Bloody-Disgusting has the scoop on the synopsis and casting info of the as-yet-untitled flick, scheduled to hit screens on August 31, 2007. Everything I've written below the picture is very spoiler heavy, so if you want to be completely surprised by the movie then avert yer gaze now! Come back tomorrow! Don't look! Or if you're like me, that is curious (yellow), then read on, my friends...read on.
Are you still here? I figured as much, you greedy things! Isn't tiny plastic Michael terrifying? Anyway, here's the skinny, yo. It's a huge cast list...I've marked in bold the characters returning from the John Carpenter film for your ease of use. See? I live to give.STORY LINE: After being committed for 17 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, is mistakenly released from the mental institution (where he was committed as a 10 year old) and he immediately returns to Haddonfield, where he wants to find his baby sister, Laurie. Anyone who crosses his path is in mortal danger.
[MICHAEL MYERS (10 YEARS OLD)] Caucasian, 8-12 years old, to play 10. Stringy haired, awkward kid, you get a sense that something is off just by looking at him. He has a very unstable mental state. He enjoys torturing/killing animals and then people. He hates his teenage sister, his stripper mother, and her abusive boyfriend Ronnie. He is, however, protective and very attached to his baby sister, who he calls Boo. This is very disturbing material that we need a very capable young actor for.
[LAURIE STRODE] Emancipated or legal 18 to play 17, Caucasian female. Pretty in an unassuming, natural way, this is Michael Meyer's baby sister. She is a normal, real, smart good girl, who is very responsible and caring. The second Michael sees her, he knows. Once he finds her, he will not let go, and Laurie has a strange feeling all day that someone is watching her...An actress who is riveting to watch.
[ANNIE BRACKETT] Emancipated or legal 18 to play 18, Caucasian, female. PARTIAL NUDITY REQUIRED FOR THIS ROLE. She is LAURIE'S best friend, cute, and curly-haired, full of teen enthusiasm and charm. Borderline bad girl (she rebels, but in a sweet way).
[LYNDA] Emancipated or legal 18 to play 18, Caucasian, female. FULL NUDITY WILL BE REQUIRED for this role. She looks like the hot cheerleader type, but has a bad attitude to go with it. She is the girl that convinced you to smoke cigarettes, smoke weed, steal your parents' car and taught you how to French kiss by making out with your older brother. She is all about opportunity.
[TOMMY DOYLE] 7-12 to play 8 years old, any ethnicity, a cute little boy who talks too much and whose babysitter is LAURIE. He is a mop top of a boy who asks lots of questions, and is filled with fear on Halloween. He believes in the boogey man and the wolf man, and sees Michael Myers before anyone else does.
[JUDITH MYERS] Emancipated or legal 18 to play 16 years old, Caucasian, female. FULL NUDITY REQUIRED FOR THIS ROLE. A celebration of the Trailer trash slut. She dresses inappropriately for her age, and uses her sexuality for mass effect. She flirts with Ronnie even though he is her mom's boyfriend. She and Michael are not close, they fight a lot and she walks in on him while he is masturbating to his photo album of past pet kills. Her response? She calls him a pervert. In no way will this girl ever be a model citizen.
[WESLEY RHOADES] 14-16 years old to play 14, School-bully #1, ugly, acne-scarred. Teases Michael about his mom's profession.
[SHANE WILLIAMS] 14-16 years old, WESLEY'S sidekick, overweight, red headed. Also a bully. He tells Michael that he'd like to get physical with his mom, Deborah. He is Wesley's yes man.
[LOU MARTINI] 51 years old, large sloth of a man, bartender at the strip joint. Cares about business, and is not concerned with Deborah's troubled personal life.
[PRINCIPAL ERICS] 47 years old, thin, nervous, stiff guy who stutters when nervous. He's the Principal at Michael's school. Michael frightens him.
[ASST. PRINCIPAL JANSEN] 45 years old, attractive, older woman. School administrator.
[STEVE] 16 years old, big mess of curly hair, "string-bean" body. JUDITH'S boyfriend. He has sex with JUDITH and then brags about it. He is a life like skinny stoner character.
[FEMALE NEWS REPORTER #1] Describes the murders taking place. Real television reporting experience a plus.
[REPORTER #2] Describes the murders taking place. Real television reporting experience a plus.
