Episode 70: Remake Reframe - Halloween (1978 & 2007)

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Hello, Internet, and welcome to Nobodies, the horror content podcast where we clean up the ugly things so you don't have to. Our bi-weekly show features two hosts and rotating guest content experts. Tackling the nitty-gritty complex horror topics with the hope of making the genre more approachable for frequent flyers and newbies alike.

The goal of this show is to highlight diverse voices and perspectives in horror. This is your reminder that there may be discourse on this show that will challenge the way you look at the genre. So let's get ready to get ugly. Happy Halloween from nobodies. I'm the ghost with the blog, Lonely, and I'm joined by my co-host and partner in crime. I'm Susie, a.k.a. Projectile Varmint, a.k.a. Lonely Sidekick. I thought, well...

Partner in crime sounds better than sidekick. I wouldn't say you're my sidekick. Okay, I guess I'm your partner in crime, but it's Halloween. It's the season of the witch. It's our season. Well, you're the witch, but I love Halloween. Are you doing anything spooky this Halloween? So... Yes, sort of. So listeners, as you're listening to this, I will be in Las Vegas for my...

Best friend Bree's wedding. So Bree's getting married in Vegas and Dan and I are flying out to Vegas. So we're actually flying out on Halloween. So getting out of Logan on Halloween is going to be an adventure. But Dan and I are going to a costume.

cocktail party for brie's wedding and that'll be our fun time we've never been to vegas so i can't think of a better place other than salem to celebrate halloween so that's what we will be doing but what about you well first before me Are you allowed to wear costumes? on on the plane like when you're going through and all that i thought you were gonna i thought you were gonna say in the casino i'm like yeah the casino is fine just don't wear a mask i don't think you can wear

You can't wear a mask or a hat or anything. Or face paint, I think, getting on a plane. Can you change into it after you go through security or just no? You have to be normal. Well, normal in quotes. I think, you know what, that's a great question. I think after you get through security, it's probably lessened, like, what you can do. But we are not wearing costumes on the plane. We are doing a couple's costume. Ooh, what's your costume?

So we're being Yogi Bear and the ranch, the rancher, the ranger. But Dan is not being the bear. I'm being the bear. Oh, okay. All right. My daughter. wants to be Wednesday, Adams. And I was like, oh, we could do a whole Wednesday costume. But then I tried to convince my littlest daughter to be Cousin It.

And she was not having it. So I was like up to 50 bucks. I was like, I will give you 50 bucks if your cousin it. And she's like, no, I want to be a pterodactyl. So we're going to go as like part of the Adams family with a pterodactyl. I think that's on brand. I think that fits exactly what the Addams Family would have.

Tonight we are reviewing the film that is the reason for the season. We are reviewing the Halloween. Yes, that one. Welcome back to Remake Reframe and in this series we will be comparing recent remakes. I guess these are recent remakes.

to either their near or distant predecessors and we'll be thinking about how the original holds up over time comparing the two films and ultimately deciding what is the better version and what better way to close out our 2025 October recording schedule than by featuring arguably the most famous horror franchise of all time, Halloween.

And we'll be talking specifically about the Halloween 1978 and Halloween 2007 because there is a very long convoluted timeline ahead of us. But we will get to that in just a moment.

So if you're listening to us and you're a constant listener, I'm hoping you like spooky things. So you're probably familiar with John Carpenter's classic horror film, Halloween. It is an iconic franchise. Michael Myers were not the first examples of the slasher in the subgenre, many do consider this franchise to be the media that popularized the subgenre of the slasher trope and many other horror tropes we know today.

So the entire Halloween franchise, including all its sequels, remakes, and reboots, have grossed over $844 million at the box office worldwide. Specifically in the U.S., the franchise is ranked as the top... burning horror franchise of all time. I wonder if that's going to hold true with all of these franchises that are coming out like now. Like the Smile franchise and the Terrifier franchise. Let's see if Halloween holds up.

But despite the massive commercial presence of the franchise today, the first film was a relatively modest production. The budget was around $325,000, with most of the funds being provided up front by Mustafa Akkad. Small budget forced wardrobe and props to be purchased inexpensively. The iconic Michael Myers mask was created by altering a $1.98 William Shatner mask from the Star Trek costume.

Under the tight budget, the crew was limited to the locations and timelines, which you can definitely notice in the film. The original film was filmed in 21 days.

The film had very little advertising and relied on word of mouth upon its release. Halloween is often credited in cementing several horror tropes, including the final girl trope with Laurie Strode, famously played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and the anti-sex trope in which characters who are promiscuous are often killed off first, and the killer's POV trope that shows the audience the key plot points and kills through the eyes of the main villain.

