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Damn was this movie good. Rob Zombie did a excellent job of taking the original and giving it more depth, especially with Michael and his family, and greatly increasing the brutal bloody carnage of Michaels  killing spree. The story follows pretty much the original although there are some obvious alterations, but its little that I missed or would complain about. My only gripes with the movie is with the editing, sometimes it feels as if the scenes got cut short or there were other scenes that got cut entirely. This throws off the movies pace a little especially near the end, which I got a little bored with considering everything else that happened before it.

I'm going to see this on Saturday. I'm expecting the worse so hopefully it will exceed my expectations a bit.  I thought that Devil's Rejects was a lot of fun but House of 1000 Corpses was a complete bore so I'm not sold on Rob Zombie as filmmaker quute yet as a lot of other people are.

As for the editing being off, I do know that Rob did some highly publicized reshoots a little over a month ago and from the reviews of the leaked work print, he made some pretty big changes to his original cut of the movie.

I just saw it as well.
Great Job from Mr. Zombie!!
One piece of advice....Don't bring the Kiddies!
Loved Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis.
Good to see Brad Douriff as well! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

The critics HATE it so far, Rotten Tomatoes has a very low score. I never rely on the views of critics, but they do tend to be the first 'barrier'. A couple of critics have praised it, though. It seems Rob Zombie's effort is much more of a "SAW generation" horror - supposedly the suspense which made the original movie so scary is gone in favour of Jason style brutality. I mean I like both styles but I doubt it'll scare me as much if this is the case, that's not to say it won't be fun.

It still doesn't make sense why it was released now and didn't wait until next month though! I suppose it'll still be in the cinemas when halloween comes and people will be more aware that it's on, and word of mouth will have gotten around about whether it's good or bad, so people will go there for halloween.

Personally while I love the original movie its far from scary for me. The remake is way more gut tightening, especially in the begining with little Mikey. That kid is one of the creepiest kids I have ever seen. I think the reason critics hate it is  it's just to extreme for them. There not used to seeing a completely barbaric serial killer, even above Jason. Personally I never cared for the Jason movies as I thought they lacked originality and scares and is way to formuale based. Jason is just a masked killer while in this new Halloween movie Michael actually has a human element to him hes not just mindlessly killing people but actually working towards a goal.

Interesting that critics are b***hing about that - the killer's humanity in the film - which they usually b***h about the lack of.

I'm probably going to see either this film or Superbad after work tomorrow night.

I like the idea that they added a human element to Michael.  If the killer has been humanized, then the film should be much more powerful than watching a film with just a mindless killing machine.  I don't like the idea of Michael having numerous masks, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

I wouldn't go see the film if it was someone other than Zombie at the helm.  I have the utmost faith in the guy and feel that since he is "one of us", he might actually make a good film out of this.  Also, the two good reviews on this topic so far have boosted my interest in the film quite a bit.

I'm going to see it today.  The only thing I don't like is the fact that they released it in August.  Usually it seems August is when the movie companies ship out the bad films, IE, Daddy Day Camp, and a few other flicks I've seen be released.

As far as why they didn't wait until October, I'm not sure.  Only thing I can think of is since Saw IV opens Halloween weekend and has a pretty solid built in following, they probably didn't want it to get crushed.

As far as Rob Zombie goes, I've only seen House of 1000 Corpses.  I actually didn't mind that, but haven't seen the sequel yet.  I'm a bigger fan of him and his music than the films.  Either way I hope to enjoy this.

i just saw it today with a group of buds, it was a great remake IMO. the ending was a bit long and dragged out i agree,but that would be my only complaint about the movie. good actors, good plot,good story,good blood, good random chest shots.

it was nice to see how Michael became the way he is.

See my comments in the "bad movie" section.  I thought this had a very good beginning and then turned to crap.

My only complaint was the last minute or two, actually.  It was working well, then it just ended.  No real like, end.  I don't wanna say how it is because of people who haven't seen it.  But I just didn't like that it just you know, faded to "Directed by Rob Zombie."

