Halloween Reviews

It's easy to understand why someone would want to remake classic Horror films, especially the slasher variety. From a studio standpoint, it's a financial goldmine. All you need is a director, a low budget, and the star power of Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger, release it at the right time of year, and wait for the revenue to roll in. Artistically, although most of the franchises can be defended if a nostalgic connection exists, the truth is, a lot of them haven't aged all that well. The rest weren't that good to begin with.
Along with the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", the other exception is John Carpenter's, "Halloween". It was the first horror movie I witnessed when I was 7. It scared the life out of me then. It also turned me into a lifelong fan of the genre. Dare I say, that the atmosphere created in the original, is still as creepy and suspenseful as it was 35 years ago. It's difficult to tread on hollowed ground.
Still, there was plenty of money to be made on the Michael Myers name, but fans were losing interest in poorly conceived sequels. So the only reasonable answer was a complete reboot.
The reigns were handed over to Rob Zombie. Those of you with very poor taste in music will recognize that name. He was also the director of the lousy, "House of a Thousand Corpses", but probably earned the "Halloween" gig with the well executed, "The Devil's Rejects".
To Zombie's credit, he did, at least through half of the film, attempt to make the characters his own. The first half of the film is an origin story. It's fairly well executed. Daeg Faerch, in the role of "young Michael", is especially impressive. I'll also give credit to the history of the mask. In the original, the disguise was just selected off of a shelf in a hardware store. Zombie's version supplies the iconic face with relevance. There are of course issues with the movie's back-story. My most notable complaint, is that it provides the viewer a reason to feel sorry for Michael. To me, it was much more effective when there was no explanation for Michael's actions. The evil just resided in him, out of nowhere. There was no need to feel sympathetic toward the character, you just feared him because he was a monster. Zombie saddles Michael with a profile easily lifted off of a serial killer paint-by-number kit. Still, it was good for what it was.
The second half of the movie chronicles the return to Haddonfield. During the slasher portion of the remake, Zombie's worship of directors like Tobe Hooper are readily apparent, but it works here. Zombie's version of Michael has a pronounced mean-streak. Victims are executed with a harsh cruelty, that may be unprecedented for the franchise. "The Shape" also benefits from his imposing size. Really, the portrayal of Michael Myers was excellent all-around. The issue with the "slasher" portion of the film, is that it follows Carpenter's events to a, "T". Sure things are more violent and bloody, but what's left, felt far too familiar. That is where Zombie failed to make the movie his own, and it really eliminated the much needed sense of anxiety.
Despite my complaints, overall, I think that this is a good horror movie. It certainly trumps the remakes being spit out by "Platinum Dunes". It doesn't even come close to the original, but that goes with out saying. After the original, I would definitely recommend this over any of the other sequels.