So seven Halloween films were released between the original and the first official remake. The multiple installments and their overlapping timelines and continuities are often one of the biggest critiques of the franchise. I was telling Susie before we got on the mic that I actually...

had to re-research all of these films and the plots to try to remember where the films go between one another and as a reminder because we're dealing with so many different films especially when it comes to halloween and there's several reboots a remake is a new version of a single existing film

updating the story for a modern or different audience. This is different from a reboot, which is a restart of the entire franchise, erasing the continuity and beginning a new story with a potentially different interpretation of characters and events. For example, Halloween 2018 is a reboot because that story picks up immediately following the storyline of Halloween 1978 and erases all of the plot points that are gathered in Halloween 2, 3,

6, 7, and 8. Halloween 2007 serves as the only official remake to date and is famously divisive in the horror community. On its opening day, Halloween 2007 surpassed the opening weekend ticket sales for Halloween 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. And it would outgross 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 in overall ticket sales by the end of its theatrical run. The 2007 film is directed by Rob Zombie and serves as both an origin story and a remake, which allowed Zombie to focus on

on more original content rather than a frame-by-frame remake of the original. Zombie fully intended to expand Michael as a character considering everything from where the mask came from to his personality and why he was driven to kill. Zombie retained other elements including the theme song, the filming location, and the adapted mask in this version actually had very little changes from the original.

However, one of the biggest changes to the universe comes with the character of Laurie Strode in the 2007 version. Spoiler alert. It's literally revealed in the first 20 minutes, but Zombie introduces Laurie as Michael's little sister much earlier on than the original franchise, rather than a bystander. And that plays a role in how the events of the... actual titular halloween murders play out but whether or not lori and michael are siblings changes between timelines stick with me here

For example, there are siblings in Halloween 2 through 5, and then this is erased in H2O and in Halloween 2018, but it is included in the two Rob Zombie remakes. So confusing. yeah crazy confusing there's actually so many like like org charts of where the story goes it's like so ridiculous despite the commercial success of the film

The Rob Zombie remake is generally negatively reviewed both critically and in the horror communities. Many felt at the time that the enhanced violence was tasteless. Can you believe that? This is like so tame compared to any horror film. Compared to all of Rob Zombie's other movies. I know people thought that this in some, I was like reading some articles and they like attributed it to being too close to 9-11, but this was like six years after 9-11, but whatever.

And they felt that the origin story demystified the character of Michael Myers. The divide in the horror community widened on the film when Carpenter shed light on the creation of the 2007 film while on a press tour for the Halloween film in 2018. Though zombie consultant Carpenter on the production of the remake.

Carpenter would go on to say that he disagreed with Rob Zombie's portrayal of Michael saying, I thought he 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 supernatural. We'll discuss that later.

Yeah, the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween does beg a really interesting question, especially in horror. And that is, is there any value in horror origin stories? Many are often panned by critics. So are there any that are actually done well? and should they even be made? So what do you think, Susie? What are your thoughts on horror origin stories?

I think if you're going to do a horror origin story, it should just be about the origin, and you shouldn't take it back into the original movie and try and reboot or remake that. So if Rob Zombie had just created an origin story... about how michael became the way he was then that maybe would have appeased i don't know john carpenter a little bit i don't think it would have been a very good story but i don't think orange

orange i don't think origin stories need to go from point a all the way to point z just give us that origin that's why it's an origin story what about you So I'm really torn on this because I can't think of many horror origin stories that are done particularly well.

These are usually where we get like prequels and stuff like that. And usually by the time someone's doing a prequel, they're already like significantly, there's some depth into the franchise. Like usually this is the third or fourth film. By then, I feel like the content just becomes so washed out. Like, could you imagine if Terrifier went back and did an origin story now?

Well, that franchise sucks anyways, so I don't want to know where that came from. But there are some that did it well. Like, I love Prometheus. I know that's a divisive film and a lot of people don't like it, but I think that is an amazing origin story right there. Don't go into the whole alien side plot. They just like brush on it on the very end. Two that come to mind for me that I think were especially flop floppy. So Leatherface.

that was the one that was made made like in 2016 maybe i remember that film barely had a theatrical release it ended up in the walmart dollar bin real fast and then the other one that stands out to me is the nun and all of the associated nun like it was

I feel like The Nun did really well in theaters. I don't have the stats off the top of my head, obviously, but I feel like The Nun did really well in theaters because everyone was dying to go see it because of The Conjuring. And they're all disappointed. it's not a good film and then the fact that there's a nun too is like it is not a good film and

Then that's the other thing I'll say about origin stories, that if you're going to do an origin story, you have to bring something substantial to the original content. You have to say something that hasn't already been said.

One that I think is good that's coming back to my memory now is called The Dawn. I don't know if you've ever seen it, Susie, but it's about a convent and it's connected to Amityville horror. I won't... spoil the whole thing no but you like omen the omen origin right oh oh i just made myself look so dumb you're so right susie thank you for remembering that for me the first omen is a wonderful origin story that's all right that's what i'm here i'm here to contradict

um so to guide our conversation tonight we're gonna discuss our general thoughts on each film then go into some criteria for the original versus the remake for the original our criteria to consider will be do we think this was a film that even needed to be remade

Why or why not? How has it aged? Has it withstood the test of time? What is the one thing from the original you think would have been key to keep the same in the remake? And what is the one thing from the original you think would have been key to change in the remake so for the remake the criteria is going to be how true was the remake to the original for the better or the worse and items in the film that were kept the same or change that stood out for the better or worse and finally we'll do

discuss was it a successful remake. And then we'll decide which of the two films we like better. So we're going to go straight into it with Halloween 1978.

15 years after murdering his sister on Halloween night, 1963, Michael Myers escapes from a mental hospital and returns to the small town of Haddonfield, Illinois to kill again. So before we get into our opening thoughts, my husband keyed me into a little fact that originally all of the Halloween movies were supposed to be standalone movies. So that's why we have...

