The Rebirth of Michael Meyers
Rob Zombie Talks About the Pressure of Tackling a Horror Icon

I don’t know what to make of writer and director Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s immortal 1978 classic Halloween. Having not seen it yet, I can’t speak of the picture’s quality one way or the other. My feelings about the original, however, are a completely different matter. Personally, I think it is one of the greatest films, and probably one of the top ten suspense films, ever made. Other then the clothing it hasn’t dated one single bit, and no matter how many sequels and imitations have come down the line this is a movie I could watch again and again and again and never grow tired of.

Still, I wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity to speak with Zombie about the picture in a conference call. And, even if I’m still not thrilled about the remake I have to say I’m at least somewhat interested in seeing what it looks like now after talking with him. Here are some of the conversation’s highlights.

The looming presence of Michael Meyers' home in Dimension Films' Halloween

Question: What made you want to attempt a remake of Halloween in the first place?

Rob Zombie: Nothing made me want to do it; it never even crossed my mind. [This] was something that came to me. I think sometimes people think that I searched [this] out. I had a meeting with Bob Weinstein and he brought up that they own the Halloween franchise and they wanted to do another movie but they didn’t know what they wanted to do. They had seven or eight scripts [for] a “Part “9 that they weren't happy with.

I really didn't know if I wanted to get involved because I thought the series had run its course. It was kind of tired to me and I wouldn’t do a [sequel]; that would be crazy. But then I went away and thought about it for a long time and I thought that, well, what seems exciting is starting over, bringing a new life to the whole thing rather than continuing on [and] I came up with a way to do it and that was exciting.

Q: So what sets this remake then apart from all the other ones like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Amityville Horror we’ve seen recently?

RZ: I haven’t seen all the other horror remakes, so I can't comment specifically. From the [ones] I have seen I wasn’t trying to make the same movies that already existed. I think a lot of these movies, they look and sound and feel and unfold exactly like the original except sometimes they have different actors. I wanted to make something, it’s kind of hard to explain when you haven’t seen the movie yet, that would retain as much of what Thought was the essence of what made Halloween great but still make it a completely different movie; by adding a lot of stuff with young Michael in the early years at Smith's Grove that [helps] make it a totally different animal.

Danny Trejo, Tyler Mane and Lew Temple in Dimension Films' Halloween

Q: Did you speak with John Carpenter at all before you set out to remake his landmark film? If so, what was that conversation like?

RZ: I did speak with John. We had a short phone call. The point of my call was to tell him first, so he was the first person to hear about it. I've known John for about ten years so he said, “Hey, great, go for it.”

Q: Did he put any pressure on you at all? What about the pressure you got from the studio or from fans of the original? Did you ever have to compromise what you wanted to do?

RZ: I didn’t feel any pressure from John. As for the studio, [they] wanted it to be as different as possible. They weren't concerned about staying true to John Carpenter at all. Nobody was really putting any pressure on me other than myself. If I’d said there was going to be no Dr. Loomis and there was going to be no Laurie Strode I don’t think anyone would have really argued with me. It was more the pressure I put on myself to [decide] what I wanted to keep from the original and what I didn’t.

As for compromising, it’s funny everyone thinks the studio is some big scary monster that controls what you do. And maybe it is that for some people but, no, no one ever told me anything. I cast who I wanted to cast. I did what I wanted to do. You can’t do anything except for what you think is the right thing to do. If it works it works because, really, what else can I do?

The fans were just all over the place.

Q: Is there any frustration you end up feeling from that fan base? Does the scrutiny you, or any high profile film for that matter, get affect you at all?

RZ: I think a lot of the fans ruin the experience for themselves in advance. They read the script, and they learn everything possible. They know everything. I remember when I was a kid going to see everything from Halloween to Jaws I literally walked in [and] didn't know anything. Nothing.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I had no idea. Even Star Wars, I didn’t have a fucking clue what [that] was I just knew it was a science fiction movie. You just sit there and you are just blown away. But now, everyone scrutinizes everything.

I've been trying to keep some things secret, but then leads to people speculating that you are lying about stuff, but really it's an attempt to protect some element of surprise for the viewer. But, you know, at least half the information you read out there is false.

Sherri Moon and Doug Faerch in Dimension Films' Halloween

Q: So, what exactly is your Halloween then? Half remake, half prequel?

RZ: The one thing I have in common with everyone else is that I am a huge fan [of the original] so I kept trying to come from the point of view of what would I want to see myself. What would make me happy? What elements would I like to keep and what ones would I like to see expanded? I had to work out for myself what I thought was the proper thing to do.

I just felt, for one thing, I wanted Michael Myers who I felt was the key ingredient to the whole series to be more important, not just be a guy in a mask hiding in the shadows. I wanted him to be more front and center. But, everyone seems to have this big misconception that everything is explained and that is not the case. Here we get pieces of his life but we don’t explain anything, you get glimpses without any explanation.

Ultimately he grows up to be Michael Myers as we know him, but he’s not running around being this human guy we now understand.

Q: The original film is not all that violent, it's more about suspense and the tension. Does ratcheting up the violence and the gore have the potential to dilute that at all?

