Rob Zombie's Halloween

[MacGuffin]

'Halloween' Returns to Hollywood

A ninth Halloween movie is being planned - as a prequel to the cult horror franchise. Plans to make Halloween: The Missing Years were shelved when producer Moustapha Akkad died in last year's terrorist attacks in Jordan, but writer Jake Wade Wall has confirmed to moviehole.net that the series is back on. Wall tells the site that the prequel will focus on the life of serial killer Michael Myers as a young man, before he was placed in a mental institution. Wall says, "I've been hired three different times for it (the film)... It looks like it's finally set to go. I know that they're (studio executives) in the process of nailing down a really big director but I haven't been able to figure out who it is yet."

[MacGuffin]

Halloween prequel, now a sequel?

Another switcheroo for the next "Halloween" movie.... it seems.

According to HorrorChannel.com, Jake Wade Wall's script for the next "Hallwoeen" movie will not be the one being used now, apparently.

"Wall's script will not be the basis for the new film. His idea took place in the years before Michael escaped from Smith's Grove Sanitarium, which would be a cool idea if it weren't for the noticeable lack of Donald Pleasance", says the site.

"We can now tell you that the new Halloween, which will likely be officially announced any day now, will take place at Smith's Grove Sanitarium but will not be a prequel. It will be full-blown Halloween movie, complete with the trademark mask and slow gait."

[MacGuffin]

Zombie plots new mayhem for 'Halloween'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Rob Zombie is resurrecting Michael Myers, one of the big screen's favorite horror villains.

Zombie will write and direct a new "Halloween" movie, serving up what is being called as a brand-new vision for the long-running horror series.
 
Malek Akkad of Trancas International Films will produce the feature along with Andy Gould of Vision Entertainment Group. Zombie also will serve as a producer and a music supervisor on the film. Miramax Films will co-finance the development with Dimension Films.

The movie will not be a sequel or a straight-ahead remake of the original -- which helped director John Carpenter cement his name in the horror biz -- but a reimagining that will infuse new blood into the Myers story.

"The look and the feel is going to be completely different," Zombie said in an interview. " 'Halloween' started off as a very terrifying concept, a terrifying movie. But over the years, Michael Myers has become a friendly Halloween mask. When it came to the point where you could buy a Michael Myers doll that was cute-looking and press its stomach and play the 'Halloween' theme, you knew the scare factor was gone. But I think the story and the situation is scary. All it needed was someone to come in and to take a totally different approach to make it scary again. To me, that's the challenge and that's the fun."

The movie will not pay heed to the numerous sequels that have followed the 1978 classic, which introduced masked psycho serial killer Myers as well as the now-famous piano theme to the world.

"Everything that has come before does not figure into this one," Zombie said. "That series is done."

And while Zombie aims to keep the scares and the character more real, the mask will remain.

"That's an iconic image that can't go away," he said.

Zombie wrote and directed "House of 1000 Corpses" and last year's "The Devil's Rejects," which proved to be extremely profitable theatrically and on DVD. A lot of horror movies have been thrown his way, but he wanted to be choosy when it came to his third film.

Zombie is a fan of the original and said he sought Carpenter's blessing.

"He said, 'That's awesome, go for it,' " Zombie said. "He was very supportive, which I thought was very important. I feel like 'Halloween' is his baby, and I wanted to be very respectful."

An October 2007 release is being planned.

[modage]

sounds interesting....i guess.  but the whole 'its not a sequel and its not a remake' is complete BS.  uhh, its a halloween movie with michael myers?  its got to be one or the other. 

[Pubrick]

either way it's gonna be shit.

[Gold Trumpet]

It reminds me of when Kubrick passed on The Exorcist and then was aked to do the sequel and replied, "What can I do? Change the color of the puke?" Apparently that is the road of success for Rob Zombie. 

[squints]

either way it's gonna be shit.

