Franchises: Halloween. Halloween (2007)

In the fall of 2006, I picked up the documentary, Halloween: 25 Years of Terror, on DVD at a Hastings that used to be in Tullahoma. It was a complete surprise, as I had no idea this thing was in the works, let alone that it had just been released, and so, I grabbed it as soon as I saw it. At that point, while the original Halloween had been covered extensively, there was very little information out there about the sequels, as few of them had any meaningful special features on their DVD releases, so I got really excited when I learned that this would cover the entire history of the franchise. Not only was it cool to learn so many new facts, and from many of the people involved with the movies, but, since it was based around the 25th Anniversary convention in 2003, I think this was also the first time I really grasped what horror conventions were, and realized how much fun and surreal it would be to go to one and meet the people who appeared in some of my favorite movies and TV shows. In any case, near the end of the documentary, there was footage of Moustapha Akkad drawing the name of a contest winner who, as a prize, would get to appear in Halloween 9. So, at that point, for all I knew, the series was continuing on from Halloween: Resurrection, despite how utterly despised that movie was. I'm not exactly sure when I learned that the next one was actually going to be a remake of the original. Around that same time, I also saw the documentary, Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film, when it premiered on Starz, and near the end of it, as they talked about the future of the genre, they showed a shot of a newspaper article with the headline, "Zombie plots new mayhem for 'Halloween.'" However, it wasn't clear that they were talking about a remake, and it was onscreen so briefly that it didn't really register with me that first time. However, that was also when I first discovered Wikipedia, and when I looked up their articles on all of the Halloween movies, as well as on the character of Michael Myers, I saw that Rob Zombie was doing a remake.

To say I was shocked doesn't even begin to describe it. Like a lot of people, I felt that remaking John Carpenter's Halloween was like remaking Jaws or Star Wars; it just felt inconceivable and almost like sacrilege. Even though I was, and still am, a big fan of the 2003 remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as I said in my review of it, first hearing that they were remaking that was kind of surprising, since it was still a very recognized title, with a lot of pop culture significance. At that point, it felt like the only movies that were ever remade stemmed from the 30's to the 60's, or were little known films like Black Christmas. But, that said, since the Chainsaw franchise as a whole wasn't as popular with the mainstream (and, you could argue, still really isn't), with the last entry barely even getting a theatrical release, remaking the original did make some sense. I could even see the logic behind remaking The Omen, for those same reasons. But I could not wrap my head around the idea of both Halloween and Michael Myers being completely reinvented. And yet, here I was, reading about it, and once I did, I realized that anything was fair game to be remade, including Friday the 13th, even though there had so many sequels by that point, or A Nightmare on Elm Street, which had an equally iconic boogeyman. 

Once I got over the initial shock of Halloween being remade and began looking at this as just another entry in the franchise, I didn't really read up on the film leading up to its release. For one, that was when I was going through some rather extreme personal issues, so I had other things on my mind, and for another, I wasn't even that interested. It was nice to get another Halloween movie after five years, remake or not, but at the same time, it wasn't like, "I must see this opening day!"; I was more than willing to just wait for DVD. I did see some images of how Michael Myers would look and I liked it, but that was it, up until it was released in August of 2007, when I saw the trailers and TV spots. They looked interesting, but I was still pretty blase, and it wouldn't be until that December, when I got the DVD for Christmas, that I finally saw it. Beforehand, I'd seen a fair number of negative reviews (they were practically the only reviews I could find) but, as always, I didn't let those influence me when I went into it. And once that first viewing was over, I sat there positively fuming. I was enraged, disgusted, and, frankly, offended by what Rob Zombie had done to this franchise that I loved. Yeah, there had been some dire entries beforehand, but this felt like a hideous mockery of Halloween. It had neither the class that Donald Pleasence and Jamie Lee Curtis brought, nor the style of John Carpenter and many of the other directors, or the spooky atmosphere that had been an indelible part of the series. It actually took me a while to get control of myself, and I did give the movie another chance several months later... and it was the same, miserable viewing experience as before. Thus, I got rid of that DVD because I knew I'd never watch it again (yeah, I'll have more to say about that much later on). 

It was around this time that I realized I wasn't the only one who didn't like this movie at all. I saw many, many other online reviews that absolutely trashed it and pointed out its faults, most of which I agreed with. Unfortunately, there was also one person on YouTube who not only made me hate it even more than I already did but, for a while, compelled me to go against one of my most important personal rules and despise anybody who liked it as well. This asshole was easily one of the most loathsome, hateful people I've ever had the displeasure of coming across. He went on this multiple video rant about people who don't like the film, saying he hates anyone who says it's a piece of shit, then added, "You're all a bunch of stupid pathetic assholes who don't know a goddamn thing about horror!" And it wasn't just this one video, either. Everything he ever did was full of vile contempt for anyone who watched his stuff, including his own followers and fans (whom he actually had quite a few of). The breaking point for me was when he did a video where he attacked something very near and dear to my heart in a very nasty, close-minded manner (I'll just let you guess what I'm referring to). That's when I turned against anybody who liked Rob Zombie's Halloween, feeling they were just an asshole. And I held onto that feeling for a while, until I realized I was acting exactly like him and decided I wasn't going to let this douchebag make me compromise my principles.

