Film Findings is a weekly column where I explore a movie that I think is underseen or undervalued, and try to present a case for why it’s worth watching – or, at the very least, interesting. What’s covered will vary from week to week, but my goal is to encourage people to consider the artistry and value in films that are often unfairly dismissed. Feel free to watch along and share your thoughts!

***

Whether you like him or not, it’s undeniable that Rob Zombie has a distinct visual aesthetic. The shock-rocker’s films are largely imbued with the same sensibilities as his music: gleeful, sincere embrace of horror tropes; a reverence for the campiest, most disreputable facets of the genre; punishing, relentless brutality. His 2007 remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween was possibly the best realization of this signature aesthetic upon its release, a mournful, richly-textured grindhouse odyssey. It’s far from the desecration of the original’s legacy it was initially (and still continues to be) perceived as – rather, it’s an essential B-side to Carpenter’s suburban nightmare, and a legitimately fascinating work.

Structurally, Zombie’s film is a much different beast. The first half deviates the most, presenting an intimate look into Michael Myers’ abusive upbringing and the aftermath of the resulting murders of his stepfather and older sister. At first glance, it’s the typical serial killer origin story you’ve heard time and time again in both fiction and real life. Michael is subject to monstrous violence at home and school, starts hurting animals as an outlet, moves on to other humans, and – after being institutionalized – essentially ceases to demonstrate any recognizable signs of humanity, donning various masks and relinquishing verbal communication altogether.

From a lesser filmmaker, it would all play as a total surrender to stereotyping and lazy writing. But Zombie’s films work as well as they do because of his deeply sincere deployment of genre tropes and how he recontextualizes them to reveal ugly truths about life on the margins of small-town America. This first portion is a deeply, deeply sad story about an immensely troubled child’s autonomy being stripped away by every institution in his life. The impoverished Myers home is depicted with enough proximity and lived-in detail to make his stepfather’s abuse feel horribly grounded in reality, but the crumbling mental health facility he’s left to rot in proves to be infinitely colder and more dismal. In the end, it’s less of an outright indictment of Michael Myers and more of the world that created him. What else could anybody expect?

Perhaps the film’s greatest elaboration on this idea is Zombie’s treatment of the Dr. Loomis character. Michael’s psychologist, Loomis, spends the entirety of the original raving about Michael’s perceived lack of humanity and the void behind his eyes. Only there, Loomis is right. Michael is The Shape. He is pure, literal evil, and if there was any humanity in him in the first place, it’s nowhere to be found. Here, Loomis spends over a decade earnestly attempting to help Michael before giving up and penning a true crime narrative about him that espouses the same rhetoric as his 1978 counterpart, presumably making millions of dollars. Titled The Devil’s Eyes, the book’s cover consists of a front-and-center childhood headshot of Michael.

The contrast of Michael’s terrifying grown-up form with scenes of him as a victimized youth is thorny. Like any slasher villain, Michael Myers – no matter what iteration of the character – is the embodiment of patriarchal violence and institutional rot. And like his stepfather before him, Zombie never really lets him off the hook. The deaths are absolutely horrible to watch, and, smartly, any notion of “cool kills” is completely rejected. Every murder at the hands of adult Michael is pervaded with a sense of cosmic weight. The camera moves as frenetically as the bodies he’s about to destroy, and as his hulking figure steps into frame, he is everything terrible in the world.

The second half isn’t quite as strong as the first, but it’s able to sustain itself on atmosphere and primal slasher movie thrills in a way that section doesn’t have to. Plot-wise, it mostly echoes the barebones set-up of the original film, centering on high-schooler Laurie Strode as she and her friends cross paths with a homebound Michael. Except here, the spectral ambience is replaced by loud, vicious brutality. It’s draining, but it’s scary and it works in no small part due to Michael’s imposing physicality and Zombie’s unwillingness to shy away from depicting visceral trauma and pain.

Like the rest of the film, it’s almost unbearably melancholic. There’s inherent sadness in watching Laurie and her friends suffer, but Zombie goes out of his way to assert everybody’s personhood in a way that is profoundly affecting. Crucially, his vision is not without joy. The after-school hangout scenes are full of genuine camaraderie and all of the teenage excitement found in sunny autumn Friday nights. Earlier, Michael and his mom share some of the first act’s few tender moments, and she’s only depicted in the most beautiful, golden lighting. It’s a movie full of contrasts, and the contrast between the gorgeous colors and decorations and humanity against the stark reality of death and decay is quintessential to the appeal of this film, Carpenter’s film, and the titular holiday itself.

Still, whether they make it out or not, everyone is ultimately a victim. As all slashers go, it’s fundamentally a very tragic story about young lives being swallowed up by forces they will never be able to fully comprehend. Except here, Zombie understands that it goes both ways. A big part of the film’s tension is watching these characters bear the weight of the world and wondering when they’re inevitably going to collapse under it. Whether it’s through Laurie’s traumatized screams at the end or when Michael first picks up his kitchen knife, it’s hard to think of a horror film that more potently captures the wholly cyclical erosion of humanity in the face of structural failure.