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Mel Mudkiper posted:Like, Dr. Loomis being superficial in the sequel could have been done as him basically being mentally and spiritually broken by his failure to reform Michael but instead he's just a selfish gloryhound this time for absolutely no reason. One nitpick I do have about both Zombie movies is that there's two cuts of each, but Loomis feels a little inconsistent across them no matter which two versions you watch. Like the Loomis of the theatrical Zombie Halloween 1 would never think to redeem himself or have some moment of clarity with his actions or whatever. And the Loomis of the director's cut of Zombie Halloween 1, I mean yeah surely he'd be effected by it but that guy wouldn't have slid so easily into being a crass bloodsucker like he is in 2.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:22
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I dont think I ever saw the theatrical cut so I am interested by the difference
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Apr 15, 2019 15:24
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Ironically Halloween is probably my favorite Rob Zombie film even though Halloween 2 is my absolute least favorite Why do you signal out "nerd" critics like it has anything to do with gatekeeping or something? It's a legitimate criticism. The premise of the original Halloween is that evil is random and can come from anywhere and can even be YOUR generic suburban kid; Zombie reinvented it as "evil is nurtured," which some don't find as interesting or frightening.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:27
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Neo Rasa posted:One nitpick I do have about both Zombie movies is that there's two cuts of each, but Loomis feels a little inconsistent across them no matter which two versions you watch. Like the Loomis of the theatrical Zombie Halloween 1 would never think to redeem himself or have some moment of clarity with his actions or whatever. And the Loomis of the director's cut of Zombie Halloween 1, I mean yeah surely he'd be effected by it but that guy wouldn't have slid so easily into being a crass bloodsucker like he is in 2. I saw the Director's Cut, but I think there's reason to believe that Loomis isn't necessarily supposed to be a fountain of truth like in the original series. In the John Carpenter film, Loomis is supposed to be the only one who truly understands that Michael is a force of unstoppable evil who must be killed ASAP. Zombie's remake makes it more ambiguous as to whether or not it would have been possible for Michael to be raised into something other than a killer, but Loomis continues to claim that he's just an inhuman monster who never could have been anything else. You could take the interpretation that Loomis was actually wrong and that Michael could have been fixed, but their efforts were too little too late. Michael ended up turned into a monster by an abusive family and inadequate care in the mental hospital, allowing Loomis to claim that he was right all along.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:30
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Darko posted:Why do you signal out "nerd" critics like it has anything to do with gatekeeping or something? A. Because "evil is random lol" is not as interesting as a premise. B. Because the only people I ever see honestly bring this up as a mark against the remake is angry youtube video reviewers M_Sinistrari posted:The showing Michael's life as a child is one of the few grumbles I had with the Rob Zombie version because I liked the idea that evil can just happen from the original and in the RZ version it felt like they were ticking off the list of indicators of a serial killer. It's one of the points I bring up with why the RZ films really should be looked at as thier own franchise rather than part of the main franchise. I mean, as I said before, if it were just "michael had a bad life so he is a serial killer" it wouldn't be interesting. What makes it interesting is that Halloween was a great icon of 70s era grime and nihilism, and the remake has Michael literally become a killer under those same social forces. Its literally saying the original Halloween is what made the new Halloween in a kind of clever way. Its a treatise on the film as a remake going "Hey, remember this stuff, it created the reason you are in the theater (the halloween franchise) so we also made it create the reason you are in the theater (Michael Myers, star of the Halloween series).