That's an approach I'm going to take with this revision in general. While I was telling the truth about how much I hated this movie when I first saw it, I think when I first did this review, I was letting certain people I was involved with, namely some of those online reviewers who shall remain nameless, influence not only how I felt about it, but also Rob Zombie and certain facts about the movie's production. This is still my least favorite Halloween movie, by a long shot (though I have since removed the Movies That Suck tag that used to be here), and I do still have very mixed feelings about Zombie, both as a filmmaker and a person, as I'll get into, but I'm going to try to be more fair and balanced this time around. I think it helps that I'm now older and not as wound up about it as I used to be, as well as that, because I ranted about this movie so much over the years, I exhausted all of the anger I felt about it. It's like Godzilla '98: I may not be crazy about it but I've accepted that it is what it is and, if nothing else, serves as an interesting look at where the series was at that point in its history. (Plus, since the Halloween franchise did go back to the original timeline and feel with the Blumhouse trilogy, my overall opinions about the two Zombie films have softened.) 

(Incidentally, when I first reviewed this movie, I didn't have access to the theatrical version, which I find to be superior to the Director's Cut. So, for the bulk of this review, until I say otherwise, I will be referring to the theatrical version, and we'll talk about the other cuts near the end, like always.)

Ten-year old Michael Myers lives a miserable existence in Haddonfield, Illinois. When he's not being verbally and mentally abused by both his older sister, Judith, and his mother's alcoholic, live-in boyfriend, Ronnie White, he's tormented at school by vicious bullies. Come Halloween, following a violent scuffle with two of the bullies that gets the principal involved, Michael's mother, Deborah, is called down to the school. There, she meets Dr. Samuel Loomis, a child psychologist, and he and the principal show her a plastic bag containing a dead cat, as well as photographs of animals being dissected, which they found in Michael's backpack. Loomis warns her that this is an early sign of serious psychological issues and that Michael should be evaluated. Unbeknownst to them, Michael sneaks out of the school, follows the main bully, Wesley Rhoades, into the nearby woods, and brutally beats him to death. That night, when Deborah goes off to work, Judith goes upstairs with her boyfriend, rather than take her brother trick-or-treating. Later that night, Michael slaughters everyone in the house, save for his baby sister, whom he calls "Boo." When Deborah comes home and discovers the carnage, Michael is arrested and, eleven months later, is sent to the Smith's Grove Sanitarium after being found guilty of first-degree murder. Loomis becomes his personal psychiatrist, while Deborah routinely visits him. As time goes on, Michael begins to retreat within himself and eventually stops speaking altogether. He kills a nurse following one of Deborah's visits, and when she sees how unhinged and dangerous her son has become, she commits suicide. Fifteen years later, Michael has grown into an enormous, imposing man, but still isn't speaking, instead fixating on making papier-mache masks. Deciding that he's unable to reach him, Loomis resigns and leaves both Smith's Grove and Michael behind. On October 30th, Michael escapes, killing a number of the staff, and at a truck stop, kills driver Joe Grizzly, taking his coveralls. He then makes his way back to Haddonfield, arriving the next morning, and is intent upon finding his baby sister, who's now a local high school student and has been adopted by the Strode family. Meanwhile, Loomis, knowing his former patient, follows him, hoping to find and stop Michael before it's too late.

Just like after The Curse of Michael Myers, the Halloween series was at a crossroads following Halloween: Resurrection, and, according to Taking Shape: Developing Halloween From Script To Scream, was once again at risk of falling into straight-to-video hell. In October of 2002, the official website put up a poll which allowed fans to vote on several different scenarios for the next film, and over the next few years, Moustapha Akkad and company went through a number of different screenplays and ideas. They ranged from a proposed crossover with Hellraiser, inspired by the enormous success of Freddy vs. Jason (not only was Clive Barker intending to write the screenplay, but it seems as though John Carpenter himself was being courted as the eventual director; if nothing else that would've been very interesting); a direct sequel to Resurrection that would've brought back the character of John Tate from H20; and a prequel that would've focused on Michael being sent back to Smith's Grove back in the 80's. Akkad's son, Malek, has also said that he and his father were developing a screenplay that would've brought back the character of Dr. Wynn from the sixth film. But then, tragedy struck in November of 2005 when Akkad died in the Amman hotel bombings in Jordan. And I have to say that, while he made a lot of decisions I didn't agree with, including some that, frankly, I think were downright stupid, he'd been the series' overseer from the very beginning and, for better or worse, had done everything in his power to keep it and Michael Myers alive. Plus, seemed like a very nice, charming man in interviews and when he interacted with fans at the H25 convention.

With Akkad gone, and Malek now taking over his spot as franchise overseer, it seems as though everyone decided they didn't want to continue developing any of the proposed plans for Halloween 9 without him (or, if you want to be cynical, Akkad was the only one who would've barred the idea of remaking the original film, and his death gave them free reign to do so, but I'm trying to be less gloomy than that). Thus, with no set way of moving forward, and with the horror remake trend kicking into high gear around that same time, thanks to movies like Platinum Dunes' The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead, it's not all that surprising that Halloween would go down that road as well.

Another reason for the ninth movie's delay was due to Harvey and Bob Weinstein's separation from Disney in 2005 to form The Weinstein Company. I talked about this more in my reviews of the later Hellraiser movies but, to sum up, while Disney would keep the library of films produced under the Miramax label, the Weinsteins would retain control of Dimension and thus, still had a lot of sway over Halloween. It was Bob specifically who brought in Rob Zombie and offered him the chance to direct the new movie. Given the success of both House of 1,000 Corpses and especially The Devil's Rejects, it's understandable why they went for him. Zombie has said that while he was having this meeting, the idea of remaking Halloween was his, as he was not interested in doing yet another sequel. They went with that idea but, while Malek Akkad completely supported Zombie and encouraged him to do whatever he wanted, the studio, as in the past, had a number of their own suggestions, much to Zombie's irritation. That led to the production not being a very pleasant one for him, and why he, initially, was adamant that he wasn't going to direct any sequels.