Overall, I was really impressed with it.  Having seen this and House of 1000 Corpses, I wanna see Devil's Rejects now.

Just made a long post about Halloween under the "bad movies" thread.

I very much disliked the film.  It's nothing compared to the original, and can't stand on it's own.  The humanizing of Myers doesn't work for me and I felt it to be pedantic overall. 

I can't recommend the film to anyone.   :thumbdown:

Skaboi - I just gave you a shot of karma!

My trust in mainstream film critics is at an all time low lately, with more and more exciting new movies getting worse and worse critical reception, but I have finally been pushed to the point where I will never trust a mainstream critic again. I just saw Halloween...

Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre have been the most praised of the obligatory 21st century horror remakes, but I'd place Halloween high above all of these.

Rather than taking the basic idea and creating a whole new movie, or trying to recreate the movie scene for scene, Halloween falls somewhere inbetween. It tells the story of Michael Myers in a much darker, more down-to-earth way and spends a surprisingly long time on it's prologue. We get a very depthy look into the life of 'the shape' as a child, and then at his time spent in the sanitarium with Dr. Loomis. Some people will miss the mystery of the original film (in fact, I'd say 'the shape' was no longer a fitting name), but after the ridiculous backstories, motivations and explanations from the infinite sequels, it's much better to see him return to being an evil maniac for his own reasons.

Mikey Myers is bigger, badder and more frightening than he's ever been, and with his more realistic backstory and completely removed "mythical being who can't die" business, it feels so much more gritty and real. The killings are brutal, hard hitting and realistic. Not once do we see ridiculous cartoony disembodiments, exploding heads or amusing 'creative' killings - the murders in this film are genuinely frightening and the gore is as realistic as it gets. The mask is a surprisingly accurate recreation of that from the original film, and it's dirty, worn and torn look is reminiscent of the similar badassifying of Leatherface in 2003.

I especially liked one moment when, {spoiler}rather than killing off one character, big Mike mortally wounds her and leaves her for dead, crying in pain{end spoiler}. It was particularly nasty and it's something you rarely see in a slasher film (I mean, normally somebody will receive a small wound and die instantly from it in these films.), it really got me scared.

After being a little concerned about some of the acting in the early clips I saw, when I saw the full movie I was relieved, because it's top notch stuff. Malcolm McDowell is just as great at Dr. Loomis as Donald Pleasance was in 1978, and the girls are a lot more Hollywood and a lot less "the director's friends" this time around. As expected, the actress who played the little girl Jamie so stunningly well for a child actress in the old sequels did amazingly as Annie as well.

It seems to have devided it's audience in half between people who like different aspects of a horror movie. A lot of people seem to be upset because it's graphic, gruesome and fast paced as opposed to the ominous, suspenseful tone of the original. I feel that this indicates Rob Zombie's awareness of the fact that in 2007 a knife-wielding man wearing a mask just isn't going to work like it did in '78.

If you're a slasher fan and you can accept a few differences in tone, you'll love this twisted, darker, more gritty and more human take on the Michael Myers story for the Saw generation. Fantastic stuff!

I don't want to cross post, but I put a link to my review of it in the Reviews forum.

I caught it early and managed to be one of the first reviews of the movie on the web.  My review is actually wishy washy and I was a lot more forgiving of it than I should have been but at the end of the day, I really didn't care for it.  My expectations were pretty low already but it just didn't do well for me.  My mostly-negative review received only a couple of comments from the usual comments crew at my blog, but the real vitriol came in the form of email.

From wednesday to sunday I received hundreds of extremely angry, hateful emails from Rob Zombie fans that couldn't believe that I didn't kneel before it.  Film Fiend had a similar experience and actually shut his comments off until the a***oles went away.  I emailed the guy at Dread Central that reviewed it negatively as well to find that he was being bombarded, too.

What the hell is wrong with people?

Before I go about replying to this thread again, I figured I should copy over what I had written on the other Halloween thread:

SPOILERS!