A very pathetic remake. ( A lot of remakes are.) Rob zombie decided that he wanted to direct a totally unneccesary movie. The original is the greatest horror movie of all time in my opinion, but now it's ruined because of this white-trash adaptation. Unlike the original, we get to see Michael Myers growing up as a kid. His family is white-trash (A huge cliche when it comes to Rob zombie films) and the thing I noticed right off the bat is that making him grow up in an unstable environment ruins the character. In the original, Michael grew up in an average suburb house with two normal parents and a normal lifestyle for someone his age...and he still became evil. That makes the original version scarier because he was evil by nature and it's almost as if he was born to be a complete psychopath. The remake however makes him evil by nurture, the environment he lived in which included a bitch sister, a mom who is a whore and the mom's abusive boyfriend who criticized Michael whenever possible. He was evil because he had a hellish lifestyle and let's be honest, there are a lot of kids/teens like that in the world. It just makes the remake Michael seem less menacing and less of a challenge. Another wrong with this movie is the dialogue. Just about every character cusses every 3 words. (Hey, another Rob Zombie cliche!) Seriously, it's bad enough I have to listen to nonstop cussing at my high school, but to hear it from characters ranging from adults to people close to my age is just aggravating. I bet if Rob zombie made a movie about pre-schoolers he would still have them cuss nonstop:
Teacher: What the fuck is two plus fucking two?
Billy: Twenty-two, bitch!
Teacher: Wrong, dumbshit. Any other little assholes wanna answer this shitstorm of a fucking problem?
I'm not kidding, that's exactly what Rob Zombie dialogue sounds like. Another thing about this movie is that it just contains way too much blood and gore. The original had virtually no blood, but the remake just overdoes it with the violence. (Rob Zombie cliche numero tres.) I mean come on, were Rob Zombie to make a movie about a kid getting a paper cut, his whole finger would go flying off, the bone would poke through his skin and blood would spew out like a fountain. The acting in this film is ok though. The kid playing Michael Myers as a child did alright, the teens were ok, but annoying and the adult actors did pretty good with what little material they were given. Overall, the remake is just irrelevant. Rob Zombie cinematically commited rape. He ruined what made the original scary and turned it into something totally different. If Rob Zombie were to make a remake of Jaws, this is what I think it would be like:
Brody: Where the fuck is the fucking shark?
Quint: The shit vanished in mid-fucking-air.
Shark: I'm over here, bitches! Imma get drunk and throw sea rocks at you assholes.
(Rock hits Quint in the toe and his head blows up while his limbs fall off and melt into blood while every bone in his body snaps.)
The end.

Too much blood made this iconic horror flick to be plainly unrealistic. There's no depth and development, but despite all that, it's still a good watch on Halloween itself for tradition's sake.

First off, I AM giving this a slight recommendation. My stance on the original has been properly established (just read the review in my favorites section). I was originally against the idea of bringing back the original film as a remake, but then I was for this film when I started finding out more about it, then I flip-flopped a few times, then finally saw it. This film is indeed not a remake. Re-imaginging was thrown around as a way to describe it, but I like 'modern interpretation' better. This film, unlike the '78 isn't really scary per se, but believe it or not, it is just as intense, and unnverving- it just happens to be more disturbing, thanks in part to violence and nudity that at times, I thought could have been toned down. That's my biggest complaint with the film is that it's too excessive at times with the brutality and cruelty on display. Normally, I don't mind excessive profanity, but it just seemed overdone here. I'm okay with trying to give a character like Michael a backstory, but Zombie does it by the book and throws in all the cliches he could find. This doesn't make the character remarkable, it just makes him like your average killer. I think I could have cared far more about the remake portion of the film had the characters been made likeable and sympathetic. No one is really all that sympathetic here, so to see them get killed is like watching a generic slasher film, and that's not what made Halloween special to me. Flaws or not, it is all done with great style, and as a film maker, Rob Zombie does improve with each film he makes, however, despite that I do reccomend it, this film, due to the flaws, is a slight step down for him, which is unfortunate. I do reccomend it, but only on two conditions- 1) think of it as a stand alone film not related to anything else, and 2) be warned- the film is over the top. The squemish or those easily offended by vioence, sex, nudity, crude language, and combinations of all of those need not see this.

Rob Zombie re-ups Carpenter's original for a new generation, underlining the monster's hard luck upbringing while deleting the story's self-effacing cheekiness. Sometimes that works ...

For those who say it's just too close to the original or it is not updated enough, I have not seen the original Halloween yet, so I am seeing this as a film on it's own. Briefly, isn't it usually the problem that a remake changes too much and ruins the film? So then why is the remake being similar to the original bad?

Moving on, Halloween is the 2007 remake of the original horror film about serial killer Michael Myers. Majority of the film talks about his childhood and what all lead him to become the evil killer he was.

This new opening sequence seemed to drag on a little, but did serve well as a back story to show that Michael wasn't always a completely horrible child. The violent deaths, interesting twists and many other features came out and intrigued me and drew me into the idea of it all.