[MARIA SANTOS] 34 years old, REPORTER
[MORGAN WALKER] 54 years old. Sanitarium's Head of Operations. Rail-thin man in a dark gray suit. He is responsible for MICHAEL'S escape. WE ARE LOOKING FOR A STRONG CAMEO APPEARANCE HERE - STAR NAMES ONLY
[DR. KOPLENSON] 45 years old, head physician at Sanitarium, large bearded man with a bandaged eye, recommends minimum security for MICHAEL MEYERS. WE ARE LOOKING FOR A STRONG CAMEO APPEARANCE HERE - STAR NAMES ONLY
[COUNCILMAN EDWARDS ] 52 years old. "Puffy" man with a bad comb over; WE ARE LOOKING FOR A STRONG CAMEO APPEARANCE HERE - STAR NAMES ONLY
[ELLEN LOOMIS] 55 years old, attractive silver-haired woman. The bedrock of the Loomis household. She is the ideal wife, caring supportive, terrifically worried about her husband's borderline obsession with his most famous patient. She is long suffering and a woman who the audience will need to connect with.
[LISA GREY] 50 years old, EILEEN'S best friend. She comes over for dinner more often than not, and often brings the wine she likes to drink. Thank god Eileen has Lisa to lean on!
[LUKE GREY] 56 years old, Older DR. LOOMIS' friend and Lisa's husband, distinguished looking professor type.
[KENDALL JACKS] Attendant at the Sanitarium, NOEL KLUGGS' trouble making buddy, and rapist. He is in excellent physical shape - he can handle the rowdy patient. He is one half of a terrifying team - no one wants these two attending their sick family members.
[KAREN MERCY] 27 years old, cute, severely mentally disabled, at sanitarium.
[EARL HICKS] 35 years old, graveyard-shift security guard at sanitarium.
[BILL JUDGE] 30s-50s, another security guard.
[BIG JOE GRIZZLY] 45 years old, large mountain-man. His size gives him a natural confidence, and he does not scare easily. He is a trucker dressed in dirty coveralls.
[MASON STRODE] 51 years old, handsome man with graying hair. LAURIE'S dad. He hates corporate America. He is concerned with his daughter's safety, is a great guy, and seems to be the father figure that would survive any horror film.
[CYNTHIA STRODE] 45 years old, attractive woman with classic bone structure. MASON'S wife. LAURIE'S mom. Should look like a corn fed Midwestern all American mom, not pulled too tight.
[DEREK ALLEN] 55 years old, unshaven country type, dressed in hunting gear, works at a Gun Store (WEAPONS GALORE!) WE ARE LOOKING FOR A STRONG CAMEO APPEARANCE HERE – THE GREAT AMERICAN CHARACTER ACTOR WHO LOVES A GOOD SPOTLIGHT SCENE.
[GRANT CLARK] 54 years old, cemetery grounds-keeper. He has worked at this cemetery all of his adult life. Takes pride in his work.
[PAUL] 18-19, probably held back a year, as he is ANNIE'S Boyfriend (Annie likes older guys, even if they are stupid). He is a stringy or shaggy haired bony faced teenager. He smokes, but they are probably menthols. A dude.
[BARBARA FLORENTINE] 52 years old, head of Haddonfield Adoption Agency. A real 'Stick to the Rules' type. Character actors welcome.
[LIEUTENANT CHARLES] A police officer who is there throughout the film, as a man devoted to his job and his community.
[STAN CAMPBELL] 60 years old, the county coroner. One line - has had this job for years.
[MR. DOYLE] TOMMY'S Dad. One scene. Caucasian, middle-aged. A parent type.
[MRS. DOYLE] TOMMY'S Mom. One scene. Caucasian, middle-aged. A parent type.
[AARON KRAMER] 53 years old, nervous looking file clerk, on parole, a drug user. Says "um" a lot, works for BARBARA. GREAT FUN CAMEO FOR A BELOVED CHARACTER ACTOR OF NOTE.
[LINDSAY WALLACE] 9 years old, any ethnicity, the young girl that ANNIE baby-sits. She ignores ANNIE and is enthralled with the TV. She is very smart, probably smarter than Annie. This is a role that requires a lot of scene specific smart acting choices.
[BOB SIMMS] 17 years old, tall, long haired stoner-type. He is Lynda's boyfriend, and likes to guzzle beer.
[OFFICER LOWERY] 34 years old, he responds to LAURIE'S 911 call.
__________________________________________________________
I guess Dr. Loomis is already cast, since he's not on the list; same goes for Annie's dad.
What's most noteworthy to me is the light Mr. Zombie is casting on Michael, his sister Judith, and their mother. So...Michael's a serial killer in training, what with the "weirdness" and the killing of animals. Judith is a "trailer trash slut" and calls Michael a pervert so, you know, in a way she totally deserves to get killed by her brother. And, of course, their mother is a stripper. Sigh.