Halloween and then we have the second one where they kill off Michael and then the third was season of the witch But that wasn't that popular and accepted. So then they brought him back and decided like we're gonna continue the

the story rather than have each one of these films separate did you know that i feel like i did i didn't know they were all supposed to be separate but i did know that season of the witch was supposed to be not quite the end of the franchise but it was supposed to take a totally different route And Season of the Witch did not do well, so they had to go back to the bread and butter, what had been actually making money all along.

Yeah, yeah. And I feel like Season of the Witch was a kind of like the art house version of the Halloweens. But so in the original opening thoughts, I. So I always say I really love Rob Zombie's version of Halloween. And that is not to take away from the quality I think the original holds. But on the rewatch, I found it extremely boring. when we meet Michael and he starts, you know, chasing and stalking and slaying. And I just, I don't know how people can watch it every year. What about you?

So I agree completely. Actually, when I went up, like sat down to watch this, I told Dan, I'm like, oh, I'm going to be watching Halloween tonight. And he kind of looked at me and he's like, why are you watching that again? like you've seen that movie so many times and i was like oh well you know i want to watch it before i review it and he was just very confused why i felt i need to watch this movie multiple times and i think that's an accurate read on the film just in general

One thing that stood out to me on the rewatch, though, is that I never realized how strong the 70s aesthetic is on this film until I really sat down and looked at it this time. The clothes, the houses, the way people are talking. It is super 70s, and I think that stands out because what became of the slasher genre hit its heyday in the 80s. So I think when we look back at a lot of classic slashers, we think of the 80s grit.

And like glam and that sort of stuff, like big hair and screaming and boobs and blood. And that is not what we get in the original Halloween, which I think is interesting. Here's my problem. So it's got this really great 1970s aesthetic, but so Michael as a little boy kills his family and it's 1963. And then it's supposed to be 20 years later, even 15 years later.

that would be like almost the 80s so it didn't like in my brain i'm like wait it's not the 70s during the time we're seeing it so like that always just like i don't get it it's supposed to be the 80s but they didn't know what the 80s was going to look like so they made it the 70s i know that's such like a small little gripe so i agree

when it comes to the aesthetic. I mean, you're right, because technically, so 15 years after 1963 would take us to 1978, roughly, and technically it's an 80s cusp then, so we would expect to see more of the 80s aesthetic. I don't know a lot about... I just know the stereotypical version of the 80s, so I don't know how close it was at 1978. But I think this also brings the point about the film really gives arthouse.

it really is like an artistic film i would say because i'm thinking about the opening shot it's really iconic with the pumpkin and i love that shot and i also love how it came back in the the new version in 2000 or the 2018 version where they bring pumpkin back as kind of like the icon of the franchise so i don't know the original halloween is really pretty to look at

But I don't know if it has enough substance to hold up over time. On this rewatch, I was 40 minutes in and barely anything had happened at this point. Well, let's start off with the start of the movie.

you're talking about the pumpkin and we start off in this really interesting point of view of michael so the pov of the slasher became really popular in the 80s but i do think it started here and they did it in a super creative way by showing us

through the eyes of a mask so we don't see the whole screen we just see the little eye holes and therefore you don't see as much of the gore because you're just seeing like a little bit of it but you do see him kill his sister you see like a boob here a boob there and some blood But that was just a really creative way to start off. And then you see this amazing cinematography throughout.

the film like they have wraparound shots they have pull-out shots where they we do those with drones now they have shots where you're following characters walking for a really long time shots where you're looking you know through the car windows as the the girls are talking they they did everything but they didn't like do it over the top i think it all fit together as a really you know tight cinematography movie and the only thing i'll add on the opening shot

or I guess it's not the opening shot because the opening sequence of basically the kill, it does look super campy. by today's standards because you don't actually see the knife go into her it's just like you see the knife and then you see her and then you see the knife and then you see her and i think it's a really interesting little tidbit there because the gore that we see in this like it just amazes me that this is where the slasher started when we're talking

No, it's not that gory at all. Like we see blood and that's about it for this film. There is nudity, full frontal nudity, but there's no... There's no guts. There's no like blood splatter. There's barely anything in this when it comes to gore. But we are introduced to Lori very early on. My critique of the Halloween film is that they don't look like teenagers. Okay.

multiple times and I'm like okay how old is she supposed to be so I guess Laurie Strode in this version is supposed to be 17 and I'm like okay so you kind of get an older like older teenager but this is still not what teenagers look like but we looked this up we looked this up why this was the case and my husband was telling me that throughout time People that are portrayed in the 70s looked older when they were younger because life was harder.

that's that's what google told us and that they're coming from parents who had like a hard life and there wasn't as much access to in nutrition and vaccine medicine health care so that was the argument for why in the 70s people actually did look older apparently i mean sure i also think that's true i think the way i don't know what it is but i do think the way people have looked over time

Like if you look at people like from the 50s, we don't look like that anymore. We just don't. But I think the teenagers in this film look quite old. They definitely give college student. And I also thought about this multiple times. in this film and the remake they could have been college students and the message would have been the same would have worked better yeah like i just worked a little better who's babysitting on halloween night as a high schooler so