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Apr 15, 2019 15:35
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Darko posted:Why do you signal out "nerd" critics like it has anything to do with gatekeeping or something? Well "nerds" in this context meaning Halloween super-fans who felt Zombie should not have changed anything about the Michael character. If you didn't find what he did interesting or scary that's a different discussion, but there were people ragging on Zombie's version in a very similar way to how fans react when a beloved comic book superhero is portrayed non-traditionally. Honestly, as much as I will always love the original, the "evil is random and can come from anywhere" thing from Carpenter's film holds less and less water as the years go by and the rotten core of suburbia is more widely accepted and understood. I like Zombie's response to that, I mean his Michael still grows up in a relatively normal neighborhood and attends the kind of school that produces plenty of normal kids(and traumatizes others, just like irl). What is it about so called "normal" American life can create a monster like Michael? There's something not right, a sickness in the land, so to speak. The evil comes from nowhere, but also everywhere, it's all around us. Zombie's Michael I think is more relevant today than Carpenters.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:39
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the best rob zombie movie is actually TCM2
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Apr 15, 2019 15:43
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I dont think I ever saw the theatrical cut so I am interested by the difference I like the director's cut way more (even if it adds the way lengthier scene of those guard raping one of the partients) but there's some major changes though. The two biggest are that Loomis comes off as way colder in general, and most of the conversations he has with Michael where he could be seen as genuinely wanting to help him aren't there. But the entire climax is way different too, instead of Michael going through a final pursuit of Laurie and then Laurie killing him, Michael's killed by Loomis appealing to him and luring him into a bunch of cops who gun him down. Basebf555 posted:Honestly, as much as I will always love the original, the "evil is random and can come from anywhere" thing from Carpenter's film holds less and less water as the years go by and the rotten core of suburbia is more widely accepted and understood. I like Zombie's response to that, I mean his Michael still grows up in a relatively normal neighborhood and attends the kind of school that produces plenty of normal kids(and traumatizes others, just like irl). What is it about so called "normal" American life can create a monster like Michael? There's something not right, a sickness in the land, so to speak. The evil comes from nowhere, but also everywhere, it's all around us. Zombie's Michael I think is more relevant today than Carpenters. This.
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Apr 15, 2019 15:56
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https://twitter.com/el_zombo/status/1117657497177927680
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Apr 15, 2019 15:58
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Dracula's ability to command moths has been drastically underutilized in films
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Apr 15, 2019 16:11
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number 9 is some seriously existential poo poo
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Apr 15, 2019 16:12
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gey muckle mowser posted:Dracula's ability to command moths has been drastically underutilized in films I had no idea moths were mean, I always considered them to be night time butterflies
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Apr 15, 2019 16:12
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Basebf555 posted:Honestly, as much as I will always love the original, the "evil is random and can come from anywhere" thing from Carpenter's film holds less and less water as the years go by and the rotten core of suburbia is more widely accepted and understood. I like Zombie's response to that, I mean his Michael still grows up in a relatively normal neighborhood and attends the kind of school that produces plenty of normal kids(and traumatizes others, just like irl). What is it about so called "normal" American life can create a monster like Michael? There's something not right, a sickness in the land, so to speak. The evil comes from nowhere, but also everywhere, it's all around us. Zombie's Michael I think is more relevant today than Carpenters. Mel Mudkiper posted:A. Because "evil is random lol" is not as interesting as a premise. Where is the"lol" coming from? In real life, evil is pretty random and unpredictable more often than not. I personally see the remake's vision as a just-world kind of safety net. Basically, "I don't abuse my child, so I can look at this from a detached, safe, vantage point" as opposed to the uncomfortable thought of considering that even if you do everything "right," your kid could still end up becoming a monster in some kind of way. The latter has disturbing, hit close to home truths that a lot of people don't want to consider (and thus the effective horror of it), the former doesn't have that same kind of impact.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:13
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Darko posted:In real life, evil is pretty random and unpredictable more often than not. in real life there is no evil
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Apr 15, 2019 16:13
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Mel Mudkiper posted:in real life there is no evil Okay captain semantics, you understand the premise.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:15
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Against my better judgment and all common sense given how bad everything from him (especially 31, jesus christ) aside from House of 1000 Corpses and most of Devils Rejects was, I'm still kinda interested in 3 From Hell
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Apr 15, 2019 16:16