RZ: It's kind of an element of both. Everyone seems concerned that this picture has gotten really gory and it hasn't because I don’t really like gory movies. I like movies where if there's violence it plays very real because I hate faking violence in movies, I want things to seem real. There are no extreme scenes of heads exploding or being chopped off. It’s violence mixed with suspenseful things, but it’s not a gory bloodbath.

Q: What was casting like?

RZ: It was easy to cast accept for Laurie Strode. Scout [Taylor-Compton], who plays her, was really the first person I wanted but I couldn’t convince anybody that she was right. So, we literally auditioned everybody in the world. I always knew I was going to get her, but it was still this long drawn-out process.

Scout Taylor-Compton and Malcolm McDowell in Dimension Films' Halloween

But, then I eventually cast her and of course everybody loves her now. I just think everybody had built up this whole Laurie Strode mythology so big in their head that they really couldn’t cast the movie. I just saw her and thought she was fucking great. I felt she was 17, she felt real, she’s empathetic, she’s a great actor, she had all the qualities that you would want and she feels just real fresh like Jamie Lee Curtis felt in the first film. I just knew it the second I saw her.

Q: Was this the same feeling you had about Malcolm McDowell for Dr. Loomis? What made him so perfect for the role?

RZ: Malcolm was my first and really only choice. I've found that the thing you have to do is not have a backup plan because in life I find when you have a backup plan then that's the plan you tend to get stuck with. If you want to be in a band, don't have a good job because you'll never be in a good band and you'll always have a good job.

So, my plan was that I always wanted Malcolm and I didn't want anyone else. When things were falling apart and it seemed like for a second we wouldn’t get [him] I never gave anyone an out to go elsewhere. It had to be Malcolm or nobody. My favorite movie of all time is A Clockwork Orange. I think Malcolm is absolutely brilliant in that [and it] was really the main reason I wanted him. Not that there was anything in that movie that was specifically like Dr. Loomis, but a brilliant actor is a brilliant actor so I had no fear that he would be perfect.

Q: Did you have he or any other members of the cast watch the original or did you try and keep them away from it in order to have them come onto the set fresh and not with Carpenter’s film on their minds?

RZ: I didn't want the actors coming in thinking that I wanted them to imitate what had gone before. I tried to make sure they didn’t see it. I wanted Scout to do her own thing, not the Jamie Lee Curtis thing. Even Malcolm didn't watch the original.

As for Scout, as Jamie Lee felt real for the ‘70’s my hope is that Scout feels real for now. That was one of the great things about her being 17 I could get inside her head rather then dealing with a 32year-old playing a 17-year-old. Like, if there was something in wardrobe she’d ask if she really had to [wear it] pointing out it looked like something a little kid would wear. I think she’s become the modern equivalent of the character. She’s still the good girl, I guess, but with a little more spunk.

Q: What was the rating process like?

RZ: This was probably the easiest [film] I’ve had to get rated. If there were any problems I didn’t hear about them. This was the easiest one to get through the ratings board yet. I think perhaps that has something to do with the fact a lot of the films going through there lately, the so-called “torture porn,” might have made my life bit easier on a certain level. Or maybe because somehow it being Michael Myers just made it easier, like this recognizable iconic monster gave us some leeway. I thought I was going to have more trouble but it wasn’t near as much of a nightmare as usual.

Q: What with films like this one, Batman Begins, Casino Royale, Superman Returns, there’s even talk of a Friday the 13^th remake, a lot of hugely popular iconic characters are rebooting and going back to square one. Why do you think that is?

RZ: What I’ve always felt is that the best movies have strong characters. When I was making things like House of a 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects I wanted to create memorable [people] like a Captain Spaulding who, at a certain point, comes out bigger then the film itself. People would probably recognize his face and not even know what movie he is from.

I think a lot of those movies have that. Whether it be Freddy or James Bond or Frankenstein or Pinhead or whatever. I think there are a lot of movies there for a long time that became about the situation but there really wasn’t a strong figure that you would get excited about. And that was thing I liked so much about Halloween, it had that.

Other remakes have come to me over the years and I’ve said no to all of them. It’s like, who cares? It’s a story concept which doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t turn it into a good movie but there’s nothing… you know, I don’t even want to say anymore because it will sound like I’m bagging on somebody’s film.

With Halloween, though, you go, “Ah! Michael Myers.” He’s like Frankenstein, this figure that you can deal with. A lot of these movies, I think that’s why they go back to them; a great character is always a great character. No matter how crappy a Batman movie might be Batman is always such a great character he’s always one step away from being in a great Batman movie because the character is great.

Tyler Mane and Hanna Hall in Dimension Films' Halloween

Q: On a side note, what about turning Werewolf Women of the SS into its own feature? Any chance of that?

RZ: Not that I know of. Everybody was talking about making everything in Grindhouse into a movie at some point if it turned out the way that everybody wanted. I don't know if they were thinking that Werewolf Women of the SS was the next logical choice, although, I think it would be pretty cool.

Q: What about a sequel to this new Halloween? Can we expect you back for more fun with Michael Meyers in the future? 

RZ: No. I did what I wanted to do. I came in and made a movie, [made] what I thought was a self-contained film, and now I am walking away.

Additional Links:

-  Halloween (2007) Theatrical Trailer
-  Halloween (1978) Theatrical Trailer