Well, I saw it last night with a group of friends.  My wife and I petitioned for Superbad but ended up getting ruled out 4-2.  So, Halloween it was....

First, let me say this movie is f***ing dark.  I'm not talking dark in the moral sense, I'm talking DARK.  If it wasn't a daylight scene then I couldn't tell what the hell was going on.  This is especially true for the ending.  I couldn't tell much of what was happening in the last 30 minutes or so.  Not that I cared.

My other problem is that the beginning of the films seemed like "Devil's Rejects Lite".  F You, F This, MotherFer, Faggot, blah, blah blah.  The inital tone of the film turned me off from the beginning and couldn't get me back into the film from that point.  Everyone in the film, with the exception of the underused Danny Trejo, talks like a redneck sailor.  This includes to some extent little innocent Laurie Strode who likes to call her friends "b***hes" quite often.

Another problem with the film is that it is so unintentionally funny.  Watching little Michael Myers sit on a curb crying while his mother is stripping instead of taking him trick-or-treating would actually work, if Nazareth's "Love Hurts" wasn't playing over top of it.  I couldn't help but start to giggle at the scene, and that was only the beginning of the humor.  A few minutes later, little Mikey is going on his killing spree through the house and puts on the iconic white-Shatner mask.  He then stalks his sister around the house with it on.  Seeing this midget version of Michael with the iconic mask on is actually creepy for a moment but then we get shot after shot of him and it becomes downright hilarious.  I was caught in an unstoppable fit of laughter as were most of the others in the theater.  I know damn well that was NOT Zombie's intention.

Most of the critics out there really liked the first third of the film with Michael's backstory.  Me...well, I HATED IT.  I didn't like the kid playing Michael, and the "humanizing" of him just doesn't work.  After Michael escapes fromt the asylum, everything that had been previously established disappears.  He turns into the old Michael Myers that we used to know except now he's a F'ING TERMINATOR at about 20 foot tall and 1000 pounds of muscle.  Zombie really missed the mark by hiring Tyler Mane as Michael.  The Shape shouldn't be a huge hulking destroyer of a man, he should be just a normal guy.  That's what made the original so scary.

Also, the kills in the film don't work for me at all.  Zombie sticks to normal weapons and kills to try to hold some authenticity to the film, but I would have actually liked some interesting kills.  Kills by baseball bat, knife, etc aren't that interesting anymore despite Zombie's attempts to make them so.  Not only are the kills boring but Zombie's "shaky-cam" style made me want to vomit.  I can handle a bit of shaky-cam but when I'm already straining to see what's happening in the all of the darkness, it gets a bit annoying.

Then there are the breasts.  Now I'm a fan of breasts, trust me.  But I found in this film that anytime a new female character was introduced, we would certainly see her breasts.  It got a bit redundant.  To be honest, most of them are not very good except for the girl who plays Lynda, who still doesn't do a good of a "job" as PJ Soles in the original.

Anyway, for those who don't want to read this long post, let me shorten it up.  This film isn't terrible, but it is unneeded.  Zombie does make a film that is passable as a slasher but isn't REMOTELY close to the original.  It's a film that will be forgotten; a Halloween for the Saw generation.  It almost feels like Zombie was trying to make Texas Chainsaw Massacre rather than Halloween, but whatever...he's the director.  I just hope this film doesn't ruin his carrer.

Also, I have obtained a workprint of the film and vowed not to watch it until I had seen Zombie's theaterical version.  I'll see about watching it soon and see what's different.  Supposedly it's much better.  We will see.











Ok, so there is my honest opinion about the film.  My question to those that prefer the remake/recashing on a franchise name - do you like the original?  I've found that most of the people that find the film to be enjoyable do not like the original.  I myself was not a fan of the original for a long time.  I felt it to be boring.  After a few viewings, I grew to love it and still find it to be quite possibly the best slasher of it's time.

DistantJ mentions that the film is good because it does away with all of the backstories from the previous films.  See, I'm one who believes that the Halloween franchise ended after the second film.  I love H3: Season Of The Witch but everything after it was crap.  For me, Michael died in that hospital explosion.  I don't believe that all of the films are canon.