One thing that did really bug me about the film was I noticed actors I had seen in films I had watched before, thinking "Wow! That's what's-his-face off that film! I haven't seen him anywhere for a while! I hope he stays for a whi... oh, he's dead!" Although this was a little frustrating, it did add to the element of horror, showing that all the people I had a minor connection with was dying!

Classic traits of Zombie seem to come across, with lots of entirely unnecessary nudity, that, although by many is highly appreciated, I found a waste of camera time and of money! Maybe if there was less porn and a bit more gore and a bit less of a focus on the childhood, the film could have had a better rating. But nonetheless it was good fun to watch and something that should be put on your 'Films To Watch On Halloween' list!

Well, well here's the reimagining of Halloween. Directed by Rob Zombie, director of the great Horror film, The Devil's Rejects and House of A 1000 Corpses; the Halloween remake is an almost apocalyptic vision of the notorious madman, it's the birth of something evil and totally sinister. What's interesting of this remake is Rob Zombie's use of violence in this film, never before in a Halloween film has violence been used in excess, until now. This is by far the bloodiest, goriest film in Halloween's history. The remake is also profane, and uses nudity to appeal to a new generation of horror fans. As a fan of the original (which is by far my favorite film ever) I can admire Rob Zombie's take on the Halloween saga. As far as remakes are concerned, this one is not that bad. Rob Zombie's Halloween is an interesting take on the Michael Myers character. There's effective chills on-screen and enough gore and decent kills to appeal the new generation of horror fans. But for my money, nothing will beat the original. I felt that this didn't fully live to what it could have been. What made the original film so good was the use of suspense to create the terror. That's something that's very much absent from this remake. Instead Rob Zombie uses cheap thrills to get the job done, it works, but not that often. This is an enjoyable film, but it will never be outdone. The original will always be the classic, and the must see film.

Wesley Rhoades: Next time I see that Myers pussy, he's dead!

"Evil Has A Destiny."

Before going into a Rob Zombie movie, you already know a lot about the movie. It's going to be violent and gory. It's going to have an amazing soundtrack. And it's going to have piss poor dialogue. Check, check and double check with Rob Zombies "Reimagining" of Halloween. Within the first conversation between Michael's mom and her boyfriend, I knew this movie wasn't going to work for me. Zombie's form of profane dialogue worked in The Devil's Rejects, but I don't foresee it ever working again.

Zombie spends such a large bulk of time with a garbage backstory to how Michael became the Michael Myers we now know. The backstory drags and drags and then the actual Halloween remake feels rushed. There's no suspense to be had with this remake and the suspense is what made the original so good. Zombie doesn't even make an attempt to make it suspenseful or scary. He rather be in your face, instead of having any patience whatsoever. One scene that really jumped out and showed his lack of patience was when Laurie and the two kids she's babysitting run back into her house. Michael follows right behind by kicking in the door.

The movie looks fairly good and it does have a nice soundtrack to go along with Carpenter's well known Halloween theme. But other then that, I can't think of anything I liked about this. The acting is really bad, especially Scout Taylor-Compton and Sheri Moon. It's cool seeing Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis, but Zombie doesn't really allow for that to help the movie at all. It's easy to see Rob had some fun making this, but at least he could save a little of that fun for the viewer.

I am a fan of this movie! I appreciated how Rob Zombie took it back and went in depth as to how Michael Myers became a killer. The ratings given to this movie on RT are very low and not characteristic of how good the movie actually is.

It was as good as the original film!

I hate horror remakes, none of them are good. Halloween the original is my all time favorite horror movie, and not only was this not scary, they made Micheal Myers a kiss fan and made him look like a rocker as an adult. 80% of the people he killed were all assholes, 20% was the mexican janitor and Micheals sister. This movie did not live up to the original, and Scout Taylor-Compton will never live up to Jamie Lee Curtis in the original. The movie became boring and I started skipping scenes that were taking forever.