Did you babysit at all? Because I didn't babysit. I did, yes. Is this what you did? Yes. But I would have never done it on Halloween night. Like, no. But maybe they did in the 70s. So is that the only thing you didn't like about Lori was that she didn't really seem like a high schooler? i mean i also find as so jamie lee curtis is gorgeous in this i think the costuming is gorgeous i think laurie is a little bland i think i'm gonna get major hate for that

I feel like there are times when we almost see Lori's personality. She doesn't scream ever. She doesn't scream. She doesn't freak out. She's very like put together throughout the whole movie when it's like, girl. You should be scared right now. And I think maybe I made the mistake when I rewatched these. I watched the remake first. And as we'll get into, the lorries are very different.

in the both versions so maybe i was thinking too much about scout taylor compton as laurie strode as i was going into this film i think i don't know it's hard It almost feels sacrilegious, like having complaints about Halloween. But it loses rewatchability for lots of reasons. And I think Laurie... as a character is one of them she's just not as engaging i would feel as other final girls that we've come to see later on but

Regardless, we get the story that Lori is babysitting on Halloween night and Michael Myers has escaped. So let's talk a little bit about Michael Myers and the iconic Dr. Loomis. I think Dr. Loomis is one of the craziest fucking characters in all of horror. That man, no matter what version we're in, is wildly unaware and just batshit crazy. Like...

Talk about, like, if I had a psychiatrist that was that batshit crazy, like, that's a red flag. Like, if your psychiatrist is doing anything Dr. Loomis is doing, red flag. Get a new one. But my favorite plot hole... and the entire franchise is the fact that Michael Myers can drive.

how can he drive and he drives pretty well he just slow and there's one scene when michael myers is driving behind laurie strode and her friend and he's literally one car behind them and parks behind them on their street and they're not like whoa who's that guy behind us who's been following us for 30 blocks because all of a sudden it's day and turns to night so i'm like how long the fuck they've been driving for

Well, yeah, he's a good driver. They were the era of the serial killer. So maybe it was just a sign of the times. But he's a great driver and they make a little bit of a joke about it. One of the other doctors after he escapes is like. Wow, what do you mean he could drive a car? And Dr. Lewis was like, and he does it very well. Maybe someone was taking him on drive runs or something. Are we supposed to believe that he was the one who stole the car?

Yes, we are supposed to. So then question for you. So one of the opening sequences, after we're introduced with Lori and everything, we go to Dr. Loomis driving at night to the asylum with the nurse. And they pull up and they see that there's been... They've broken out. The patients have broken out. And the nurse is in the car and she sees someone climb onto the roof. Let me open the door and take a look. Yes, she proceeds to roll down the window.

Who's up there? Fuck it, 80. Like, what the heck? But I think, are we supposed to assume that's Michael? If... we are supposed to assume that michael's the one that stole the car first of all a that's very convenient that he was the one who got there and that wasn't much of like a tease because like we just see his hand i wanted a little bit more I don't know what. We see his little feet.

outside of the patient gown doing the little like he's like a little little rat going up the car i just think that's such a weird scene because it doesn't make a lot of sense like girlfriend's smoking a cigarette driving with a psychiatrist and then she has no wits about her and just rolls down the fucking window and then abandons the car when there's like 10 other

escapees out there she's like oh okay i'm gonna open the door and get out just drive away slam on the brakes throw michael off but michael because we're talking about mikey here the first time we see michael's full body my first thought was damn he is skinny and small and i was shocked at how

minuscule of a man he was compared to like what happens to him throughout the franchise and not even Halloween just like the regular Halloween franchise he just gets bigger and bigger and bulkier and this is like just like a regular man

which almost made it a little creepier for me. And I think that's what John Carpenter's original vision was, is that his presence, Michael Myers' presence, was supposed to be the thing that was scary about him, and not so much... like what he was because you kind of can't you don't expect him to be capable of doing that and i'm going to be the worst horror fan ever but he's not billed as michael myers in the first film isn't he billed as like the shadow yeah the shadow

something like that but yeah everyone's gonna be like oh my god look at these two they don't know anything but let's you want to get into some of these questions or are we still going on about Halloween

No, I think that's fine. I mean, the plot is he breaks out. Some girls have sex. He kills them. Naughty, naughty. And then that's it. Laurie Strode saves the day. Yeah, there's a lot of chasing with Dr. Loomis and then it ends and that's that. But so, yeah, let's get into the questions. Do you think we even needed to remake this film? i think this film has been remade in every other slasher that has come after it so no what about you i agree

And I think even looking... I don't even know if most of this franchise should have been made. I don't even think it needed additional storytelling after this. I think the... The story that it told was enough, and the farther it gets from the source material, the more convoluted it got. So I don't think it should have been remade at all. And about it aging, I think it aged as most movies from the time.

have aged they're a little harder to watch because they're longer it takes a long time to get into it there's not as much gore it's a simple plot but having it withstand the test of time i think it is a really well made movie It is solid from beginning to end. It does get a little boring but the characters are there. How has it aged for you? So I think I'm surprised looking at Halloween. And many people consider this to be in like their top films of all time.

horror films of all time they think that this is one of the best horror films of all time and though and i think people get it confused with the best and the most influential a film can be really influential and impactful on the genre and objectively not be an a-plus film like those two things don't have to be the same and that's all to say i agree with you i think as a 70s film it ages the best it can the pacing is very slow