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Halloween 2 is an ethical and aesthetic abomination I wouldn't go that far, but I have no idea why people trip over themselves ITT to praise it constantly. I thought Rob Zombie's Halloween movies were perfectly serviceable, average horror movies. They're not even in the same league as the good Halloween movies from Carpenter/Hill or Green (or Wallace, Halloween III is good too). Chris James 2 posted:Against my better judgment and all common sense given how bad everything from him (especially 31, jesus christ) aside from House of 1000 Corpses and most of Devils Rejects was, I'm still kinda interested in 3 From Hell As much as he's tried to branch out and do other stuff, the Fireflys remain his most compelling creation so yeah, right there with ya. I didn't even hate Lords of Salem or 31 but man, were they nowhere near as good as Devil's Rejects or even House of 1000 Corpses.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:18
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Darko posted:Okay captain semantics, you understand the premise. I mean that is kind of my point Michael Myers as this inexplicable engine of malice isn't interesting or frightening to me because he is so obviously a product of fiction. Humanizing him makes him scarier because he becomes authentic.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:18
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King Vidiot posted:I wouldn't go that far, but I have no idea why people trip over themselves ITT to praise it constantly. I thought Rob Zombie's Halloween movies were perfectly serviceable, average horror movies. They're not even in the same league as the good Halloween movies from Carpenter/Hill or Green (or Wallace, Halloween III is good too). As I said before, I find the way it treats trauma to be both inauthentic and disrespectful. To add to that, it is ugly in its misanthropy to a level that sucks all sense of pleasure. It is ugly and hateful in a way that is fundamentally irredeemable as art.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:20
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I mean that is kind of my point He was already "humanized." Some humans are just utterly devoid of empathy and will hurt and destroy everything around them, and there's no easy instruction manual style "cause" that you can point to, to prevent that from happening. The boogeyman does exist, they're all around us.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:22
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Darko posted:The boogeyman does exist, they're all around us. I disagree EDIT: saying "there are just evil people" is a way for society to collectively absolve itself of its own failings imho
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Apr 15, 2019 16:24
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I've always felt that Zombie's choice to flesh out Michael's home life was less about trying to understand him and more about underscoring how impossible that is. I think it's important that the scene just before Michael starts his killing spree is just him sitting at the kitchen table, going through his candy. There's no inciting incident, nothing externally that causes him to snap. One second he's flicking candy corn across the table, the next he's slashing his stepfather's throat. He could have just as easily eaten his candy, watched TV and gone to bed. Zombie makes the choice not to give us a sign that some switch has been flipped. He's a messed-up kid, but not in a unique way. I think Zombie wants to say that there are potentially thousands of Michaels out there, just waiting for some imperceptible signal that may or may not ever be given.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:26
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Mel Mudkiper posted:As I said before, I find the way it treats trauma to be both inauthentic and disrespectful. To add to that, it is ugly in its misanthropy to a level that sucks all sense of pleasure. It is ugly and hateful in a way that is fundamentally irredeemable as art. What on earth are you talking about.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:27
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I can never take Halloween 2 (rob zombie) seriously when we are told Laurie became so traumatized she turned into a fan of KISS and other bands Rob Zombie liked as a teenager TBF I would have to be deeply traumatized to listen to KISS.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:28
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Darko posted:Where is the"lol" coming from? In real life, evil is pretty random and unpredictable more often than not. I personally see the remake's vision as a just-world kind of safety net. Basically, "I don't abuse my child, so I can look at this from a detached, safe, vantage point" as opposed to the uncomfortable thought of considering that even if you do everything "right," your kid could still end up becoming a monster in some kind of way. The latter has disturbing, hit close to home truths that a lot of people don't want to consider (and thus the effective horror of it), the former doesn't have that same kind of impact. That was my point though, the idea of doing everything "right"(notice how you even felt the need to put that in quotes) just because you bought a house in a suburb with green lawns and quiet streets is a fallacy, one that has been more and more exposed since 1978. So it's a premise that in and of itself doesn't work nearly as well as it did when Carpenter made the film. Zombie's version looks at it from a different perspective; we know monsters like Michael are made, not born Evil but cancer is metastasized in American life to the point that you can't point at one single factor and say "this is how we could've prevented the monster from being created". Michael's home life is bad, but does that really explain on it's own why he turned out the way he did? I'd argue no, there's still just as much mystery in Michael in Zombie's version it's just a more relevant mystery than what Carpenter's presents. Splint Chesthair posted:I've always felt that Zombie's choice to flesh out Michael's home life was less about trying to understand him and more about underscoring how impossible that is. I think it's important that the scene just before Michael starts his killing spree is just him sitting at the kitchen table, going through his candy. There's no inciting incident, nothing externally that causes him to snap. One second he's flicking candy corn across the table, the next he's slashing his stepfather's throat. He could have just as easily eaten his candy, watched TV and gone to bed. Zombie makes the choice not to give us a sign that some switch has been flipped. He's a messed-up kid, but not in a unique way. I think Zombie wants to say that there are potentially thousands of Michaels out there, just waiting for some imperceptible signal that may or may not ever be given. Yea, agreed 100% Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 16:34 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:29