I want someone to watch any modern slasher and then go watch Zombie's Halloween and tell me if they see any difference.  I see NOTHING about the film that separates it from the other modern slashers.  True, it's very violent which is rare in our time.  But, Zombie makes the violence BORING.  The only kill in the film that actually disturbed me was of Michael's tormentor.  I have to say that scene was completely effective but nothing after that was.

My biggest problem with the film is that Zombie starts out by not remaking Halloween while the second half is nearly a complete remake.  As soon as Michael gets to Haddonfield, we get a rehashing of the original.  If you want to reimagine a film, then you take the basic idea and turn it into something that is your own.  The new Dawn Of The Dead did a great job of this.  It took the basic idea - Zombies+Mall - and made a NEW story out of those elements.  If Zombie had held on to that idea as he did with the first third of Halloween, then this might have been a good film.  But, he decides to go back and remake exactly what Carpenter created and he fails.  It just doesn't work.   

I'm not trying to start an argument with my comments.  I respect everyone's opinions, especially on this board.  It is just that I can't believe the huge amount of Zombie fanboy backlash against us descenders.  I much prefer the John Carpenter original and hold it as a classic, and I always will.  I prefer "The Shape" much more than I do little white trash Mikey.  People can shout their praise of this film all they want but I promise you that no one will remember the film in five years.  As I said in my initial review, it's not an abomination of celluloid, it's just unnecessary.  No one was clamoring for a Halloween remake, and now we get a film that is just mediocre and doesn't seem any different than any other straight to video slasher.

I don't understand why something being unnecessary automatically makes it bad, though? I mean is any movie necessary? If Rob Zombie had made just another movie with a new killer I probably would have never gotten around to seeing it. I really enjoyed seeing Halloween revamped, and everything I hoped to see in it was included - the musical theme, the mask, particular scenes. I found the killings in it to be very disturbing and frightening which hasn't happened in a slasher in a long time. In fact I'd say this was the best "masked man slasher movie" of the new millenium.

People can be a***oles online, can't they? Critics who have been positive about it have been recieving similiar hateful comments from people, questioning their "credibility as a movie critic" et cetera. Some people are just messed up.

Not nearly as dreadful as a lot of critics have made it out to be but also nothing that I call a "good" movie as well.

In some weird way, Rob Zombie took elements from not just the 1st Halloween, but also parts 2, 4, and 5 and mixed them into some kind of white trash blender.

I wouldn't say it was boring (which is the worst sin that a movie can make) but I wasn't all that entertained either.

It was very well made on a technical level however.

I would give it ** out of ****.

Well put.  I saw this yesterday and watched every frame with pleasure.  I'm suprised by the sense of betrayal, not to say violation, I'm seeing in others who have already watched it.  But then I am far fromin love with the original.  It was no great shakes to me.

When you see how much the Zom has learned in the course of making only three movies (that we have gotten to see, at least), it impresses me even more.  Not to mention the warm, glowy feeling of knowing that a major rock star married to a minor porn star can be a drooling fanboy about B-horror, just like yours truly. 

*dashes away a sentimental tear*

Smells like Mr. Z's latest is a major entry in the "love it or hate it" category, but then I pretty much expected it between the director and the fact that it's a remake. Seeing it this weekend and as neither a loyalist to Zombie nor the original Halloween, I'm not really holding any predetermined like or dislike before going in. Either way, I'm still p**sed that Grindhouse got such a box office shafting... what that has to do with anything here I don't know, some gripes just never die...  :hatred:

DistantJ,

When I say that the film is unnecessary I mean that it is unimportant.  It does nothing new.  It has nothing unique within it's runtime.  It's the same thing that we see go straight to video.  Just because of it's name recognition and Zombie being behind the camera, it got a wide release.  It's just not the great film that a lot of people are making it out to be.  Granted it could have been much worse, but it falls into the same category as Gus Van Sant's 'Psycho' for me.  It just doesn't matter.  It adds nothing interesting to the story, and in my opinion is much less interesting than the original.