[MacGuffin]

We begin our coverage of the next HALLOWEEN film with a short interview with writer/director Rob Zombie. Thanks to all the fans that submitted a question to Rob... we received over 2000!
Source: HalloweenMovies.com

QUESTION: Why do you feel that you are the person to take on this project? (from Anna in Florida)
RZ: Because I have a vision that I believe can work. If I didn't I would go near it.

QUESTION: Can you please clarify what you mean when you say you are "not making a sequel" and that your Halloween will be a "re-imagining" of the series? Isn't that just another word for "remake"? (from Cole in Chicago)
RZ: Well, sort of. I am basically making a prequel and a semi-remake of the first film all in one. So really in theory there will be more original content than remake content. That's why I don't like the word "remake."

QUESTION: What is the title of the next movie, and are you finished with the script yet? What can you reveal about the storyline of the new movie? (from Eric in Canada)
RZ: HALLOWEEN, no and not much.

QUESTION: For the next film, are you planning to maybe go into what Michael's childhood was like and how and why he became the serial killer he is? Is it at least going to take place in 1978? (from Sylvain)
RZ: Yes, I think this aspect of the story is very important in order to bring new life to the character of Michael Myers. The film begins in 1978.

QUESTION: Halloween is the most influential horror movie ever made and I for one am not happy about a remake. All of the remakes to hit theaters - from Texas Chainsaw to The Omen - were total crap. Why touch a classic like Halloween? Why would you even risk this? (from Mike in New York)
RZ: Like I said in Question 1, I wouldn't even go near this project if I didn't feel like a had a fresh, worthwhile approach to the material. Besides, I'm not touching one single frame of Carpenter's classic. That film will remain as it always has.

QUESTION: The masks in the past 4 Halloween films were all different, and some of them weren't scary. Are you going to re-design the mask, or will you stick to the Captain Kirk version that was used in the original film? (from Todd)
RZ: I want to keep the mask classic.

QUESTION: Are you you planning on using any previous characters from the first 8 films (like Laurie Strode and Dr. Loomis) or are you planning something entirely new with no old characters? (from Jamie in Scotland)
RZ: Both, but I won't tell you which just yet.

QUESTION: Since you are a musician, will you be doing the entire music score for the film, or will you be collaborating with anyone else? And will you integrate any of John Carpenter's classic themes into the score? (from Craig)
RZ: I do not plan on doing the score for this film myself other than in a supervisor position. I have already done some work with the composer and we both feel that Carpenter's themes are classic and will play an important role.

QUESTION: Your films are known for their gore, but the Halloween films haven't been very gory, they have been more suspensful. Do you plan to focus on gore or suspense in your version of Halloween? (from Paula)
RZ: I plan to focus on character, mood and terror.

QUESTION: How does John Carpenter feel about your involvement in the new Halloween? (from Zack in Georgia)
RZ: I talked to John about it and he was vey supportive. He basically said, "That's great Rob, go for it and make it your own." What more do I need?

[MacGuffin]

Evil Reborn
Rob Zombie resurrects a horror classic
Source: MTV

LOS ANGELES, California — Horror remakes suck.

This simple fact is important for two reasons: 1) Based on the box-office success of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning," "The Hills Have Eyes," "When a Stranger Calls" and more, you don't seem to know (or care) that they suck; and 2) This bit of information is coming from Rob Zombie, the metal-titan-turned-writer/director who's just been handed the keys to the "Halloween" kingdom.
 
"Horror-movie remakes for the most part don't work," Zombie said, taking a break from audio mixes in his recording studio to unleash his inner fanboy (which is never that far from the surface anyway). "They just imitate the original. They don't try to do something new and different, they just follow it. And if you're going to follow the original, then there's no point because that movie already exists."

It's that kind of fan-friendly logic (refreshingly honest and driven by a deep affinity for the genre) paired with the unflinching vision displayed in 2005's "The Devil's Rejects" that has horror fans betting their 18-inch Michael Myers action figures that Zombie's take on "Halloween" will be a whole lot more than just another Hollywood horror retread. So far, so good, Zombie said. While shooting won't begin until January, with an eye toward an October '07 release, the script — Zombie's blueprint for reinventing a modern horror classic — is complete. There's more Michael Myers, more Dr. Loomis and plenty of variations on the original. ... Oh yes, there will be changes, but more on that later.