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Basebf555 posted:Zombie's version looks at it from a different perspective; we know monsters like Michael are made, not born Evil but cancer is metastasized in American life to the point that you can't point at one single factor and say "this is how we could've prevented the monster from being created". Michael's home life is bad, but does that really explain on it's own why he turned out the way he did? I'd argue no, there's still just as much mystery in Michael in Zombie's version it's just a more relevant mystery than what Carpenter's presents. Yeah, its like the 70s were the womb of this Michael. The same sense of social angst that made the first film popular is also what creates him.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:32
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Basebf555 posted:Zombie's version looks at it from a different perspective; we know monsters like Michael are made, not born Evil but cancer is metastasized in American life to the point that you can't point at one single factor and say "this is how we could've prevented the monster from being created". Michael's home life is bad, but does that really explain on it's own why he turned out the way he did? I'd argue no, there's still just as much mystery in Michael in Zombie's version it's just a more relevant mystery than what Carpenter's presents. I also like this because as you say, Michael's home life is terrible but there isn't single I AM NOW MICHAEL MEYERS incident that changes him, just cultural inertia. To that end you could say Loomis' failure to fix him is inevitable because Loomis just by being part of the system cannot help him. But I would take this further and say that going by the movie Evil isn't a cancer that's metastasized into American suburbia, but rather that Evil is actively and enthusiastically nourished by it whether people think they are intentionally doing so or not. Even in his home life, his dad's rear end in a top hat behavior is all built around the maintaining a veneer of normalcy in a home where he realizes he's a useless drunk and his wife is the breadwinner. Her being a stripper makes her a lesser person to a lot of folks in the movie but the strip joint also successfully makes more money around Halloween by advertising that this was where she stripped at as seen in Halloween II. All of the Evil in Zombie's Halloween movies are based on that empty, dead eyed lack of empathy for our fellow humans' troubles, and how so many in the suburbs only "care" about a thing or a person in terms of how good of bad it makes them look to their peers. It's like the whole facade of cheerful normal suburban life shown in Carpenter's original is pulled back in Zombie's remakes and revealed to be little more than a ma-  Hmm... Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:38
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I disagree It's not. Yes, there are a lot of causes, but sometimes there aren't. Most horror explores some type of cause/effect, Halloween was more unique because it didn't. Even stuff like The Bad Seed created some kind of "reason" for it.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:38
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Basebf555 posted:we know monsters like Michael are made, not born Evil Not necessarily. Some just are. Kids are basically born sociopathic (I know that's not a true diagnosis any more) and have to learn empathy. A lot of people never truly learn this and destroy people callously throughout their lives. Darko fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:39
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Darko posted:Not necessarily. Some just are. Darko posted:It's not. Yes, there are a lot of causes, but sometimes there aren't. gonna have to give some examples if you are gonna keep pushing this point
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Apr 15, 2019 16:40
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Mel Mudkiper posted:gonna have to give some examples if you are gonna keep pushing this point CEOs. If you want to go serial killers only, Ted Bundy. Darko fucked around with this message at 16:44 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:42
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Darko posted:CEOs. I have trouble thinking of how CEOs are not an example of poisonous social corruption Like, CEOs are the product of a capitalist system that rewards exploitation, not a malevolent spirit coming from hell.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:44
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Mel Mudkiper posted:number 9 is some seriously existential poo poo Power 13 also.
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Apr 15, 2019 16:46
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Darko posted:Not necessarily. Some just are. Kids are basically born sociopathic (I know that's not a true diagnosis any more) and have to learn empathy. A lot of people never truly learn this and destroy people callously throughout their lives. I disagree. But I'm not going to act like's some cut and dry issue that everyone agrees on. I come from a background though that makes it very very tough for me to accept that premise(mother worked in mental health her whole career, and I worked for several years at an outpatient facility for the mentally ill). For me the idea that Zombie presents feels more genuine, and thus scarier, than Carpenters. To be clear though, the original film is way ahead of Zombie's in a bunch of areas that make it clearly superior, so don't think this is a takedown of Carpenter. Carpenter is my all-time favorite director. Darko posted:If you want to go serial killers only, Ted Bundy. Bundy had an intense resentment for his mother(he was ashamed of having been born out of wedlock)built up over the course of years, that seems to have been a major factor in causing his violent behavior. He wasn't really very mysterious at all. Basebf555 fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:48
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Basebf555 posted:I disagree. But I'm not going to act like's some cut and dry issue that everyone agrees on. I come from a background though that makes it very very tough for me to accept that premise(mother worked in mental health her whole career, and I worked for several years at an outpatient facility for the mentally ill). For me the idea that Zombie presents feels more genuine, and thus scarier, than Carpenters. 