The story is kind of bare bones, but it's sort of like the stone age of the slasher. Like this is where it all began. So you kind of have to keep your expectations there. I think there's a lot about the film that... that still has a lot of artistry to it you know the way the film is shot some of these um you know the production of the film has its weight even now but

I do think Halloween is overhyped. I do think the original is overhyped. I'm sorry. She said it. She's throwing punches. But is there one thing we'd keep from the original? For me, I wish they had kept Michael being... like a not a very big guy because it's almost scary the strength he has and what he can do being that like

You think like you could overtake him, but he always wins and until he doesn't. So I wish they had kept Michael the same. I'm also remembering, as you said, that he's not billed as the shadow. He's billed as the shape. Oh, that's right. Good thing we caught that. Losing points left and right. I know. Good thing we caught that because someone was going to call in and not be happy. But, you know, hearing that, I agree. I know I'm actually agreeing.

But surprisingly, we don't agree that often, but I agree that the aesthetic of what Michael Myers was originally supposed to be was that kind of like insidious. a bit like i don't know because then he gets bigger and it's like how the fuck did he get across the room and no one heard that possibly him right like he's so big how are you ever supposed to get away from that so i think the original costuming and the original goal of what Michael was supposed to be and not the XXL version.

And something now that we would change in the remake and for me, I think it took too long to get to the point where he was finally doing his thing and then that lasted too long. So I don't know how you'd change that because then you'd have like an hour long movie. But they just spent too much time in each section of this movie to bring us to beginning to end.

I agree. I think there's too much exposition for a film that doesn't have a lot of details trying to show us. Like, you're talking a lot, but we're not getting any... Like we're not, it's not adding to what's actually happening. So I would say like the exposition needs to be tightened up. Like if you're going to do a bare bones story, just like stick with it and keep it rolling and just roll with the punches. And I think we should get more Lori. I think Lori.

is the again the origins of the final girl i don't think she brings a lot to the table in terms of where she would stack up against the other final girls of the genre like i'm comparing her against the the main character from alien like You can't even put those two on the same category of final girls. And Nancy from Nightmare on Elm Street. I think Nancy is a great final girl.

yeah absolutely and i think about um you know i know the final girl has kind of been twisted in the in the newer narratives but um the girl from ready or not okay like yeah like that's there's a lot a lot to improve upon with lori oh we should do a final girls episode yes we should all right any closing thoughts on the original halloween after we just massacred the you know the darling of the genre um

No, let's make some more people angry and talk about Rob Zombie's Halloween now. It is time. It is officially time. So we have mentioned on the show many times. I actually think this might be the film that kind of spurred. the idea of doing remake reframe because we've always mentioned so susie and i don't like slashers kind of like as a baseline or they're not our favorite but we've always kind of mentioned that we like the 2007 rob zombie halloween

So, and I think that's where Remake Reframe kind of got its start. And I'm always very skeptical about reviewing classics on the show, but you all really like to hear them. So this is what we're doing. We're doing this for you. We're not doing it for us. But let's get into Halloween 2007, directed by Rob Zombie.

after being committed for 15 years michael myers now a grown man is still very dangerous and escapes from a mental institution and immediately returns to haddonfield to find his baby sister lori so that's where we see you know the baby sister lineage there is immediately established. There's no secret to it. Whereas in the original timeline, we don't find out they're related until Halloween 3 or 4.

But opening thoughts, I have such a love-hate with Rob Zombie. Rob Zombie could be counted on to do two things, always, all the time. Three, actually. One, put his wife in a movie. Two... commit to an aesthetic and do it very very well and three have sexually explicit creepy ass dialogue with old ugly men Like he can be counted on to do that at all times, but.

I want to address the aesthetic because I think this is honestly one of Rob Zombie's most cohesive films in terms of aesthetic. And you can tell, despite his poor humor, in my humble opinion, he loves this film. He really... cared about halloween and what he was doing to remake this because there's a lot of love into this film in my opinion the soundtrack is amazing i

think that because he's rob zombie he can he gets permission to use whatever he wants but this opens with god of thunder by from kiss and i love that song we also get don't fear the reaper which appears in the original by blue oyster cult What else do we get? There's a couple other great songs in this. It is an awesome list of songs, honestly, which it sets the stage right away that this is going to be a very different retelling of Halloween.

i don't know i really like this there are some weak points which i know we'll get into but i like this for the origin story i find it interesting i find it fucked up and i love this version of michael myers this is my favorite version of michael myers in the franchise oh that's gonna land like a lead balloon but what are your opening thoughts um so right away i agree with everything you said and right away i noticed how rob zombie

created this like really abrasive and confrontational mood the moment the story opens because you've got this family this we like a stepfather or maybe boyfriend of the mother an older sister who's like very mean to Michael and then a baby that's always crying and like everything was loud and dirty and gritty and right away you're

confronted with this idea of is Michael the way he is because of his home life and being bullied at school or is he the way he is because he's just a natural like psycho and I think Rob Zombie did a really good job making you question these things and if the mother had just been a little bit more firm with him or if the sister had been a little bit nicer or if the creepy boyfriend wasn't there would michael have turned out the way he was so i i love that

part of the origin story of Michael. But overall, I think this is a film that's a little too long and they needed to like chop it up a little bit for it to be a great film. But I do enjoy watching this version over the original. i said it i know we're like we're gonna be what do they call that when you get thrown out yeah well i wasn't thinking canceled what do they do to the amish you get like exiled And they send you away and they can't talk to you anymore and they make you...