I guess I am the only person to like the development of the cutest kid turn into a brainless killing machine. If you like Rob Zombie movies, Scream and Nightmare on Elm street then I would like to think you'll enjoy this. I might be throwing spoilers out, but one of the best victim take down scenes of the past 10 years. The part where the Doctor is standing outside his house during Halloween and Myers in split second rips into his neck with a knife. No openly graphic detailed scenes, just a scene that paints the picture of what is needed to scare you. I loved the music, the classic Carpenter theme, love the disfunctional family with Jimmy Carter on their wall. The almost idiotic shrink played by Malcolm McDowell, you would think 15 years with no progress with a normal kid would have lost his job, eventually the Sheriff tells it how it is. One of the cutest pschyopath you'll find on DVD.

I'm Sorry Rob. Hey everybody! Rob Zombie is not a good director. He think he is makeing his own thing....but he's doing the exact thing that any horror director today does....he takes ideas from here and there and use them...And it's the same thing we've seen over and over again.....and it's not a good thing. And the casting of the lead role is horrible. There is no character in her face what so ever. Her face means nothing. The last half hour....I couldn't pay attention to the movie cause I just didn't care what happened to her. Jamie Lee Curtis was a good casting for the original....cause her face means something. Sorry Rob. You didn't make the grade.

The Adult Actor for Michael Myers played an excellent part, plenty of teen nudity and sexual scenes. As far as scary NOT. But I'll give it 3 stars. Ron Zombie knows what sells movies, sex and nudity.

B-

This Rob Zombie's horror film is very different story to the 1978 original one and I see serial killer Michael Myers' development is very interesting and more frightening.Tyler Mane is brilliant and perfect choice as the adult masked serial killer because of his height and buff as you know, he's a former real-life wrestler. And the beautiful Scout Taylor-Compton is terrific as the sole survivor, Laurie.
The only problem I have with it is the extreme use of language and especially the "F" word used throughout the film. But other than that... I don't say this much but... this was the greatest horror movie I've seen in a long time.
Horror remake of John Carpenter's 1978 Halloween.

Saying that this is Rob Zombie's re-invisioning of Halloween is kinda like comparing Vanilla Coke to Pepsi Vanilla. Or Vanilla Ice to Milli Vanilli. Or Fred Durst to Vanilla ice... or Tiger Woods to Vanilla Coke. Either way you put it, if you rent this movie, you get one free guarantee from Zombie himself that getting your G.E.D. will be harder than you thought!

This is a sadistic piece of trash that is a disgrace to the 70's atmospheric original cult-film by John Carpenter. It is quite clear that director Rob Zombie, who is also known for his musical career as a lead singer of White Zombie, has no talents behind camera at all. He turns the whole idea of masked-killer into a bloody freak-show here. In the original version Michael Myers was much more interesting as a character because we knew so little about him. Here Zombie almost spends half of the film's lenght focusing in Michael's childhood and the time he spent in mental-hospital and that is a huge miscalculation. It also does not help that he turns his Myers into a ridicilous looking viking-like giant killer who is nearly impossible to kill and seems to own some superpowers also. Rob Zombie is just one of those poor wannabe-directors who like to see characters being killed as brutally as possible and with huge buckets of blood spilled from their flesh. There is nothing good to say about this film or anything to recommend here, absolutely nothing at all.

A wasted opportunity but overall, a waste of time. Giving Michael Myers a 'back story' could have worked, given a good writer but unfortunately it was Rob 'I haven't got an original idea in my body' Zombie that got there first. Giving a reason as to why Michael Myers is such a fucked up psycho kinda takes away the real scare factor about him, add a cliched reason and horrible cast (for the most part) and what you have is another in a long line of rubbish remakes. I'll probably watch the sequel though cos I'm glutton for punishment.

terrible! never going to watch it again! I've seen it 2 times, but I should have just stuck with the first time!