“A white horse ride on -- a bloody sky/ Murder on my face and death in my eyes/ Tomb inside my head -- the hell I'm forced to live/ I gave you all pain that -- I had to give/ Now I'm coming home”
Hello Horror friends. It has been a hot minute since I stopped by and talked about this and that and whatnot and what have you. (I hope you’ve been good, living your best life.) Well, let me tell you that I spent my afternoon re-watching Rob Zombie’s Halloween (2007) and Halloween II (2009) and I was reminded of how much I liked these remake versions of his, but mainly, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed Laurie Strode (aka Angel Myers) descent into madness.
Before I begin explaining my fascination with Laurie’s character, I would like to say the following about the movies and about Rob Zombie himself. Okay, here I go... Thanks to these two remakes, Rob Zombie showed us how badass of a filmmaker he is, I mean, come on, who else would have the balls to go to a Studio to try to sell *his own idea* of Michael Myers? Of the one and only Halloween franchise? Only someone as confident and capable as him would actually do it and get away with it, don’t you agree?
“I dream pitch black -- sleep of misery/ A ghost across the mist -- she come to set me free/ An angel in my world now she has to bleed/ A river of blood -- come back to me/ Now we're coming home”
Halloween (2007) gave us a beautiful insight into the sick violent mind of young Michael Myers and made us (made me) feel a little bit sorry for him, not only as a fucked up kid living in a dysfunctional home but also as a fucked up adult locked inside a mental asylum. Additionally, this 2007 film let us see a different side of Zombie’s Directorial style as it was noticeably more guided and focused, while still having that recognizable Zombie touch (recycled actors, foul porno-like language, seventies white trash vibes, etc.). On the other hand, Halloween II (2009) was a classic Rob-motherfucking-Zombie film. Hello violence and gore! Hello anti-heroes and gritty characters! Hello loud rock music and impromptu dancing! Hello colorful trippy dream sequences and heavy editing cuts! HELL-OOOO!!
[As a meme analogy I like to say that Halloween (2007) is you when you first get your dream job and are on your best behavior while trying to impress your boss, and that Halloween II (2009) is you ten years into your job where you are way too comfortable for your own good and are for sure not trying to impress anyone. All jokes aside, you can definitely feel a switch between movies and, as a Rob Zombie fan, that is simply wonderful.]
Now, let’s talk about my girl Laurie.
Laurie Strode is Angel Myers, Michael Myers’ baby sister who was adopted by a caring couple when her mom, Deborah Myers, committed suicide after not having been able to cope with the fact that her only son had become mad at 10 years of age and murdered not only a bunch of people but also her oldest daughter, Judith Myers.
Luckily, Laurie was ignorant of her own Myers background which allowed her to live a happy life with her adoptive parents. But that all changed when at 17 she was faced by Michael’s reign of terror. [Side note: It was heartbreaking when Michel showed to a scared Laurie a picture of their younger selves to let her know they were family, to what she quickly reacted by crying and yelling, “I DON’T KNOW THEM!”]
“Sister why do I - do I want to kill you?/ I fall to my knees, please, I love you/ Mother why do I - do I want to kill you?/ I am your only son, the one - I love you”
So yada, yada, yada Michael and Laurie have a fight and yes, Laurie wins this one but not without getting all messed up in the process. And mind you, she still has no idea they are both related. Cut to the sequel where the really juicy stuff happens to her.
Two years have passed and Laurie now lives with her friend Annie and Annie’s dad, Sheriff Brackett. Annie almost died two years ago also, but unlike Laurie, she’s only dealing with external wounds and scars. Laurie is damaged internally, you know, emotionally and mentally –both her parents were killed by Michael, and to top it all off the once before perfect daughter and perfect student with a bright future is now barely surviving day after day thanks to PTSD, working at a lousy job surrounded by a bad crowd, having constant fights with Annie due to complicated emotional crap, still experiencing recurrent nightmares about Michael’s attack, going to a shrink who kind of helps her but not really. If you ask me, it is amazing that Laurie is still here, yes, all fucked up and struggling, but still here, fighting, one day at a time.
By the way, can we mention how real the therapy sessions felt like? I mean, I was literally triggered you guys:
Now Laurie was almost 19, dealing with her new dire reality and bleak future, could it even get worse for her? Why yes!! Enter Loomis, the nice Doctor who helped young Michael when he was institutionalized as a kid after the first round of murders, but guess what, now in the sequel Loomis was—for reasons that only Rob Zombie knows—a greedy egotistic jerk, gaining profit by publishing a tell-all book about his work with young Michael where he, unethically, revealed that Laurie Strode (birth name Angel Myers) was not only the sole living survivor of the infamous criminal monster better known as Michael Myers, but also his sister. Fuck. Poor Laurie found out she was a Myers by hearing of the book about the man that almost killed her, then buying said book, reading it in her car, flipping the pages and seeing a full-page picture of herself. FUUUUUUCK!
“I am your only son, the one, Michael/ Help me mama please, please, Michael/ I only want to stay, a day, Michael/ See me as I fall, your all, Michael...”
So at this point my girl Laurie has a full blown breakdown and goes to her friends and requests they go party all night long because she is tired of feeling this way and after all, it is Halloween. So they party, get drunk, get laid, get murdered (except for Laurie of course, but just for now), and the night ends with a horrible standoff between Laurie, Michael, imaginary 10-year-old Michael, and Michael’s mom, ahem, Laurie’s mom, excuse me, imaginary Laurie’s birth mom. Dude, that shit was crazy, one for the books! [I really, truly enjoyed this Michael’s look and body built, clothes and facial hair, but specially I loved that he grunted and—wait for it—talked! See? One for the books!]
So that was it. If you watched the Theatrical version then you were told that Laurie survived the ordeal and that she ended up locked at a psychiatric hospital, however, if you watched the Unrated Director’s Cut (like you should have, you know, to honor the true vision of the script) then you know that Laurie did die and that her “stay” at the psychiatric hospital was actually her last thought as she symbolically descended into madness, alone, removed from everything she once knew, with visions of her mother and the emblematic white horse. Deep stuff.
In summary, I loved the movies and I loved this version of flawed Laurie because she showed us that it is okay to not be okay, and that nobody is perfect, and that not everything goes according to plan, and that sometimes, just sometimes, you have really bad luck and end up dead thanks to your murderous family.
In Love and Fear,
-Marath
P.S. For your listening pleasure, “Michael” by Rob Zombie.
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