everyone has to pretend you don't exist that's what they're gonna do to us but anyway let's talk about some of the major differences in this film and the portrayal of a couple of like the characters so obviously this is an origin story so the film film leads up as you mentioned susie with all the bad things happening to michael that eventually lead him to the the act of killing his sister and we get three kills yes we get three kills on the first night that

are not all in the original film, and they are hella gory, hella graphic, definitely not, again, not as bad as we later see from Zombie, or... any slasher really but i think it's a stark step away from the original because we see like we get blood splatters in this he like duct tapes the dad and slits his throat open he bashes the boyfriend with a baseball bat and then

I actually love the chase. I don't know if it's quite a chase, but when he's stabbing his sister and she's like running in the hallway, the camera work on that is really nice. I think... One of my notes is like, the blood looks great in this. I love the color of the blood. I hate when blood is like cherry red. It was a nice, nice little realistic blood color. But what did you think of those three opening kills? Do you think that the step away from the subtlety?

adds to kind of what Halloween is trying to do or do you think it subtracts from it well I think that we

We don't even see that much gore, though. You see him hitting the boyfriend with the baseball bat, but you're not actually seeing the bat make contact with his head. You're seeing the aftermath of it, and maybe it was because of when this came out and things just kept... upping the ante on gore but I didn't think it was actually that gory and the neck slit that was a little in your face but I was expecting Rob Zombie to go so much further but what got me the most in this opening sequence is

The fact that you have this little itty bitty Mikey wearing that oversized mask and it was. like this juxtaposition of like a young should be innocent child in this adult costume and he's doing something you could only imagine an adult would do so i thought that was clever i don't know if that was

that's what they were going for. But at the same time, it was still really silly to see him walking around with a mask that was almost as big as him. Yeah. Yeah. I think Rob Zombie struggles where like, I think my issue with Rob Zombie just overall is there are, he has moments of brilliance.

And then it's just so overtaken by so much that's lopsided and I'm not a fan of. And I'll get into some of the dialogue later. But I want to touch on Sherry Moon before we get into the time jump. So Sherry Moon... is gorgeous she's very pretty she's nice to look at she has not always done the best in her delivery of her characters but i think she does a really good

mom character in this i think she has never looked better she looks gorgeous in this film and i think she really sells it as this mother who wants the best for her child i think she did great in this what about you I 100% agree. Right from the beginning when we meet her and she's dealing with her asshole boyfriend and she turns to the kids and she makes fun of him being a silly mom. That's what we do. We try and lighten the situation.

by like making a joke and then when she has to go to the school to pick him up because he did something bad she's still like i love you michael like we can do better let's she's never you're right she encompasses the motherly figure pretty accurately given the circumstance she's in yeah and i give props to

you know sherry moon in that because there have been a lot of times like i think lords of salem is kind of one of the worst films i've ever seen so seeing her do well in the film was really refreshing so we she spends the first part of the film seeing michael in

the the mental hospital kind of and she visits him every week and kind of wants to see him get better ultimately there's an incident that indicates that he is not going to get better and that he does have this violence inside him and then she unfortunately kills herself leaving the baby As an orphan. Now we skip. We skip 15 years. And Michael. Breaks out again. But.

rob zombie was very firm he was quoted saying michael myers should not drive how would he learn how to drive so he does not drive out this time But we are introduced to the new version of Michael. And this version of Michael is played by Tyler Maine, who is a professional wrestler. And this Michael is massive.

This, like, it is almost overwhelming, like, how... big of a presence michael is in this and what's super funny the little tidbit i'll give you is that i've met tyler main my mom and i met him at one of the first connecticut horror fests like a million years ago and he is so quiet

like literally you can barely hear him talking like when he when he speaks like when you meet him which i don't think you'd expect when you see like the sheer amount of physicality that this role has so what do you think of the giant michael i know you like the more reasonably realistic version of Michael, but what do you think of this version?

This version made sense with making him so big, but still keeping him so childlike because he did grow up in a mental institution. His formidable years, he had no like... motherly influence so when we see this big michael and he is super huge and hulky he still is very childlike and moves childlike and there's one scene before he escapes when he has this relationship with this custodian and

the custodian's been raising him for 20 years not really raising him but talking to him through the wall and there's a scene when michael's escaping and the custodian like runs into him and it's like okay mikey let's get you back to your your your your your bed and you

think for a moment you're like Mike Michael's gonna spare this guy for some reason you come to actually like this custodian and nope Michael doesn't have any ounce of humanity and I'm just like we've seen the entire movie he kills him and you know I was like no Did that get you at all?