Zombie's fresh take on the remaking/re-imaging/reinventing thing — and his cred with hard-core horror fans — will be put to the test with "Halloween." Not to overstate the issue, but John Carpenter's stylish and chilling original is viewed with the kind of reverence and adoration usually reserved for doe-eyed emo bands and the leaders of suicide cults. A seminal scream gem beloved by millions of filmgoers (and aped by countless filmmakers), "Halloween" set the new standard, giving us the unstoppable boogeyman, the virtuous heroine, killer P.O.V. shots and multiple "whew, he's dead ... no, wait" moments ... all stolen by a generation of slasher flicks to follow, but none of them ever used as effectively as they were during Michael Myers' first foray to the screen.

"My first memory of the film is of feeling swept up in the excitement of this new thing that was sort of changing the rules for horror movies," Zombie recalled. "It's just a great movie as a movie. Before it spawned this whole generation of imitators, the closest thing you could relate it to was maybe 'Psycho' — it seemed like this simple, suspenseful, Hitchcock-style movie. But of course, when something hits, it gets imitated, and the parts that get imitated are usually the most basic parts. 'Well, if they enjoyed four teenagers getting killed, then they're really gonna like 13 teenagers getting killed.' That's what gets exploited. I always feel bad that 'Halloween' gets lumped in with [the imitators] ... it sits alone as a classic film on its own, much better than any of the films it ever spawned."

And taking on such a classic is no small feat (undoubtedly, expectations would be somewhat lower if Zombie were revisiting, say, "Dr. Giggles"). Zombie said he's seen "Halloween" hundreds of times, and admitted that he recently had to cut himself off after repeated viewings left him feeling handcuffed as he tried to tackle the script for his own vision. He's certainly not alone, though. Generations continue to discover John Carpenter's original, and its hallmarks — that expressionless mask and that relentless score — can instantly chill anyone who's ever taken the cinematic trip to Haddonfield, Illinois.

"I think the music and the imagery and everything involved with 'Halloween' is still effective because it was simple, and simple things are always classic and they last," Zombie opined. "I relate it to the Ramones. When they were doing it first, nothing sounded like that, and it's hard to believe that nothing sounded like that because everything sounds like that now. It's hard to believe there was a time that was never done."

So why take on such a beloved and influential work, especially at a time when Hollywood seems to mine a different horror classic (Did we mention "Dawn of the Dead" yet? How about "The Amityville Horror"? "The Ring"? "The Grudge"? "Dark Water"?) every month?

"The remake thing is done all the time, but it's not done well," Zombie conceded. "I don't think it's because someone feels inspired, it's done because someone sees money. Truthfully, if I couldn't see any way to do this, I wouldn't do it because it's a challenging project."

That challenge came from Bob Weinstein, the co-head of the Weinstein Company who sat Zombie down for a meeting and simply said, " 'Halloween' ... what do you think?"

"My first reaction was I didn't see the point of any of this," Zombie admitted, adding that he was turned off by what a string of uninspired sequels had done to the legacy of the original. "Then I went away and thought about it for a couple months and started thinking that that was maybe a weird attitude to have." Inspired by David Cronenberg's 1986 take on "The Fly" and John Carpenter's 1982 version of "The Thing," Zombie started to see the possibilities in reinventing the franchise, and "started thinking of ways this could be done and done right."

Which brings us to the multimillion-dollar question (and the buzz of horror sites everywhere): What can we expect from Rob Zombie's "Halloween"? For starters, he describes his film not as a prequel, as rumored, but rather as "a remake with more back story built into it," and plans to make the film less about babysitters in peril and more about the man behind the mask.