Before this, I didn't have any personal opinion on Zombie. I certainly knew of him, from back when he was just a rocker, as I would see his music in stores, and I knew that he'd recently become a filmmaker (which I found to be kind of unusual), but that was as far as it went. I never listened to his music, as I'm not a fan of that type of loud rock/metal, where the person is screaming instead of actually singing (the one exception was his song Living Dead Girl, which I only heard because it was on the soundtrack for Bride of Chucky; I have to admit that Dragula rips as well), and I hadn't seen his previous movies. Honestly, if he hadn't made Halloween, it's likely I wouldn't have been motivated in seeing any of his movies. And speaking of which, this did not make for a very flattering introduction to his style, nor did the many interviews where he not only talked about the film but the Halloween franchise as a whole (as well as a number other subjects) endear me to him as a person. While I do like some interviews with him, such as when talked with Mick Garris on Post Mortem, Zombie often seems rather arrogant, snobbish, and appears to think he's above anybody or anything he's talking about. Also, while he definitely has some visual talent, as he knows how to use the camera, and how to make scenes really brutal and unpleasant, and I can also appreciate that he's a life-long fan of horror films, his writing and refusal to budge on certain elements that he's constantly criticized for make him a very frustrating figure for me to deal with.

Zombie also doesn't feel like the most trustworthy person. Yeah, it's Hollywood, but still, it's like you can't take anything he says seriously. For one, in the mid-2000's, he went on this tirade about all of the remakes that were being produced, especially The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which he claimed to have been offered and turned down because he didn't see the point in remaking movies that were great to begin with... and then, he turns around and does a remake of one of the most beloved horror films ever. He tried to

justify himself by saying his Halloween was a "re-imagining" of John Carpenter's movie, rather than a copy, and it is true that it's a very different animal, but I feel like he's splitting hairs there. Plus, he also told Rue Morgue magazine that he was encouraged to do it because he knew there would be so much opposition, and he's naturally defiant. In addition, in interviews leading up to the movie's release, Zombie completely contradicts himself when he talks about the story he's going to tell. Several times, including at

Comic Con in 2007, he point blank says that he's not going to explain why Michael Myers is evil (also, note in that CinemaSource quote up above how he says he didn't want Michael to have a terrible childhood), but then, in another, he says he wanted to be sure that everything Michael did had a reason behind it and that it wasn't just a bunch of mindless killings. Talk about a complete 180. And over time, as he's told the story of when he called up John Carpenter himself to tell him that he was going to make the film, he's flip-flopped about Carpenter's 

reaction, sometimes saying he was supportive and told him to make it his own, and other times, saying he wasn't all that thrilled about it. Carpenter later called Zombie out on this, saying he was nothing but supportive, and referred to him as a lying "piece of shit." They have since quelled their beef.

Ultimately, what really sticks to me about Zombie is his attitude towards the original Halloween and his inability to take any criticism. He's said many times that he's a big fan of the original, and he probably is, but in one interview after another, he talked about flaws that he felt he could improve upon. But those "flaws" are really silly and nitpicky, like how Michael happened to kill a mechanic wearing the cleanest coveralls imaginable, that he shouldn't know how to drive, that Dr. Loomis seemed to pop in and out

whenever they needed someone to say something dramatic, and that he seemed "crazy" and "drunk." Yes, I know, I tend to nitpick, too, but when I see Zombie complaining about that stuff, my reaction is, "Who cares? Is it really important that Michael's overalls be dirty, or that he doesn't know how to drive, for you to enjoy the movie?" And there are plenty of holes that I can, and will, poke into this film, so touché. As for his disdain for criticism, I can understand why he hates having to deal with studio 

execs and their often idiotic suggestions (though, in this case, I am glad that the Weinsteins stepped in on certain points), but his refusal to listen to anybody, despite the constant backlash against certain things in his movies, is really frustrating. On the one hand, you can't help but kind of admire him for how he just does what he does and doesn't care what anyone else thinks, but it's maddening how it seems as though he could make a truly great horror movie if he would just allow for some varied opinions. Plus, his hatred for bloggers and online reviewers, saying in one interview, "Any jackoff with a fucking website's a critic and, who gives a shit?", as well as some stuff he said on Joe Rogan's podcast, especially rubs me the wrong way.

