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I must say that I liked this movie more than I thought I would.  Having read all the previous threads here on it, I wasn't sure I would, but it worked on a number of levels.  The whole sequence of Michael Myer's childhood was fascinating and made him a much more sympathetic character, as did the constant mask-making in the asylum.  The deleted scenes are DEFINITELY worth watching.  I am pretty sure I saw Jeffery Combs in a couple of them.  I think this is a worthy homage to the original, as well as being a great stand-up movie in its own right.  Sherri Zombie is actually a convincing and talented actress, I might add.  This is my favorite Rob Zombie film yet!

I think that if Rob Zombie hadn't made this a Halloween film and instead just made it about a serial killer who grows up in a white trash setting and brutally slaughters people.]

The 1st half is actually kind of effective at times but when he puts on that Michael Myers mask the movie just becomes pointless.

I enjoyed the Hell out of the first half, but once we're introduced to Laurie and her stupid little friends (Tommy especially) I felt like I'd been jerked over into another movie because the focus was taken away from Michael. It's hard to follow one particular character for 45 minutes only to have focus shift entirely to such an unlikable cast of high school skank stereotypes. Laurie was cute and all, but every time some sexual comment or another slipped out of her mouth (especially in the scenes with her own freakin' parents!) I became more and more frustrated because I knew she wouldn't die and the irritation would just continue... blah!

Just saw it last night...liked a few small bits in it but overall it was annoying.  Although it payed homage to some shots in the original, it just seemed to be too much of a WB cast knock-off mixed with Zombie-isque trailer park trash.  I'll stick with the original myself.

I guess I'm in the minority who liked this. 

Wasn't great, but good.  I've seen worse flicks. 

I love Rob Zombie's Halloween.

The Unrated Cut is the version with the rape scene intact, but also with the awesome theatrical "Loomis dies" ending, right? Because that's my favourite version.

I liked the first half, the one everybody complains about because it humanises Jason. But one the guy downs the mask and picks up the machete it's just another dime a dozen slasher.

Would be a pretty odd Halloween movie if it humanized Jason.

I meant Freddy  :wink: :tongueout:

I love how this flick shows the background of Charles Lee Ray and his interest in the occult and voodoo.  They never really explored it in the earlier ones. :wink:

Honestly though, I liked Halloween.

A few things...

Michael was not "just another slasher". He is the quintessential slasher. Other movies copy the popularity of Halloween so to say that a humanized Michael is somehow doing him justice is really off the mark. In addition, Michael was never meant to be a sympathetic character. He was meant to be a character who was mysterious and feared, "the Boogeyman".

I understand that other people have their opinions. They liked it, fine. However, in my opinion I honestly hated what Zombie did to this movie. Maybe I just hold the original in too high of a regard to accept any changes to it. I don't dislike Zombie, but a trailer trash Michael?  :thumbdown:

I didn't really think it humanized him that much. I thought it made him scarier to see how he became such a pure psychopath. Seeing him gradually hide within himself, giving over control to the sadistic impulses, the anger, the hatred, until there appeared to be little of Michael Myers left. That was scary.

That's what I liked about this. It didn't just rehash the story with a lot of current horror-movie conventions. It was an intelligent movie, for what it was. Zombie chose to explore a different aspect of the story that Carpenter, for his own reasons, chose to gloss over. Two tellings of the same story from two different views of what is scary.

I do have to admit though, while I like classic Michael, I kind of preferred the way he looked when he escaped. Classic Michael is very clean. No frills. A blank slate. Without humanity. Cold blooded. That was Carpenter's vision. But Psycho Mike in his cell is huge, imposing, dirty. He's like an animal, but intelligent. His papier mache mask is raw and distorted. Yet he is just as silent, patient and observant as the original. I think he lost something when he went to the classic look.

Maybe it would have been better if it hadn't been Halloween. But would it have been as fascinating if we were gaining this insight into a new character, rather than one we already knew?

I agree that if the movie had been called something else then I probably would have liked it. Same thing with Halloween III, as a stand alone its a fine movie. But it wasn't Halloween as we the fans expected it to be, thus it failed.

Unfortunately Zombie did Halloween, so it comes in the footsteps of its predecessor. That man just wasn't Michael as he was meant to be. The setting wasn't as it should have been. Everything just seemed wrong and off-kilter. What if you took say a male hero from a popular scifi series, he's a space fighter pilot call him for the lack of a better term Starbuck. Then in the "reimagining" he gets a sex-change and comes back as a woman. The same feeling just isn't there. That was a major liberty that Zombie took with the story. Yes with Michael, you got to see 'what happened', but I don't think that was needed. It just didn't work for me.

As for Michael being humanized that was the whole change the Zombie made. The change from human to monster. In the original the change happened to an innocent little  boy. It was as if some supernaturally evil force just set up shop in Michael. You never saw Michael as a normal boy and never empathized with him. There was never any inkling that what Michael was doing was justifiable by any means.   

