Looking Back at HALLOWEEN (2007): A Successful Resuscitation

The 1st of November is for us, Poles, a time of reflection, remembrance, and paying respect to loved ones who have already left this world. Americans, being who they are, turn the holiday of the dead (celebrated there on the 31st of October), Halloween, into a grand spectacle to which they attach religious ideology.

Going from house to house in costumes imitating all sorts of demons, apparitions, phantoms, and other monstrosities known to the world can be accepted – it is, after all, innocent fun. The situation becomes slightly more complicated when an individual breaks away from the procession and decides to use this extraordinary day to unleash his wildest urges.

Things become utterly unpleasant when this peculiar person gets rid of excess time by slicing up rats and massacring innocent animals… On that chilly October night, he takes a sharp kitchen knife, thinks about everyone who has hurt him and…

And thus a legend is born. One of the most distinctive figures of horror, an icon of the genre – Michael Myers. A psychopathic murderer who, shoulder to shoulder with the inhuman Jason Voorhees and the nightmarish Freddy Krueger, flooded cinema screens with blood at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s.

Created by a master of the genre – John Carpenter – he popularized a specific type of horror – the slasher. A film in which gore flows in streams, corpses fall thick, and the main character is far removed from normality.

After his birth in 1978, the monster lived to see an entire series of films telling his sick story. While the first attempts at continuation were kept at a genuinely decent level, the latest ones strayed significantly from the atmosphere of their cinematic ancestor. A total failure turned out to be Halloween: Resurrection from 2002, which simply brought the cinematic legend to its knees.

Fortunately, grabbed Mr. Myers by the hand someone who decided to help him rise again in full glory on the silver screen of the twenty-first century – Rob Zombie – the former vocalist of one of the most controversial bands of recent years – White Zombie.

Hated by Catholics, accused of promoting satanic content, the scandalist, fascinated since childhood with bloody slashers and B-class horrors, enabled the serial murderer to rise from his knees and appear anew in an upright position, what is more – with his head proudly raised.

The film can be divided into three chapters: youth, prison, return to the game. The first of them deserves particular praise. In an extremely refined way it presents the evil that is maturing in a young child who seems, at first glance, orderly and completely normal. We can observe a whole spectrum of behaviours which, in their peculiar way, foreshadow the coming tragedy.

This chapter is characterised by dynamism, impressionism, and a rather interesting selection of the soundtrack. Prison loses some points in comparison with the part preceding it. The action begins to slow down – it lulls our vigilance and suddenly explodes, pulling us out of our temporary lethargy.

From the perspective of the plot, the second chapter is the place of the complete formation, or rather degradation, of the psychopath’s mind. Return to the game already follows its own slasher decalogue. To illustrate, I will quote a few commandments – do not try to entertain yourself with a person of the opposite sex, because you will die first; bullets do not affect a psychopath who strides proudly with a sharp tool in his hand; a knife sinks into him as if into water – smoothly, without causing damage.

Following the decalogue gives you a good chance of surviving the massacre. The biggest flaw of the third chapter is the extraordinary lowering of the pace of action, even compared with Prison.

As befits the genre, Zombie’s Halloween abounds in scenes of nudity – of course involving young actresses who are portrayed as American high school students. Alongside the female shapes, the eye is pleased by hectolitres of blood, mutilated bodies, and residential interiors demolished with all sorts of torture tools. In short – the quintessence of slashers.

The film of the former heavy metal vocalist presents us once again with Michael Myers as we remember him from the Carpenter vision. The director performs a successful resuscitation of the horror legend, which for a long time remained in a state of clinical death.

Zombie’s Halloween is for people with strong nerves and no less strong stomachs – for a date, a family viewing, or calming one’s nerves, it is rather unsuitable (unless you get rid of excess time by slicing up rats and massacring innocent animals).