Since he is the film's main focus this time, to the point where you could've named this movie after him, the character we're going to touch on first is indeed Michael Myers. Despite his initial statements to the contrary, Rob Zombie's intent was to go into Michael's backstory, even saying as much on Jimmy Kimmel Live, when he announced that he was going to do the movie. As we've gone into many times before, I've always agreed with the consensus that Michael isn't as effective when you put a spotlight on him; it's much creepier when he's less of a character and more of an evil force, one that uses the darkness of Halloween night to stalk and kill his victims, and you don't know why he's doing it or why he himself can't die. That said, I can't get too mad at Zombie in this respect, since they'd already attempted an explanation with Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, which they then retconned in the following film. And speaking of which, since, even before these films or the Blumhouse trilogy, there was no one straight timeline with the franchise anyway, I was able to live with Zombie's decisions and not feel like they negated the previous movies that I loved. Still, I can't say I was all that impressed with his take on Michael's character, as it's so typical: he grew up in a crappy household, was bullied at school, and began torturing and killing animals, even his own pet rat. Couldn't Zombie have come up with something a little more creative? In fact, when he was interviewed for IconsOfFright.com, he said that somebody like Michael, no matter what kind of family or environment they grew up in, would've simply been born that way. Well, if that's the case, why not go the opposite route? Wouldn't it have been more effective to show Michael growing up in the same kind of stable, white bread, upper-middle class family he seemed to have in the original film, and yet, still have this thing inside him that compelled him to kill? That's actually something of a huge missed opportunity, in my opinion.

I can remember when I got my first look at Daeg Faerch as the young Michael Myers in the trailers and TV spots, and I thought he was a girl at first (it's that long, blonde hair, and his somewhat feminine face)!. But, joking aside, Faerch is one part of the cast that I truly do like, and I know that others who aren't too fond of the movie tend to feel the same way. He's able to come off as a very troubled kid, and despite his age, the death stare he gives at several points is pretty intimidating. It's quite chilling when he lifts his clown mask up and coldly looks down at Wesley Rhoades after he's bludgeoned him with a branch, and you can feel Michael's rage bubbling under the surface whenever he's dealing with Ronnie, or when he has that confrontation with the bullies at school, going as far as to curse out the principal afterward. You also learn that Deborah has been called down to the school many times before, meaning this explosion of homicidal rage has been building for a while. I like that we do get to see Michael's normal side as well, in how close he is to his mother, and how he truly loves and looks out for his baby sister, whom he affectionately calls "Boo." And finally, I think Faerch portrays Michael's descent into complete psychosis at Smith's Grove really well. He initially still seems like a normal kid, and claims not to remember actually committing the murders (whether he's lying or not is never made clear), but then develops this obsession with making masks and preferring to keep his face hidden. The scene where he's frantically screaming and cursing at Dr. Loomis, then cries and asks to be allowed to go home, is pretty disturbing, as well as sad. Then, shortly afterward, he's stopped talking altogether and is virtually catatonic. And when he kills the nurse left to look after him as Loomis shows his mother out, there's a sense that the kid he once was is now completely gone. This is made clear when, in the ensuing chaos, Deborah rips his mask off and he lunges at her, looking and acting like an enraged animal, as one of the orderlies restrains him, while Loomis can only shake his head in horror.

Despite all my praising, I do have a few issues with young Michael. First, since Zombie decided to go in this direction, I wish there had been more of a definitive moment where Michael clearly gets fed up and decides to massacre everyone in his house that night. Obviously, his killing Wesley was triggered by him saying nasty things about his mother, but that night, after Ronnie has picked on him again and Judith has blown off taking him trick-or-treating, we get a montage of him sitting outside his house, while 

his mother is stripping and pole-dancing at the club she works at, as Love Hurts plays on the soundtrack. After that, he comes back inside, is then sitting at the table, eating and flipping some candy-corn, and suddenly decides, "Okay, I'm going to kill them." It felt kind of random, and I think it would've been better if, maybe Ronnie insulted him one last time, or actually hit him, like he threatened to do earlier, and that was the last straw for Michael. Also, as Loomis examines Michael at Smith's Grove, it feels as though we're building to him diagnosing Michael with some

sort of severe mental illness or psychosis... and then, that later goes out the window and we start getting into the pure evil, Boogeyman concept. It feels like Zombie can't pick a characterization for Michael to stick with.

I find it really funny that Rob Zombie got so hung up on Michael Myers being able to drive in the original movie, despite having spent a good chunk of his life in a mental asylum, but he felt it made sense for him to grow from a fairly average-sized kid into a big, hulking monster who stands almost seven feet tall. I've heard that Daeg Faerch did grow up to be a very tall man, but how, in the name of God, could somebody become so freaking big in a mental asylum, especially when you're probably not allowed 

to do much if you're as big of a threat as he is? Was somebody slipping him steroids, because I doubt he'd get that big on the food they served in there. (Maybe they have a really good gym.) Zombie has said that he chose a big person like Tyler Mane to play the adult Michael because, since Faerch was a fairly big kid, he knew he was going to grow up to be a huge guy. Again, it turns out he was right about that, but this is still overkill, especially since Michael can break chains, as seen during his escape in the theatrical cut, smash through walls and doors, and such. That's hardly realistic, given how all he did while he was in his room was make papier-mache masks. 

While we're on the subject, something that kills me, both here and in Zombie's other Halloween, is how, despite his size and intimidating look, Michael gets a lot of crap from the people he comes across. Whether it's Noel Kluggs, the stupid orderly who insults him left and right and, in the Director's Cut, even threatens him just for looking at him, or when he's face to face with Joe Grizzly, who tells him that he'll cut his mask off his face, Michael receives a ridiculous amount of verbal abuse. Why would you hassle someone like 

this? Does he not look like he could tear your head off without even breaking a sweat? Kluggs, in particular, should've known better, seeing as how he's surely aware that Michael brutally murdered four people when he was just ten. Going back to Zombie himself, he once said that he equated Michael's presence at Smith's Grove to the Chief in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: a very big man who was virtually ignored by everybody there. Yeah, well, the Chief wasn't there for killing four people when he was a kid, and he also wasn't an intimidating hulk of a man who always wears creepy masks. 