This effort is going to be so far removed from the original that it's not really worth comparing the two...which, as always, leaves me begging the question "Why not change the plot just a teensy bit more and come up with something completely original?" Going by the casting call list alone, I think you can already guage what the tone will be like for this movie- sort of dirty and nasty and ugly. I mean, full nudity (for the women, of course)! Strippers! Druggies! Animal killings! Everything completely opposite to Carpenter's work. Why not, I suppose, if it's "reimagining". I can't say it sounds appealing, but that's probably just me.
John Carpenter and Debra Hill created a myth with their version of Michael Myers. He was the boogeyman, the one who keeps everyone awake at night. He was The Shape. Rob Zombie seems to be creating a standard serial killer with his version of Michael Myers. That idea seems a little dull to me, to demystify such an intriguing character- I mean, look how bad things got when they tried to explain Michael Myers in Parts 5 and 6.
But hey, you know...vive la difference and all that.
8 comments:
That strikes me as a whole lot more characters than necessary for Halloween. I guess they've already cast the adult Michael, too, unless I'm just missing him on the list. I wonder which one of these victim roles is going to Sherri Moon Zombie, who is already announced. She's a little too old to play one of the girls if he's really looking to cast teenagers.
I don't know about this... I mean, he could just make another Devil's Rejects style film and leave Halloween out of this. It's not as though we're more willing to take a remake because Resurrection was awful.
It's kind of an insanely huge cast list, isn't it, especially compared to the original. I guess we're going to see Michael at school, Loomis's home life, life at the hospital, Michael's mom on the job...yeesh. Unless this thing is 10 hours long, there won't be that same build, the same sense of stalking so prevalent in the original. But I suppose that's 'updating' it for today. TO THE EXTREME!
I think some remakes fail because the writers and company don't seem to try to understand the essence of the original...why the original movies were successful and/or enduring in the first place. With Halloween, for example, I think it was about simply creating a "boogeyman", a faceless terror. It wasn't about killing teenagers, necessarily- that's been done a gajazillion times to lesser effect. If you resort to that angle without capturing the meat of the thing, so to speak, it'll just ring hollow.
"the meat of the thing", heh.
And yes, "gajazillion".
Of course it's a huge cast - somebody has to die, right? And apparently, there'll be a few naked bad girls mixed into that group. It looks as if it boils down to Zombie's visual sense, since it appears to be shaping up to be a standard "kill the teens" flick...but with lotsa naked bad girls...
Other elements that seem a little off are the number of reporters being cast in the film, which sounds to me like the kids won't be watching The Thing from Another World and Forbidden Planet, or if they do, it's going to be constantly interrupted to remind us that Michael Myers is killing people.
The big one that bugs me is that Zombie is going ahead with the Halloween 2 "Laurie is his sister" motif, which takes some of the vagueness of Michael's stalking. What I really liked about Halloween is that Michael chooses the girls seemingly at random.
I've heard Zombie talking about wanting to make it more about Myers and beef up Loomis so that he doesn't just show up for exposition every twenty minutes, but I always thought the Shape was better when we didn't know everything behind the mask.
Hey, I'm just glad he apparently is going for a "hard R" rating, instead of the dreaded "horror by committee" PG-13.
That cast is way too huge for just one film, unless (1) most of the characters make only a brief appearance (2) they're planning to bring some back for the inevitable sequel (3) the movie is 4 farkin' hours long.
I've got mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it feels unnecessary, esp. since Zombie seems to be taking the mystery out of Michael Myers, and it's not like Halloween is some flawed or dated film that screams to be remade, or "reimagined". OTOH, at least it won't be some boring, tame PG-13-rated snoozefest. But just b/c it's R isn't any reason to see it.
Ugh! Hate! So much hate. I totally agree with Stacie that if he's gonna veer this far away from the original, then why not create something separate from the franchise all together. This is a blatant money-grab by Zombie and his many professions of being a huge fan aren't going to convince me otherwise.
I also hate that this 'huge fan' is leaping into the Laurie as Michael's sister thing. That was one of the things that signaled the downward trajectory of the series. Why not drop in some Druids while you're at it, Rob!
And Zombie's imagination isn't very imaginative. Instead of just the epitome of evil, Michael now sounds like a cross between Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy. Rob's been reading his John Douglas books because he's going with the Evil Women make helpless boys into serial killers.
If he weren't associating this with the original, this little venture would be like any other (straight-to-DVD) movie about a crazed killer and a lot less irritating. The fact that Mr. Super Fan would dare think we needed him to re-do/re-imagine/re-tell Michael's story is just infuriating.
I am holding my breathe with this one. There is a lot i could say with the material provided, but I want to keep it simple with this:
A 10 year old boy masterbating to dead animals he has killed.
Do movies really need to go there?
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