"I want the lead character to be Michael Myers," Zombie said. "He's not just a faceless thing floating around in the background and then you focus on these girls. I feel that that's where you can make it different and that's where you can make it more intense."

As he talks about his vision, references range from "Murders in the Rue Morgue" to "The Constant Gardener" and "21 Grams," and he grows increasingly animated as he hits on his main goal: exploring these now iconic characters in greater depth. He talks about beefing up the roles of Sherriff Brackett and the somewhat demented Dr. Loomis, the gun-toting child psychiatrist who serves as Myers' chief foil while spewing his unique brand of dark poetry ("I watched him for 15 years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall, looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town.").

"I felt the character of Dr. Loomis just popped in and out when they needed somebody to say something dramatic," Zombie observed. "I wanted his story to feel more intertwined with Michael in a way that means something, which they did in the original, but sometimes it feels like he disappears for a long period and then just pops up to go, 'He's evil!,' and then he disappears again for a while."

Zombie's eyes light up as he talks about casting his Loomis, and names ranging from Jeff Bridges to Ben Kingsley turn up on his very, very loose "what if?" list. "There is no shortage of late-50s, early-60s male actors that are amazing and would like to work more, probably much like Donald Pleasence at the time [he was cast as the original Loomis]," Zombie said.

But the beefiest role by far will be that of Myers. No longer a figure looming ominously in the background of an artfully framed shot, Myers — his motives, methods and machinations — will be front and center this time around, a switch Zombie thinks is essential to sharpen the blade a bit.

"One of the things that's happened over the years to all those characters is that they become friendly," Zombie added. "Michael Myers and Jason and Freddy and Pinhead aren't scary anymore because they're so familiar. I thought we have to find a way to go back and start fresh and remove everyone's preconceived ideas about what they think this character is because no one thinks they can be scared by it again. It's almost like Santa Claus."

That means trading in the unexplained motives of the mysterious, relentless killer of the 1978 original and exploring the motives behind the evil. "There's a lot of great stuff they hint at [in the original], but you never see. That's where I think there's potential to make something unique.

"When you research anybody, whether it's Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer or Henry Lee Lucas and you see the things in their past, you go, 'Serial killer is the only job this guy was qualified for,' " Zombie said. "It makes it even more disturbing when you see the events that make someone have no concept of those things. 

"The deeper you can get into a character's head, the further you will get under an audience's skin and the more it will unnerve them," Zombie added. "I think that people are used to these movies being a little bit tongue-in-cheek. You're not really supposed to really mess with them. But if you take it so seriously and there's no humor, it really gets to people. It doesn't happen that often. I remember ['Seven' was] the last time I was in a theater and people were walking out because it wasn't what they bargained for. People were saying, 'This is way too grim. I'm not going to survive two hours of this.' "

And it's hard to imagine places more grim than the inside of Michael Myers' head, but that dark, untapped space won't be the only new territory explored in Zombie's film. While "Halloween" purists will no doubt be pleased to note that key elements of the original — namely that mask and that score — will be intact, each will get at least a light touch from Zombie's brush. "There are even things about the original Michael Myers that bothered me," he admitted. "Like, he killed the only mechanic that wears a pristine mechanic's uniform. It's just things like that that bothered me."

Even the jarring 5/4-time piano melody of the film's main theme will be tweaked slightly, though Zombie plans to keep it rooted in the original. "It was the simpleness of it that became creepy," Zombie said. "It was sort of like the scary version of the opening credits for '[It's] The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown.' "

They're minor changes (certainly compared to the character development he's got up his tattooed sleeve), but Zombie hopes they'll go a long way to putting his unique stamp on a horror franchise in danger of being crushed under the weight of seven sequels, each less inspired than the one before. "I think a lot of the sequels didn't work because they were just sort of doing an imitation of that movie, and you can't do that," Zombie said. "You have to come from a genuine place of inspiration with what you want to do."