When he gets to Haddonfield and stalks Laurie Strode and her friends, Michael does a little bit of his trademark modus operandi from the original movie, such as suddenly appearing and then disappearing. Putting aside how this, again, flies in the face of Zombie's "realistic" take, it's hard to believe someone that big would be able to do that or stalk someone without being noticed. In the first two films, Michael was average height and thus, it's believable that he'd be able to wander the streets on Halloween night and

hide in the dark without drawing attention to himself. A guy who's almost seven-feet tall and dressed like that, however, would probably have some trouble being inconspicuous. For instance, I don't buy the part where he suddenly pops up outside the Strode house and attacks Mason Strode. Or when he appears behind the Wallace house's front door on the inside, which was already slightly ajar, and there was no way he could've been hiding there the whole time without being seen. But the coup de grace is how, like before, Michael gets shot and it doesn't stop him. He gets 

shot in the shoulder by a cop and it barely slows him down, and later, three times in the back by a .357 Magnum, and gets right back up. Not to mention how this movie ends with Laurie shooting him point blank in the face but he's still alive for a sequel. Again, now we've inexplicably gone back to the unstoppable force of evil concept, which doesn't match with what we saw at the beginning of the movie or what Zombie was supposed to be going for. Like I said, this conception of Michael is so inconsistent. 

As much as I don't care for his characterization, I do think Michael Myers looks really good here. Not only did they maintain the overall look and behavior (the coveralls, killing people with a butcher knife, making some of his victims into macabre decorations, etc.), but the mask, designed by the film's makeup effects artist, Wayne Toth, is, without a doubt, the best one since the original up to this point. Moreover, up until Halloween 2018, this was the mask that came the closest to looking like the classic one from the first 

two movies. It looks awesome when it's introduced in the first act, all brand new and clean as a whistle (though I hate its utilization there, as I'll get into), and in the third act, when it's weathered and decaying after sitting underneath the Myers house for fifteen years, it now has a very gnarly quality to it. I also think the various other masks he wears throughout the movie, both as a kid and an adult, are pretty cool too. The clown mask he wears as a little kid, which the filmmakers bought off eBay, is quite creepy, and the

same goes for some of the masks he makes during his time in Smith's Grove, in particular the one he wears in the scene where he's screaming to be let out, which is pale and looks like it has lipstick around the mouth (it kind of looks like something Leatherface would wear); the orange, pumpkin-like one he wears when he kills the nurse; the clown-like mask he has during his final session with Dr. Loomis; and the jack-o-lantern mask, which he wears up to when he retrieves his main one, and which I agree is the best mask outside of that one. And I think that Michael's look

when he's in the asylum as an adult is pretty memorable and creepy, too, with the dirty robe, flip-flops, and the long hair that obscures his face to where, when he's not wearing a mask, you can kind of see it but not quite. 

But as much as I love the main mask, Rob Zombie still does some dumb stuff with it that I don't like at all, specifically its introduction. For some reason, Zombie says he had a problem with Michael stealing the mask from a hardware store in the original movie, asking what he would've done if they didn't have that mask and why he went for it in particular. So, what's his solution? He has Steven Haley, Judith's boyfriend, suddenly pull it out of a paper bag while they're having sex (he says he bought it at a hardware store), 

then put it on and say that he wants to do it while wearing the mask. I remember that was one of the things that really infuriated me when I first saw the movie, as I couldn't fathom how Zombie could take something as awesome and iconic as Michael Myers' mask and introduce it as a makeshift sex toy. It's compounded by how young Michael, after killing Steven, puts it on before he attacks Judith. Why not keep the clown mask? That looked legitimately creepy, whereas the sight of a little kid wearing a full 

size Michael Myers mask is silly and hurts what's otherwise a fairly effective murder scene (and playing the Shape Stalks track doesn't help). And in my initial version of this review, I made a big deal out of how, when Michael returns to his house as an adult, he rips through the floorboards and pulls out both the knife he used as a kid and the mask. I won't dwell on it as much this time, but I still don't get why he hid those beneath the floor to begin with. Obviously, he did it after he'd killed everyone, as the last time we see the mask and knife in the first act is when he puts them 

aside and tells his baby sister, "Happy Halloween, Boo." But he clearly didn't do it to protect himself, as he did nothing to hide the bodies. Was he planning on murdering more people before being arrested? Who knows?

In the past, I complained about how Michael's size and brutality in this film made him feel more like Jason Voorhees, which was something I didn't like about his portrayal in Halloween 4, 5, and 6 either. I still stand by that but, if you've read my reviews of Halloween 2018 and Halloween Kills, you may think me a hypocrite, since I enjoyed how brutal and grotesque Michael's kills are in those movies. The thing is, I felt that his portrayal there was a nice mix of Nick Castle's subtle, ethereal one in the original,

with Tyler Mane's brutishness in both this movie and the next one. When it's just a nearly seven-foot tall guy ferociously stabbing and throwing people around, and smashing through doors and walls while occasionally grunting (he doesn't grunt nearly as much here as he does in the next one), it doesn't feel like the Shape to me. But that said, this Michael's size, strength, and ferocious attitude do make him a force to be reckoned with, and I definitely wouldn't want him after me.

