Halloween (2007)

(2007)
Director: Rob Zombie
Writer: Rob Zombie

Rob Zombie's re-imagining of Halloween begins with Michael Myers's childhood. Raised in a white trash household with an abusive stepfather and a desperate mother who works at the local strip club to make ends meet, young Michael Myers's sociopathic behavior goes unchecked until he finally snaps and kills several people on Halloween night. Now after 15 years in an asylum, Michael Myers escapes and returns to Haddonfield for his little sister.

Rob Zombie goes much deeper into the origin of Michael Myers with this remake than any of the previous films. Although I personally really enjoy the first half, I can understand why many people had a problem with it. By going so in depth with the influences and motivations of the character of Michael Myers, he loses a lot of his mystique, that "boogeyman" quality. Instead of being "evil incarnate", Michael Myers becomes yet another serial killer. Although I feel like the series had pretty much run it's course with that angle anyways, and I was glad to see a different perspective. After the one hour mark however, the film becomes a fairly straight-forward remake of the first film. I guess when I first watched it, I was a bit disappointed as the first half of the film was so innovative and off-the-rails of what you would expect from a Halloween movie. Once it settled into familiar territory, suddenly I knew what to expect and wasn't quite as enthralled. It also didn't help that the movie clocks in at almost two hours. If it loses you along the way, that's way longer than it needs to be. Rob Zombie has a very fast-paced, music video style of directing and while I personally love it, it doesn't fit with every movie. The eerie, uncomfortable tension that permeated the first film is lost in this re-imagining, although the film's quickly-edited, brutal attack scenes do provide an uncomfortable tension of their own.

A lot of people were very upset with this remake, some even going as far as to claim that Rob Zombie "ruined the Halloween franchise". First of all, let's be honest. The Halloween franchise was ruined long before Rob Zombie got there. In today's world of big budget remakes and re-imaginings, Halloween was bound to get rebooted whether anyone wanted it to or not. At least Rob Zombie tried to do something a little different with it. It may be true that Zombie doesn't appear to have the same love for the original film as a lot of the fans, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes a bit of distance from the source material can bring an interesting new perspective. Remember the shot-for-shot remake of Psycho? Remember how everyone hated it because it brought absolutely nothing new to the table? We could've gotten that. No one will ever capture the lightning-in-a-bottle of the original Halloween. That movie exists in it's own time and place. If you're going to remake a film that you obviously can't make better, come at it from a different angle and bring your own voice to it. Whether you love it or hate it, you can't deny that Halloween feels like a Rob Zombie film.

Although I did enjoy this film more upon re-watching it, it's faults are still plainly obvious to me. I don't feel that it deserves as much hate as it's usually given, but I also admit that it could be done better. I give Rob Zombie's Halloween 3 1/2 out of 6 beers.