I don't know that it necessarily justified Michael, but I think it made me appreciate more the forces at work from without and within that made a monster out of him. I appreciate more how messed up he is.

I also agree with Carpenter's approach, where something in Michael just snaps and he loses his humanity entirely. We don't know how or why, but this little kid becomes a killing machine. That's scary too.

I would say that Zombie's movie could have been about an entirely new killer, but some of the effectiveness of his movie comes from it being a familiar story of a familiar character. If it wasn't Michael, the story would get considerably more complicated, and the movie might not have turned out so well.

I saw it as a nice experiment, like seeing what a different cook makes out of the same ingredients. This is mainly because Zombie didn't make a pointless remake, but chose to tell the story from a different perspective.

I thought he was a much better Michael than ANY of the sequels. I'd much rather they explore his human roots than a bunch of occult crap.

I never saw Michael as 'pure evil'... I never really got that part of the original film, I always just figured that Dr. Loomis was a bit obsessive, and Michael was unreachable, which this new version pretty much exactly did. I always thought that the fact that he just wouldn't seem to die was the only mysterious thing about him, and that was carried over.

I think the thing that bugs me is this new Halloween is a new version of elements of the first two Halloween films, with the whole "why" business explained - referring to the whole "Laurie is Michael's sister BS, which wasn't retrofitted until II).

I thought the strong point of the original Halloween was the fact that there was no explanation, which makes it that much more effing scary.  Laurie was in the wrong place at the wrong time - could have been anyone. 

It started going downhill when they give him motivation (Laurie is his other sister) and even worse when they started getting into the really heavy druid elements.

As for the new Michael, he was ok I guess - but it was hard to not picture Sabertooth/Huge Nuge behind that mask lol.  I dunno, I just think one's imagination filling in the blanks is much scarier than a white-trash backstory.

One thing I noticed though - there were a lot of shots that were good references/homages to the original but there wasn't ever such a cool scene as in the original when Michael emerged silently from the darkness behind Laurie, gradually fading in, for example.

I enjoyed the new one quite a bit. I like it in the way that I like the old Boris Karloff FRANKENSTIEN...yet I also like many of the Hammer versions as well.
 Carpenters is a bonafide classic. But the charecter of Micheal Meyers,in order to survive in films,really needed a face lift,and many of the sequels were downright crap.

My favourite scene in the original. I always likened it to the moment when Mikey appears from behind a door when Annie is bleeding to death.

I saw this a couple of days ago and while I liked it, I still like the original more. I agree with AndyC Zombie didn't just set out to do other "Rehash" and just cash in like so many other remakes but their was alot of care to show his version of Meyers. People might not like to but this how remakes should be made.

On this point I agree with the remake. I am not a fan of Zombie's Halloween, but I do not disagree with his attempt to put a new twist on it. That is fine in a remake. A remake either has to be true to the source material or given a new view. It can't just be a half-hearted hack job. My disagreement with Zombie is the course that he decided to take, the white trash Michael.

Personally if I had done the remake I would have kept Michael "the same". My concentration would have been more on Smith's Grove and Michael's transformation from disturbed child to true psycho. Dr. Loomis' attempts to reach him. I would the Strode family's gradual distancing to hiding from Michael. Then show the breakout and his trip back. I guess my view would be more of a prequel. I know that Zombie did incorporate some of my points and I like the choice of McDowall for Loomis. If Zombie only hadn't gone the redneck route.

There is actual a Halloween novel which was written after the movie came out. I read that it does give detail to Michael's time in Smith Grove. I need to track that book down. It's probably out of print.

I agree with that. The redneck family angle wasn't necessary, and I didn't particularly like it. Too heavy-handed. Michaels relationships at school, his animal abuse and other information were good, but putting him in a house with a stripper and an abusive drunk was a bit much.

I mostly enjoyed when the story switched to Smith's Grove, and dealt with Loomis attempting to treat Michael, Michael resisting and withdrawing, and the eventual decision to just store him safely. Smith's Grove was really the best part of the movie.

McDowell was an excellent choice for Loomis, and I thought it was a nice touch that he wrote a bestselling book about Michael and is on the lecture circuit when the psycho busts out. Everybody in Haddonfield thinks he's a dirtbag for cashing in on their tragedy. Very nice touch.

I liked that aspect of the Loomis character as well in the new one, that he cashed in on it and whatnot.  Gave him a bit more of a vested interest in the Myers boy than just having him run around screaming "Michael!"

I saw bith versions of the film. They actualy CUT OUT scenes for the Directors cut. They cut out the part where all those cops are talking at the police station. I dont understand why Zombie wanted to get rid of that. And he replaced a scene as well. The one where Mike escapes.