Another polarizing member of the cast is Malcolm McDowell stepping into the role of Dr. Loomis, with some feeling he was perfect, while others despise him. As for me, I think he did good with the portrayal of Loomis they were going for but, as a Halloween purist, the only Loomis in my eyes will always be Donald Pleasence. Still, McDowell was a good choice and think he's perfectly acceptable here. Rather than meeting him after he's committed his first murders, Loomis is brought in when the school principal becomes concerned about Michael following his fight with the bullies, as well as because of the rather disturbing things they found in his backpack. Loomis attempts to warn Deborah that this is an early sign of something much more serious and asks that he be allowed to evaluate Michael. But it's not until Michael has killed his first handful of victims that he becomes Loomis' patient. A major change is how, instead of seeing Michael as a force of evil that must be contained no matter what, Loomis actually wants to help him. In fact, the two of them even develop something of a bond. The interplay between them is quite well done, starting with how Michael innocently asks Loomis why he talks "funny," and when they later talk about one of the first masks he made. I really like how, when Michael loses it and pleads to be allowed to go home, Loomis explains to him, as gently as he can, why that's not possible, and comforts him when he starts crying. But no matter what he does, he just can't reach Michael, especially when he slips deeper into psychosis, begins wearing masks more often, and talks less and less. This culminates in the scene where Michael is caught up in an uncontrollable rage after killing the nurse and goes as far as to lunge at his own mother. Loomis is at a loss at what he's seeing, and you can tell he's starting to realize right then that Michael is likely beyond any help he can give him. 

Fifteen years later, Michael still hasn't said a single word, and yet, Loomis has continued trying to get through to him. He admits that Michael has become the focus of his entire life, adding, "It's strange, Michael. In a weird way, you've become like... like my best friend. Just shows you how fucked up my life is." But he decides that, if he hasn't gotten through to him at this point, he's never going to, and resigns.  After he leaves, he cashes in on Michael's story by writing a book. Not the most ethical thing to do, given

the circumstances, but compared to what Loomis becomes in the next film, I'm perfectly fine with how his cashing in is portrayed here. Also, despite the success of his book, when he learns that Michael escaped from the asylum, he becomes sincerely concerned and goes after him, in particular to save his sister, when he could've easily said, "It's not my problem anymore." Granted, he is rather arrogant when Chester, the cemetery groundskeeper, criticizes his book, but he still attempts to warn Sheriff Brackett

about Michael being in town, how dangerous he is, and that he's after Laurie Strode. When he later learns that Michael has found and taken her, Loomis rushes to the Myers house, knowing that's where they are, and tries to reason with Michael. That doesn't work and he's forced to shoot him, which you can tell he didn't want to do. And after Michael suddenly reappears and rips Laurie out of the car, Loomis, again, tries to reason with him, saying that he's the one who failed him. He almost gets himself killed in the process, and yet, in the Director's Cut, he still uses what little strength he has left to impede Michael's ongoing pursuit of Laurie.

The big issue that I have with Loomis is that, during the third act, he begins talking about Michael in the same manner as Donald Pleasence. It actually starts when he writes his book, which he calls The Devil's Eyes, and is seen giving a presentation, where he makes this speech: "These eyes will deceive you; they will destroy you. They will take from you your innocence, your pride, and eventually, your soul. These eyes do not see what you and I see. Behind these eyes one finds only blackness, the absence of

light. These are the eyes of a psychopath." Then, when he first meets up with Brackett in Haddonfield, telling him about Judith Myers' missing headstone at the cemetery, he continues in this manner, insinuating that Michael just picked up and walked off with the headstone, despite how heavy it. He then says, "Evil is here. It's walking amongst us," and when Brackett says, "Doc, it sounds to me like you're talkin' about the Antichrist," Loomis retorts, "Perhaps I am." And when, near the end, Laurie asks, "Was that the Boogeyman," he answers, "As a matter of fact, I do 

believe it was." The thing is, we don't ever get a sense of when Loomis went from seeing Michael as a disturbed person he felt compelled to try to help, to this inhuman monster with no soul or conscience, prompting him to buy the biggest handgun he could afford. Maybe it was when he looked at Michael in disbelief after he killed the nurse, but he still kept trying to help him, then decided it was no use. And again, he tries to reason with Michael when he catches up with him. Like the portrayal of Michael himself, this doesn't gel together.

One very annoying aspect of Rob Zombie's movies is that you know he will always put his damn wife in them, usually in one of the major roles. Sheri Moon Zombie may be good to look at, and her husband always makes sure to show off her bod (it comes off like he's flexing, "Yeah, look what I get to lay next to every night,"), but that's about as far as it goes. She's fine as Baby in the Firefly trilogy, but otherwise, she's not a great actor. Now, I'll be fair and say that she does seem to be trying, portraying Deborah Myers as a widow who has to deal with her completely dysfunctional family, particularly her bitchy daughter and dickwad of a boyfriend, and also tries to care for her troubled son and baby daughter, when she's not stripping to pay the bills. She also does well in portraying her horror and devastation after she comes home and discovers what Michael has done. And, in fact, her best acting moments come later, when Michael completely loses it after killing the nurse, and is now so crazed that he lunges at his own mother when she takes his mask off. Deborag really looks as though she realizes the boy she loved and raised no longer exists, and is so devastated that she commits suicide. So, I'll give Sheri Moon points for that. 

