CON: Halloween/The Mist

Halloween and The Mist.
Need I say more? I love Zombie’s music and films and as for The Mist, well you
can’t go wrong with one of Stephen King’s best short stories being adapted
for the big screen by one of the strongest directors

Hollywood

has to offer: Frank Darabont. So it was with uber fanboy glee that I barged
into this panel, hit the security guard over the head with my laptop for shits
and giggles and took my seat. Alas, much like me in bed after too much rum and
not enough Coke; I was semi let down by both panels. Why? Let’s explore these
suckas.

HALLOWEEN


Panelists: Rob Zombie, Sheri Moon Zombie, Tyler Mane, Scott Taylor Compton

The panel started on the right stab with a first look at the full trailer for
HALLOWEEN. The trailer actually gave me a better sense of what I should expect
as to this new entry in the Shape’s saga and the best way I could say is:
“Myers served up a la Leatherface circa the remake and its sequel”.
That’s all that popped in my head. Flick looks like it will be bleak, mean and
mucho brutal
with hints of 70’s jive tossed in there for good measure.


After that we were shown a clip from the film and it
went a little bit like this.

Clip:

Laurie Strode hiding in the house. Michael (who
just dragged an unconscious Loomis within the premises) looking for her. Game of
cat and mouse ensues. Myers violently busts walls by punching into them. Laurie
picks up a gun and hides on top of the the decrepit house’ ceiling floorboards. Michael being
the cutesy man that he is proceeds to also destroy the ceiling with a plank of wood
until Laurie falls through it to hit the ground.

Although well shot, creepy and
deliciously somber in tone; the scene did go on for a pinch too long in my
opinion. I was like “get on with it already”. With that said; the scene was
played out of context hence I won’t be too quick to judge. I’m sure it will play
much better when I see it as part of the whole movie.

After that lovely showing, Zombie opened the floor
for questions. Maybe it was just me but Rob didn’t look to enthusiastic to be
there and seemed like he just wanted to “get it over with”. But again maybe
that’s just me. Sheri Moon Zombie on the other hand was all smiles and was
filled with  positive energy. Very charismatic lady! So here are a treats I
caught off this trick.

First TV spot (with new footage) for Halloween!
Thx to Steven for the knife’s up!

-The film isn’t done yet, Zombie is still mixing the
sound.

-The remake retains elements and beats from the
original but on the whole it’s a fresh and new approach to the material.

-Rob Zombie doesn’t like composing music for his
own films (to much work in one shot) hence Tyler Bates did the music for Halloween.

-The Halloween theme is used in the film, they
changed it a bit but not too much because Zombie liked the dated feel it has.

-In Zombie’s opinion, to succeed in the film
industry you just don’t give up and you have to get used to people telling you
suck.

-There will not be a feature version of his Werewolf
Women of the SS faux trailer from Grindhouse.

-Superbeasto is still not finished but he does plan
on completing it… one day.

-All Tyler Mane had to do to get into “character”
is put on the Myers mask.

-Scout had to go through 5 auditions and one test
screening before she locked the role of Laurie Strode.

-Tyler

Mane hasn’t heard
squat as to the fanboy hopeful Freddy vs. Jason vs. Michael.

-Where the original Halloween was about a group of
young people seeing their lives go down the drain via the inclusion of nutty
Myers into it, this remake is about Michael. It’s his story.

-Sheri Moon Zombie does not aspire to work with other
directors than her husband Rob Zombie. She likes her life the way it is, run her
clothing line Total Skull work
with Rob on films, tour with Rob… Rob, Rob, Rob.

-Zombie does NOT have a cameo in Halloween.

-John Carpenter hasn’t seen the remake yet. And in my
opinion, I doubt he ever will. Zombie said that he had “one short conversation” with Carpenter about it, as he’s friends with him and called him up before announcing it publicly. Zombie apparently told him over the phone, to which Carpenter said something along the lines of, “Great, go for it” and that’s pretty much all they ever discussed about it.

-Halloween opens everywhere on August 31.

Sheri Moon Zombie kids! Yup, Rob Zombie is one lucky man! DAMN!

THE
MIST

Panelists: Frank Darabont, Thomas Jane,
Marcia
Gay Harden, Laurie Holden

It’s
really hard to think of a director that is as good with characters and drama
than Frank Darabont. When I heard that he was front running the cinematic
adaptation of
Stephen King’s The Mist; I did a couple of back flips cause I knew that meant
two things:
1- we’re going to get a horror movie that delivers the goods with class and
panache. 2- We’ll get well
rounded characters to love, hate or both. And if I go by the clip they showed us
from the film; I think I will be right.

Clip: The
sequence had to do with a group of people trapped in a basement. They do the
mistake of opening the garage door which of course entails in a thick “mist”
saying "hello". All is well at first, that’s until; some giant tentacle springs
out of the fumes and grabs some dude by the leg and pulls him in. And that was
the clip. Well acted (Tom Jane and William Sandler owned it) and paced with the proper scare beats;
I am now even more excited as to the film. If I had one minute complaint to spit
out it would have to be that the
tentacle looked a little bit too CG to me. Hopefully they’re not done with it
in Post.

After
that, well it was an odd panel in the sense that nobody asked questions and the
panelists didn’t want to reveal much if anything at all about the film. So
that left me with adulating the passionate and endearing Thomas Jane (the man
lives on a different plane than all of us and I love him for it) and these
tidbits:

-The Mist IS a horror movie according to Darabont. It’s brutal, disgusting and
suspense filled. He has an aversion to filmmakers who make horror films and then
call them thrillers. So again; The Mist IS a horror movie. Yippee!

-The flick
contains some Lord of the Flies elements within it. Some of the people trapped
inside the building are worse monsters than the actual monsters seeking snacks
outside.

-Darabont
sometimes
shot in an unorthodox way. He had the camera men from the TV Show THE SHIELD on his
team and often enough they would shoot a whole scene from top to bottom, over
the shoulder while wandering all over the place to get their coverage. Some of the actors
felt a little disoriented by that technique (namely
Laurie Holden
) since they never knew where the
camera was.

– The Mist opens on November 21, 2007

I hate it when this happens…