A really good actor? That’s friggin’ Malcolm McDowell, one of the most brilliant and charismatic British actors of the past half century. Sadly, however, he has appeared in a steady stream of crap for the past twenty or more years and, in the process, somewhat damaged his reputation, IMO. the same might be said for the equally brilliant Brad Dourif. Unfortunately, neither of these great actors has much to go on in this poorly written remake.

My biggest complaint is the mindless violence. Not that I have anything against it. If this was a remake of Friday the 13th, I’d be ok with the violence b/c Jason is a big, stupid, killing machine. Myers was always the silent, stalking type. Here, he just kills for no reason (like Laurie’s parents).

The bottom line is that I’m spoiled by the original. When he killed his sister in the original, he looked like a normal kid. We’re all thinking how could he have done this? The mystery made it so cool. The back story here gave us TOO much of a background and in the end, Michael Myers became humanized and lost his aura of “the boogeyman”.

I’m with you on remakes all the way, but I don’t get up in arms about them anymore because for the most part, I don’t watch them. I know what to expect when a great old horror movie is remade for contemporary audiences and directed by someone who shot music videos or car commercials. To review Halloween, I was able to step outside of my own prejudices and realize that if I want to watch Halloween after this, I can pop in the original and find that nothing has changed and that despite Rob Zombie’s version, it’s still the all time classic that I’ve come to see it as. When George Romero was asked about remakes when Dawn of the Dead was in production he said he didn’t really care because it didn’t change anything about the original movie.

The meathead losers who are going to be shitting their pants about this movie until it hits DVD are the most disappointing, unavoidable side effect of the remake engine. That part I can’t put aside. I’m already seeing IMDB reviews and mentions on the Dread Central forums that this version is better than the original. I’m not them, though, so they can have it.

Yes there is plenty wrong and not enough time or space to write it all. The film sucks. Shaky camera is not a style dammit! Close ups and shaking. I could not tell what was happening half the time. The guy has no idea of the 180 degree rule of shooting a film. It is all over the place. Jarring and ridiculous. No style. It’s like amateur hour. How can a guy with a budget like this and union crew NOT have a film shot right? Where was the damned UNION camera people? Surely THEY know where to put a camera, right? It’s called a damned “Line of Action”, ROB, a damned “Director’s Line.” Learn it.

The performances are clearly all over the map with Sherri Moon being horrible in a straight role. I have seen better Mom portrayals on the old Alice TV show. The mask is creepy and the new Michael is brutal, but it is just overdone, like most of this film. Overblown and dumb. STOP IT. Please someone slap the executives who keep doing this in the face.

What hurts the most is that it really made me realize that in the Horror market of today, no one has a damned clue. There is not one new director who touches a hair on Carpenter’s head. Craven is a hack and proves it with each film, but Carpenter, though he has had a few misfires, knew how to make us care, how to scare us and how to keep us coming back. I liked House of 1000 Corpses, it was fun! I liked Devils Rejects for what it was. Kinda slow in parts, but OK. This one blows donkey ass and the scary thing is , you know it and so does everyone else, but the rest of the dreck coming out is such terrible, PG-13 crap that this actually looks good! Also, people are afraid to say that a movie sucks when the Publicity Machine is pushing it down our throats! People are afraid to say anything bad about a film cause they won’t get any more screeners or studio invites. Too bad. This film sucks John Carpenters ass.

Sad days in Horror my friends. Sad Days.

I think Rob Zombie will one day turn something out that is both original and quality. He just needs to stop filling every frame of film with proof positive that he’s a horror movie fan. I get it. Every frame is filled with nods to his favorite actors and movies. If he can get over being a fan making movies and be a director, I think he’ll come around and start making some good movies. As a director he’s not bad. Halloween looked really nice. As a writer, he has a long way to go. Loomis’ reply to the Sherriffs question of what Michael’s goal in Haddonfield stands as one of the most groan worthy lines of the last five years.

The screening I caught in town was met with an onslaught of boos at the film’s conclusion. Could this have been due to the aging hipster crowd which strangely attended the viewing? Perhaps. Or maybe people are just tired of lowly directors ruining classic movies.