine so that he could barely stand ("that's the point," he tells the nurse), and get him locked up forever. When he escapes, he becomes the white whale, and Loomis doesn't track him down to reason with him, he tracks him down to kill him. Why? BECAUSE THERE'S NO REASONING WITH HIM.

Ugh. Halloween is one of my favorite films of all time. It was made with very little money, it helped create a genre (unfortunately populated by many many inferior movies), and if you actually watch it with unfettered eyes (meaning watching it thinking this was the late 70s and the 80s hadn't beaten the slasher picture to death, no pun intended) you can see not only how good the movie is, but how influential it actually was.

I am vehemently boycotting this movie. I may eventually watch it when it hits cable, just to see how bad he screwed it up, but I won't actively pay money for it. In fact, I told Jessie I'm thinking about getting the original on DVD finally (I have it on VHS and I have a thing about getting duplicate copies of things...personal stupid quirk) and watching it Friday as my way of protesting.