But, there are some moments that make me not like Deborah as a character as much as I should. When the principal and Dr. Loomis show her the mangled cat they found in Michael's backpack, she just blows it off, saying, "Come on! Big deal. He found a dead cat." And when they then show her the pictures of Michael's "surgery" on various animals, she says, "Michael loves animals. Why would he do this?" Lady, if he loved animals so much, don't you think he wouldn't have this sick stuff in his backpack? You can

even hear her continuing to argue with Loomis in the following scene, as Michael heads out to commit his first murder. But that's nothing compared to how it feels as though, even after he brutally murdered her daughter, Michael is the only one she gives a crap about. Yeah, she's screaming in despair when they wheel Judith's body out of the crime scene, but when she visits Michael in the asylum, she tells him that she misses him and wishes he wouldn't hide behind his mask. I know he's her son, but did she forget what he did? Shouldn't she be maybe a bit more conflicted

about her feelings towards him? And when Deborah blows her brains out in despair over what Michael has become, she does it while her baby daughter is in the same room. Her... baby... daughter! Yeah, she's devastated and all, but she acts like Michael's the only child she has left. You'd hope she would have the strength and resolve to try to make her daughter's life as best as it could possibly be, but nope. She's like, "Sorry, Boo. You'll have to take care of yourself." I know this stuff happens in real life, but it doesn't help me sympathize with a character in a movie, as it makes them look selfish.

When you see the crap Michael has to deal with in his home-life, it's not that hard to figure out why he eventually snapped and killed just about everyone there. Ronnie White (William Forsythe) is the definition of a douchebag: a foul-mouthed, verbally abusive bully who constantly screams and curses at Deborah, mercilessly picks on and makes fun of Michael, and makes some nasty sexual remarks about Judith, saying she's got a, "Nice little dumper." (He's the source of much of the horrendous dialogue you have to deal with during the first act.) He even resorts to elementary level bullying, such as grabbing the cereal box and pulling it out of Judith's reach just to be a jerk, flicking stuff at Michael, mocking him for killing animals (why would Deborah let him know about that?), and even making fun of how he talks. He deserves getting his throat slashed.

Judith (Hanna Hall) isn't much better, as like Ronnie, she picks on Michael every chance she gets. When Deborah sends her upstairs to get Michael, she asks why she has to do it, then rolls her eyes and goes upstairs. She knocks on the bathroom door, yelling at Michael, "Stop jerkin' off in there!... Get your ass downstairs and wash your hands, you little shit!" She then insinuates that he killed his pet rat, Elvis, by "stroking" him to death, and emphasizes the point by running her fingers up and down a milk bottle while making moaning noises. And she later refuses to take him trick-or-treating, telling him to go by himself, so she can go have sex with her boyfriend. But what gets me is how, after all of that, when she and Steven are having sex, she actually tries to have a moment. He refers to Ronnie as her dad and she tells him, "That fucking drunk prick fuck Ronnie ain't my dad," then, in a childlike voice, says, "My daddy's in heaven, okay?"...all while she's sitting up and showing her breasts. That kind of makes it hard to get into what she's saying. In any case, when she finds Michael standing over her bed with the mask on, she makes a big mistake by cursing him out and smacking him a couple of times, leading him to stab her to death. While this moment is effectively disturbing and brutal, it's impossible for me to feel bad for Judith.

Let's now take a moment and go through the many small roles and cameo appearances by various familiar faces here. It is nice to see some people you know from past films, especially if you haven't seen them in a while, and it's cool that Zombie was, at the time, putting them in movies that a lot of people would see, but it does get kind of distracting when you see one familiar horror/cult actor after another pop up. (Some of them are either only in the theatrical version, or have slightly bigger roles in the Director's

Cut, but we'll go through them all.) Richard Lynch plays Jim Chambers, the principal of Michael's school who breaks up the fight between him and the bullies, and calls Deborah down to meet with Dr. Loomis. Sybil Danning appears as a nurse who's stupid enough to turn her back to Michael when she's asked to watch him (she compounds the error in the Director's Cut). Lew Temple is Noel Kluggs, the loathsome orderly who not only has the gall to insult Michael but, in the Director's Cut, is the very reason why he

escapes (for a very stupid and hideous reason). Bill Moseley appears in the theatrical version as Zach "Z-Man" Garrett, one of the guards whom Michael kills when he escapes. Moseley manages to be really cool in his brief appearance, telling his fellow officer when he complains that he doesn't worry enough, "Hey, man, I do what I do. Tell me to move the meat, I move the meat." And when he and his crew learn that they're moving Michael Myers, Zach says, "Trick or treat, baby." This scene in the theatrical version is actually sort of a mini Devil's Rejects reunion, as Tom

Towles, who was in both that and House of 1,000 Corpses, plays Larry Redgrave, the guard who complains about Zach's lack of urgency, and Leslie Easterbrook, who was Mama Firefly in Rejects, is the third guard, Patty Frost. Complaining about being called down there so late, Larry goes off when Patty offers him a doughnut, exclaiming, "Do you know how many sit-ups it takes to work off a goddamn doughnut?" She says, "Yes, I do, baby. But do you?", and he answers, "Yes, I do. It's a lot, and that shit ain't funny."

