H2: A Dream to Some, a Nightmare to Others!
H2: A Dream to Some, a Nightmare to Others!
Exploring the surreal landscape of Michael Myers' mind with Rob Zombie.
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I blame texting and Twitter: H2 is the catchphrase title of the latest film by Rob Zombie, which is the answer to his own brutal remake of John Carpenter's 1978 classic, Halloween. (His titles are getting progressively shorter, so maybe he'll do a remake of M next. I kid; The Haunted World of El Superbeasto is actually next.)
Our review of H2 will not be posted until opening day by request of the studio, but I think it's safe to say it's a very brutal slasher with some ghostly imaginary sequences scattered throughout the stabs.
During recent interviews conducted in Beverly Hills, Zombie and his cast were on hand to discuss the unusual turns and swerves H2 takes from the narrative of the 2007 Halloween. Personally, I was quite interested in Sheri Moon-Zombie's return as Michael's mommy in otherworldly form. Willowy, winsome, and in white, the beautiful actress floats through her troubled son's memory with an ivory steed by her side. "The horse's name is Cavalier," Moon-Zombie said, "He is beautiful, and so majestic."
Since surreal visions and ghostly, ghastly hallucinations have been used as plot devices in film ranging from things like Buñuel's Un Chien Andalou (1929), to Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), to Malone's upcoming Parasomnia (2009), I wanted to know if there were any specific influences, goals, or any discussion about dream sequence influences? "Not when I was around, but maybe Rob and Brandon [Trost, the new DP who's taken over from Phil Parmet] discussed it, because they definitely watched a bunch of movies together before they started shooting.
"I know a big thing for my scenes, especially, was trying to get the lighting right because you saw the character through the eyes of Michael. Everything that was shot of me was different from the rest of the movie, because they were trying to light in sort of an ethereal way. It was funny, because I have that white, white dress and in a scene I have with Malcolm, between takes he was joking, 'You could be my bounce'! [a bounce is a white surface that's held up reflect light from into onto an actor's face].
"It was a very quiet performance for me. Since she is from Michael's mind, I wanted her to have some of his tics and things like that. So yeah, I had to tone everything down and be quiet. But I think it worked. I hope it worked."
It's mainly Moon-Zombie, Cavalier, Chase Vanek (young Michael) and Tyler Mane, who is back for more mayhem as the adult (and very angry) killer. "He perceives himself as a little kid in those dream sequences, because that's just before he started killing people," said the 6'9" former WWF star. "It's when he was innocent. And that's what it is: a serial killer doesn't perceive themselves as, 'Hey, I'm just going to annihilate people'. It's, 'I'm innocent.' And so he's having this interaction with the only other person in the world whoever loved him [his mother] and he thinks that she's telling him what to do. So, it's more driven and intense than the first one."
The movie certainly is intense, and quite relentless. Scout Taylor-Compton, who is also back for more abuse (as Laurie Strode, Michael's sister), says she has witnessed the evolution of herself as a person and an actor, "Especially going back to the behind-the-scenes stuff of the DVD of Halloween the remake. I was such a different person."
Taylor-Compton says that being directly connected to Michael through an almost twin-like telepathy in his visions really pushed her to her limits as an actor. She'd be drained, and crying even after the cameras quit rolling.
I asked Zombie about how attacked the dreamy surrealism, versus the actual attack scenes. "Those were tricky, that was the one element of the story I wanted to keep," he said. "I wanted to have a device so Michael Myers had some [reason to be] in the movie, where he’s not some hulking guy walking around. But of course, the movie reality based the movie gets, the more tricky it is to incorporate something that is so fantasy like. Really, the way he sees the world in his crazy brain, [so] it works fine. It’s what’s inside his head. Nobody else is seeing it, until Laurie starts spiraling out of control and she’s seeing it. it was always a balance to make it work and we found a way to make it work."
Whether or not that last bit is actually a shared opinion remains to be seen when the reviewers, bloggers and fans have their say on opening day, which is August 28 nationwide.
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Also see:
Exclusive Interview with Malcolm McDowell [soon]