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Apr 15, 2019 16:49
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Basebf555 posted:I disagree. But I'm not going to act like's some cut and dry issue that everyone agrees on. I come from a background though that makes it very very tough for me to accept that premise(mother worked in mental health her whole career, and I worked for several years at an outpatient facility for the mentally ill). For me the idea that Zombie presents feels more genuine, and thus scarier, than Carpenters. I've spent a lot of time around the mentally ill and mental hospitals as well, as my mother is schizophrenic and I grew up with her being often hospitalized. Carpenter Myers wasn't mentally ill in that sense, he was a representation of humanity's darkness (that appears throughout the whole of human history). You might not personally know an actual serial killer, but you know someone that would lie and cheat someone, even if they know it would hurt that person deeply, and not care at all about it as long as they get what they want at the time, for example. And there's often no "why," they just, for whatever reason, never developed the empathy needed to not be that type of person. Myers is that black hole, only taken to the extent of murder. Zombie's is something different; a person that was shaped by the world around them (mostly via neglect) to be what he is, which is not necessarily better or worse, but it is easy to see why some people see the former as scarier than the latter (because the former can never be effectively fixed and is thus a more frightening reminder of reality). Darko fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Apr 15, 2019 |
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Apr 15, 2019 16:56
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Basebf555 posted:Bundy had an intense resentment for his mother(he was ashamed of having been born out of wedlock)built up over the course of years, that seems to have been a major factor in causing his violent behavior. He wasn't really very mysterious at all. Millions of people are born out of wedlock and don't become rapists and murderers. That's not really a "cause."
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Apr 15, 2019 16:57
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Darko posted:I've spent a lot of time around the mentally ill and mental hospitals as well, as my mother is schizophrenic and I grew up with her being often hospitalized. Carpenter Myers wasn't mentally ill in that sense, he was a representation of humanity's darkness (that appears throughout the whole of human history). You might not personally know an actual serial killer, but you know someone that would lie and cheat someone, even if they know it would hurt that person deeply, and not care at all about it as long as they get what they want at the time, for example. And there's often no "why," they just, for whatever reason, never developed the empathy needed to not be that type of person. Myers is that black hole, only taken to the extent of murder. Darko posted:Millions of people are born out of wedlock and don't become rapists and murderers. That's not really a "cause." You seem to be isolating the two when they are the same thing. Mental illness (of which sociopathy is a type) is not, in isolation, enough. Your environment, at the same time, is also not enough. Both are necessary at some level to create "evil" (I still disagree with this word) The problem is that Michael doesn't even exist on this scale in the original. He is neither a result of internal or external forces. He simply "is". And while this makes him more iconic, it also makes him less plausible.
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Apr 15, 2019 17:00
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Darko posted:Millions of people are born out of wedlock and don't become rapists and murderers. That's not really a "cause." Exactly the point. It was a confluence of things, most obviously expressed by his resentment towards his mother, but the dynamic is too complex to really put your finger on it. But that doesn't mean he was born Evil, he was shaped by societal forces that are not as simple as all that. That's scary. In the case of Bundy, he grew up in a time when being born out of wedlock had a stigma attached to it, moreso than today. That's one factor that, if you changed it, could've made a difference in Bundy's life. But we'll never know.
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Apr 15, 2019 17:03
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Darko posted:Millions of people are born out of wedlock and don't become rapists and murderers. That's not really a "cause." No, but I don't know of a single serial killer who had Carpenter's depiction of Michael Myers as their childhood: someone with a perfectly normal family and childhood who just decided that they wanted to start killing people and putting their bodies on display. Bundy had more than just resentment of his family. He was raised as if his mother was really his older sister and that his grandparents were his parents, with his grandfather being a virulent racist who killed animals, regularly beat his family, and spoke to hallucinations. That environment likely aggravated any mental illnesses Bundy was born with.
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Apr 15, 2019 17:12
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