Well, I remember it's been a while since I rewatched this. So I'm like watching it with my father-in-law and I was like, Danny Trejo, what are you doing here? I like totally forgot. Like there's some iconic people in this film that I forget are in here. Like Daniel Harris is in this film and I forgot.

and it kind of makes you wonder like so many people hate on this fucking film but a lot of big names and horror were were in it so it couldn't have been that much of a failure in my humble opinion but yeah we see michael he is an absolute He is totally, like... absolutely destructive and he escapes the insane asylum and he is on a quest to find his sister his baby sister he has a photo of her that he's kept in his room all these years and he's going to go find her then we meet

Lori, this version of Lori is played by Scout Taylor Compton. It's so easy for me to remember that name because I know this is Ian's favorite version of Lori Strode and it always stands out to me because I remember him saying her name. So this Lori... is quite the character she is much younger than at least visibly younger, I would say. She looks more like a teenager. She looks like a child, in my opinion. She definitely looks 16 in this. She has her little glasses, and she's...

bubbly and quirky and you can tell she's kind of like a weird kid and I think this is a total left turn away from the original Laurie Strode. What do you think of this version of Laurie? I think I mentioned that maybe it was even when we were talking with Ian. I love this version of Laurie Strode because she seemed real. She had so much more emoting, so much more fear, so much more screaming, yelling, and just like... erratic behavior that jamie lee curtis didn't have and i remember

Scout Taylor Compton was really nervous about playing Laurie Strode. Cause she's like, I can't be like Jamie Lee Curtis. And I think Rob Zombie had told her like, you're not playing like. Scout Taylor Compson is not playing Jamie Lee Curtis playing Laurie Strode. You're playing Laurie Strode. And I think she knocked it out of the park. She was also like really annoying, which.

fit with how this character should be in the 90s made total sense for me yeah i think she for the character she's supposed to be like if we're looking for a teenager this is exactly she does a spot-on job

And I find her endearing, even though she's like annoying and quirky and weird. I find her the most... likable out of her friends um i think her friends have much to be desired both in writing and um acting but i think this is a great laurie strode and this is where i'll get into some of my gripes with the film so i think the sexual innuendo the outright sexual discussions some of the shots on this

are wildly inappropriate and in super bad taste because we know these are supposed to be high schoolers.

And I tried to look back in the catalog of my brain and think about how many other disgusting 80s slashers I've seen where there's been this much talk about sex or full frontal. And the only ones that could come to mind for me were like... college kids that had this much discussion but maybe I'm just misremembering maybe I'm just being a prude here but I think it's like disgusting that the friend is like talking about she's obviously an adult woman

playing a teenager but she's like talking about graphic sexual content and there's a couple shots of the women as they're being killed like there's an upskirt shot of um judith really early on that i also think is inappropriate i don't know am i the only one am i just being sensitive i think it was definitely more sexual but

We're comparing it to a movie made in the 70s, and this took place in the 90s, which I feel like that was my high school experience. I mean, like, that wasn't my high school experience, but, like, that was the high school experience for... i would say majority so maybe it's just me then i thought it was in bad taste and also knowing that like rob zombie is i wouldn't say rob zombie's a creepy old man but he isn't an older man and i just think it's a little strange that he had

like these teenage girls i don't know it just feels really fetishy to me and strange and i know in the concept of the slasher genre this is not that unusual but i do think it does not age well that's my biggest critique of it and there's some language in this like i think we got into this with um 31 when we talked about that a couple weeks ago there's language in this that like

he would have gotten blacklisted like putting this movie out like he uses the r slur in this like there's just it's just crazy work and i wonder but that's also the 90s like people use that word yeah i just be trying to like he could have played it safe and not done that but i feel like that was just every other word that anybody in the 90s said when i'm not saying that's right but if he's trying to stick to the times it makes sense

Well, let's talk about the ending because it's the biggest stray from the original. And then we'll talk about what we what we think is the more successful film. But we have our ending here. We have a long chase. There is a really one. And this is where I think this Laurie Strode is.

so interesting so danielle harris's character is like stabbed many many times but she doesn't die and she's her body is like dropped on the um the front step of Lori's house or where she's babysitting side note also think it's really interesting that Daniel Harris did full frontal nudity in this after she the last time she was in a Halloween movie was when she was a child

But whatever, you know, you do you with your life. But I just think it's interesting. And then there's a scene where Laurie is like crying over her body and it feels very genuine. I don't know. It just didn't feel it didn't feel stupid to me. But anyway.

you know laurie goes on this goose chase with michael there's she's in a crawl space she falls to the roof there's lots of stuff going on and then he gives her the photo of of them as children and she has no idea what he's trying to tell her and ultimately she tries to use this as a chance to get one up on him and escape and it doesn't pan out. What do you think of the reveal? Do you think that it's hokey with the photo? First of all, how would he know? How would he know that was her?

Did he just have this like brotherly connection that brought them together? Because she also found him by going to the house, the boogeyman house, his original house. And like, that's how he first picks up her scent. I don't know. So that just, but then I guess it goes along with the whole supernatural aspect of the genre and how they really wanted Michael to be like this supernatural character rather than this realistic version of a serial killer or slasher killer.

Yeah, and I actually, let's save the supernatural question for our closing thoughts, because now I had an original other question planned, but I think that one is a much better conversation. But let's wrap up. Rob Zombie's 2007 film. Do you think this was a successful remake of the film? Even though we don't think a remake was needed, do you think it was successful?

Okay, this is my thought with that. This movie should have ended at him escaping from the mental institution. And that whole first part of the movie could have been lengthened a little bit. And maybe him just finding...