So with a script and timetable in place, Zombie is now moving on to casting and location scouting. "We're right at the beginning of when this all begins," he said. Of course, "this" refers to much more than moviemaking. It also means scrutiny and debate from a legion of hard-core horror fans. It means the watchful eyes of a studio hoping that a blockbuster can be reborn. And for Zombie, it means satisfying both of those ends while also making sure not to suck. Or, as the man himself concluded, "You have to completely reinvent the wheel, but keep the people that love the original wheel thrilled. It's a tricky balancing act, but I think it's totally doable."

[MacGuffin]

Zombie Casts Dr. Loomis in Halloween
Source: ComingSoon

Halloween writer/director Rob Zombie has announced on his official Blog that he has cast Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis in his new take on the classic horror movie.

Donald Pleasence played Dr. Loomis in John Carpenter's 1978 original and its sequels.

McDowell will join the previously-cast Daeg Faerch, who plays a young Michael Myers, Sheri Moon and Heather Bowen.

Dimension Films has scheduled an August 31 release for the film.




AND DR. LOOMIS IS.......?

Well, here is the news you've all been waiting for. Who is Dr. Loomis? Well, the answer is..... the one and only MALCOLM McDOWELL ! Yes, lengendary actor Malcolm McDowell will be the new Dr. Loomis.

As many of you know A Clockwork Orange is my favorite film and I am a huge, huge fan of Malcolm. I know Malcolm will kick ass as Dr. Loomis. He is thrilled to be part of HALLOWEEN and is ready to make a new classic.

[polkablues]

He is thrilled to be part of HALLOWEEN and is ready to make a new classic.

...As soon as he's done making HALLOWEEN.

[gob]

No Rob Zombie no. Bad Rob Zombie. Who would have the inflated, misshapen balls to take on remaking Halloween? Who I ask you?

[modage]

Zombie Casts Dr. Loomis in Halloween
Dimension Films has scheduled an August 31 release for the film.

seriously?  SERIOUSLY?  while you're re-imagining a classic horror film, (goddamn you Zombie, YOU should know better), maybe a release date somewhere NEAR HALLOWEEN might have been fitting for a film CALLED HALLOWEEN!  you can tell the confidence they have in this film the fact they're steering clear of SAW IV by almost 2 months.  Dimension, i'm going to kick you in the balls! 

[MacGuffin]

Tyler Mane is the New Michael Myers
Source: ComingSoon

After revealing that Malcolm McDowell is going to play the new Dr. Loomis in Halloween, writer/director Rob Zombie has also announced on his official Blog that Tyler Mane will star as the adult Michael Myers.

"I'm sure you all remember Tyler as Rufus from 'The Devil's Rejects,' Sabretooth in the 'X-Men' and the unstoppable Ajax in 'Troy,'" said Zombie. "Tyler is mean, lean and ready to bring you the most psychotic Michael Myers yet."

The new take on the classic horror movie is scheduled for an August 31 release.

[MacGuffin]

Halloween Casting
The latest news on Zombie's remake.

Director Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween is shaping up fast. Casting is currently under way with Zombie making announcements via The Official Rob Zombie Halloween Page.

"I'm very, very excited about this bit of casting news. Dee Wallace Stone has joined the cast of Halloween as Cynthia Strode. Laurie Strode's mother," Zombie revealed. Pat Skipper has already been cast as Laurie's dad Mason. Stone is perhaps remembered for her role as the mom in Steven Spielberg's E.T.

The cast includes Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) as Dr. Loomis and Tyler Mane (Sabretooth in X-Men) as serial killer Michael Myers. Mane previously played Rufus in Zombie's The Devil's Rejects. Daeg Faerch plays Michael Myers at age 10.

Zombie also recently revealed that Myers will wear the classic mask in the remake. "I've just seen Wayne Toth's finished mask for Michael and all I can say is [expletive]. It looks perfect. Exactly like the original. Not since 1978 has the shape looked so good. Wayne worked this sucker to death and boy did it pay off."

Halloween is set for an October 2007 theatrical release.