Reviews

Even though the remake of Halloween had some quirks, ala Rob Zombie, it was still a decent remake. What Rob Zombie added probably hurt the remake more than it helped it. For instance, turning young Michael into a sympathetic character with a bad home life, characters that over use profanity (especially the "F" word), sleazy, low class characters, and way too many minor characters to keep up with. Mix that with some unfortunate casting (Scout Taylor Compton and Malcolm McDowell), and you have a remake that could have been so much more. However, Tyler Mane as the towering, powerful new Michael, and the return of Danielle Harris to the series were both big advantages. As I said a decent remake when you weigh the pluses against the minuses.

I had high hopes for Halloween II. After seeing some of the pre-release photos, I was really excited. However, I can't say that I am that excited after the fact. Rob Zombie's vision of a post-Halloween Laurie Strode is apparently a foul-mouthed, tattooed skank who has dreams of a mother she never met (a desperate attempt to bring back Zombie's wife in a really unnecessary role). As for Dr. Loomis, Zombie found a way to make him even more sleazy than he was in the first film. The only sympathetic characters in the film were actually Danielle Harris and Brad Dourif as the Bracketts, and Zombie even managed to turn them into backwoods hicks. It seems if Zombie wants to focus on the gritty underbelly of everything. What he did with these characters was dehumanize them to the point that you really don't care if Michael mangles them or not...well, you are more or less hoping that he does mangle them to put them (and you as the viewer) out of their misery.

Now, Tyler Mane as Michael was still awesome. There were some really effective moments with him out of the mask or with the partial mask on, and the ending, though not shocking, provided a good conclusion that could take the film series into a fresh direction. Other than that, you have a sequel that just plain falls flat.

In hindsight, which is always 20/20, Rob Zombie probably should have never been considered to remake Halloween. It just was not the right film series for him to put his spin on. He tried to take a film series that was based on such a suburban, everyday landscape and make it gritty and seedy. Now, if this were the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, I would say gritty is good.

My hopes for Halloween 3-D is that they either get it back on track or send it out with a bang. My only request is no more Rob Zombie. I do not dislike Rob Zombie, but he needs to be separated from the Halloween series permanently.