Laurie Strode and then it ending and then maybe a sequel to it I think it was too long to have him spend so much time as a child and then moving to the mental institution for like 45 minutes and then moving to go find lori and then all the stalking and killing this movie was almost two hours long it was about a half hour longer than it should have been

I don't think I answered the question, but that's my thought. So I guess this has that in common with the original that it, again, even though we get more in this story with Rob Zombie because he purposely tried to add more stuff into it. It's still not enough to excuse such a long runtime. And I think what we feel about slashers is what many people feel about zombie films. Like, I think the formula...

gets boring and people have more or less patience for it depending on your preference like this is the comments that I'm making about a slasher film oh it's all the same thing like how many times can we watch the same thing over and over that's the same thing people say about zombie films and I'm a huge zombie fan people always say like

How many times can we watch somebody run and hide? How many different rooms do we get to hide in from zombies before the film is over? And I guess that is... the same thing with with slashers and there's some value to that predictability overall i do think this is a successful remake i think it really

brings the a lot of fresh like new life to the film it ages it up to a more current audience i think it's fun i think for as far as slasher goes it's like pretty rewatchable i don't hate this at all i I think that has very clear issues, but this film is not as bad as the horror community makes out to be, in my opinion. Agreed. All right. So usually we talk about which is the better film, but I think... we've both agreed that the films have their own issues and it's kind of hard to.

say like which film's actually better because it's hard to say anything's better than the original Halloween so instead I'd like to ask the question about Michael being a supernatural entity because I think that is such a cool question

and the horror community so what do you think thinking about like the breadth of the franchise do you think michael makes more sense as a supernatural entity do you think he makes more sense as a human with a knife somewhere in between where are you on the side of the fence

Well, if he's supernatural, you can keep killing him and he'll come back. But then you know he's coming back. So I don't like him being supernatural because you're like, well, what good is killing him going to do? I wish they had kept him more... real but still had this this not maybe supernatural connection to a sister but just this connection that one has with their siblings what about you so i think

I don't like Michael being a supernatural entity because I think the need to because it's just a cheap it's just a cheap twist like it makes it very clear how much the franchise is in it for the money. Like, I don't know if I could go back in time and like read John Carpenter's mind, like when he made this film.

I'd want to know, like, why did he think that Michael was supernatural? And where did he think it came from? And, like, what was the vision? Because, obviously, the other films that come after it try to answer that. They make up some fucking cult later on, like, in film.

five or six that's the reason why michael is who he is and there's like a baby and all this weird fucking shit that makes no sense it's like the same thing they do with freddy krueger at one point with like the nun and everything And I think it's just so cheap and it's one of the reasons why slashers are kind of frowned upon.

as like not like pillars of cinema because it's just a cheap trick basically and i think that is where terrifier in my opinion has lost its steam as well because it's become very apparent that art is a supernatural entity at this point and that gives them an excuse to keep making these films i thought that the you know if you had stopped terrifier at terrifier that would have been a much stronger franchise in my opinion but

who am i so i do not agree with the supernatural anything and also like you could even take this as far as have you seen the remake that they're not remakes the reboots from 2018 on The H2O ones? No. Okay. When Jamie Lee Curtis comes back. Wait, what? Yeah. Jamie Lee Curtis comes back in 2018. Evil dies tonight. Oh, yeah. Oh, like the ones that just came out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have seen them all. Those were okay. One of them was really silly. The one where they go into the cave and...

Then the boyfriend becomes Michael. There's a gay undertone in there too. I don't know. Yeah, like in that, in the new ones, 2018 on, it's also very clear that Michael is some supernatural entity. But yet he's getting all the needs to pass the tour. Yeah, we have to do a whole separate... yeah we could do a whole I hate being like a franchise show and for franchise shows like give y'all a lot of credit for talking about the same film for multiple episodes like good for you but I

I don't know if we're in for it, but listeners, if you want to hear us. And you want to be on the show to do it with us. Yes, precisely. If you want us to talk about more Michael Myers content, y'all need to call in and say, I'm going to be on the show. And you better come with all your notes because we clearly don't even know. We can't follow the storyline. So, well, I think that takes us to the end of the night. We have to start winding down because Mikey himself might be.

tapping tap tap tapping on the window with his knife or maybe it's the boyfriend who knows or maybe it's his sister you know so many different storylines maybe it's me so when i'm not Being Michael Myers, you can find me on filmstagram at projectile underscore underscore varmint.

And you can find my horror reviews and rants for lonely souls over on Instagram at Lonely Horror Club. I try to post reviews whenever I can and cause problems on Filmstagram whenever possible. You can also find my writing on my website, LonelyHorrorClub.com. Thank you, dear internet, for tuning into episode 69 of Nobodies as Always Sources. Yeah, I know. We were going to do a psychosexual episode, so if you want that too, call back, and we'll have to wait for episode 169.

As always, sources, additional reading, all that fun stuff will be in our show notes. Call us. If you want to leave us a message, you can give us a call at 617-431-4322 and keep up with our antics on Instagram at No Bodies Horror Podcast. Thank you, dear internet, for tuning in every week in October.

We are returning to our bi-weekly upload schedule beginning with episode 70. So we will see you in two weeks. And we would love if you could like, subscribe, or leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I don't know if you've heard, but Mint's premium wireless is $15 a month. But I'd like to offer one other perk. We have no stores. That means no small talk.

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