I know that my opinion won't change anything but it seems that no matter whom I mention it to, I get ripped apart for saying it's not good. 

I wasn't ripping you apart, just questioning you choice of the word 'unnecessary'. I enjoyed the hell out of it for an early Halloween treat, and this movie brings Michael Myers to a new generation who will find the original very boring and dated now.

I also thought it was great to finally be seeing a proper man-in-mask slasher movie again in this age of zombies and manipulative puppets on tricycles.

People act like the original Halloween was Citizen Kane or Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho or something - it was a very basic movie John Carpenter made on a shoestring budget to bring in a bit of cash. It was a good horror movie, sure, but it's not some kind of holy grail and it has become dated and less effective.

Hey man, I know you weren't ripping me apart, but that seems to be the reaction elsewhere.  I agree, it was good to see Michael again but it just didn't feel like a "Halloween" film to me.  It's no better than any of the films after Season Of The Witch, IMHO.  It just doesn't have the same feel to it.  Everything felt rushed, the characterization of Laurie and her friends was nil, and it just wasn't original.

I'm glad that a lot of people enjoyed it.  If this brings around a new surge of horror films, then that is great.  I just wish that Zombie would have made a film that could stand apart from it's name and really be a good film.  Instead he made a generic slasher with a few good ideas that don't come together the way they should.

I admit that I love the original and that some of that adoration is clouding my judegment.  I loved how Carpenter went for subtly over violence.  He used tension to create fear, not gore.  Don't get me wrong, I'm always happy to see gore in a horror film if it is used correctly.  In Zombie's film though, it was just boring.  It was everything we had seen before.  I was hoping for something more inventive out of the guy. 

I actually really liked how it went for realistic deaths even though they were explicit. I used to admire Halloween's realism compared to the 'creativity kills' of Friday the 13th and the Halloween sequels, because it felt like it could be real. What I admired the most about the new Halloween was how the kills all felt so real. The way he left Annie dying, not dead, and didn't care.

I also really liked how Michael actually wanted to find Laurie but not to actually kill her, until she p**sed him off, at which point he went for her too. I really, really liked that.

Adoration of an older version of a movie will always make a remade version seem worse than it is, even when the remake is already bad as it is. I have a pretty open mind so I'm happy with the changes made to Halloween, as I say, it's Halloween for a new generation who are after more raw, explicit horror, otherwise there'd be no point in remaking it, they would just re-release it like The Exorcist, but I do admit I'm probably going to find myself being extremely critical of the upcoming Evil Dead remake, and I would be incredibly harsh if they ever remade The Exorcist.

If you're interested, here's my full review:

http://www.hooplanet.co.uk/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1189000014&archive=&start_from=&ucat=8& (http://www.hooplanet.co.uk/article.php?subaction=showfull&id=1189000014&archive=&start_from=&ucat=8&)

Yeah, uh...  ***SPOILERS****




He just got stabbed deep into the chest, shot in the chest, then shot 3 times with a .357 magnum without any ill effects







**END****





I'll just say I found the film pretty bad.  A lot of the scenes which were attempts to be creepy were just laughable, like the looks of Myer's as a kid.  The entire prologue is utterly pointless.  Did I gain insight?  Yeah, maybe a little, if you mean in the generic "a to b to c" pathway to serial killerdom that the movie gives you.  Very dull and a waste of time.

It wasn't entirely bad...  The first kill in the movie worked.  McDowell was...  OK, though constrained by bad writing.  Sometimes it was trying to be funny, in an apparent attempt to remove any tension or suspense, but hey, at least at times it actually WAS funny.  Forsythe, while he destroys any drama of the opening scenes, is so ludicrous he entertained me at least.

Simpy put though, Halloween is mostly just dull. 

Jim, I've been posting about this film for nearly a week now and you said exactly what I've been trying to say in a single sentence.  Simplicity is amazing isn't it? 

Karma to you.