Ken Foree appears as Joe Grizzly, the loudmouth trucker whom Michael kills while he's in this truck-stop restroom, taking a dump (and looking at porn at the same time, no less). Like so many others, he threatens Michael when confronted with him, but he does manage to put up a good fight, and only dies because Michael takes his knife away and stabs him with it. Clint Howard plays Dr. Koplensen, who calls Loomis and tells him that Michael escaped, while Udo Kier is Morgan Walker, one of the administrators

at Smith's Grove. Both of them have slightly bigger roles in the Director's Cut (and the workprint), whereas in the theatrical version, Loomis does little more than chew them out for not taking any action after Michael escapes, as well as accuse them of living in denial when they claim they don't know where he's going. Sid Haig is Chester Chesterfield, the redundantly-named cemetery caretaker who takes Loomis to Judith's grave. In the Director's Cut, when Loomis asks to borrow his cellphone, Chester says he doesn't have one because they "cause brain cancer";

in both versions, he also talks about the aftermath of Michael's crimes, unknowingly badmouthing Loomis' own book right to his face. (Yeah, he doesn't know who Loomis is. He knows that Michael's doctor wrote a book profiting on his story, but doesn't know his name, as in the Director's Cut, Loomis said his own name aloud while trying to get a hold of Sheriff Brackett.) And he has a much more profane reaction to finding the grave has been desecrated than the guy in the original did. Most inexplicably, freaking Mickey Dolenz appears as the gun-shop owner whom

Loomis buys from. He convinces him to go with a .357 Magnum rather than the .22 Smith & Wesson he initially has his eye on, saying, "Yeah, that's okay if you wanna just piss it off. If you want to, uh, blow it's fuckin' head off, this is what you want." (Adrienne Barbeau appeared in a scene that didn't make it into any version.) 

Danny Trejo has one of the better supporting roles as Ismael Cruz, an orderly at Smith's Grove who's actually a decent guy and is one of the very few who's good to Michael. Shortly after he's committed there, Ismael tells him, "Look, you can't let those walls get you down. Believe me, I know. I spent a little time behind walls. I know they can drive you crazy. You gotta look beyond the walls, you know? Learn to live inside your head. Hey, there's no walls that can stop you there." (Thus, you could sort of blame him for what eventually happens.) Following the fifteen-year time skip, Ismael is still taking care of Michael. When he and Noel Kluggs come to get him for his session with Loomis, Ismael is having to endure Kluggs going on about how he's his own boss and does what he wants, as well as making some racial jabs at him. Finally, Ismael tells him, "You know what, I retire in about three months, and you're still gonna be here for a long time." Once inside Michael's room, Ismael warns Kluggs not to touch his masks, and when Kluggs talks crap about Michael, Ismael says that the two of them have a bond. However, their "bond" isn't as strong as Ismael thinks. When he comes upon Michael during his escape and tries to take him back to his room, he receives a drawn out, painful death.

The first time I watched this movie, I really did not like Scout Taylor-Compton as Laurie Strode. I thought her portrayal was an insult to Jamie Lee Curtis, as I thought she was annoying, bubble-headed, and more than a little bitchy and disrespectful, even towards her parents. In her first scene, she talks about some nasty sexual stuff to her mother, making inappropriate gestures with a pair of bagels (like so much else, it's worse in the Director's Cut). I know that, nowadays, it's not believable for the "good girl" to be a quiet, repressed virgin, but that made my jaw drop. After watching it again, I will say that I don't dislike her as much. She swings back and forth between being very irritating, with her constant high energy and playing into her friends' obnoxious antics, and coming off as rather sweet, like when she tells Annie that she doesn't like lying to cover for her, and saying that some trick-or-treaters are cute. I also used to think she seemed like she couldn't stand Tommy Doyle (whom, to be fair, is a little annoying here, and the same goes for Lindsey Wallace) but, upon re-watching it, it feels more like she just loves to tease him, and wishes he would let her have some time to herself. A major problem is Laurie's screaming and crying during the final quarter, which gets really irritating. Yeah, there's a hulking, masked killer after her, but when all you do is scream constantly while running from him, it makes me wish he would hurry up and kill you so I don't have to listen to you. 

Incidentally, I find it odd that, given how much Rob Zombie bashes on the sequels, he still uses the plot point of Laurie being Michael's other sister as a central part of his story. Maybe he thought he could do it better by actually establishing that Michael has more than one sibling from the get-go, but it takes the edge off him when you have him chasing after Laurie (whom he somehow knows is his sister, despite having not seen her since she was a baby) because he wants to form a connection with the last bit of family 

he has left. And then, after she rejects him, it seems like he's now decided to kill her, so that whole thing was pointless. I will say that Laurie does effectively fight back against Michael a few times, first by stabbing him in the shoulder, and, at the end, shooting him point blank in the face, and like in the original film, she does what he she can to protect Tommy and Lindsey. But, again, all of her screaming and crying grates on my nerves (although, like with Dr. Loomis, I like her way more here than I do in the next one).

All that said, I'd take Laurie over this film's versions of Annie Brackett and Lynda any day. Everybody was really excited when Danielle Harris returned to the Halloween series here as Annie, but it doesn't matter to me, because she's really, really annoying. Yeah, Annie in the original was a sarcastic smartass who often put Laurie down and dumped her babysitting duties onto her when the opportunity to be with Paul came up, but Harris doubles down on that obnoxiousness. She doesn't really mock or tease Laure, but all I remember about her is, aside from her constant cursing, how sex-crazed she is, again talking Laurie into babysitting Lindsey Wallace so she can be with Paul (whom you actually see this time). She's particularly annoying when she tells Laurie she talked to Paul about Ben Tramer and insists that she needs a boyfriend, after which the two of them pretend to have sex and make passionate yells (I was hoping somebody would shoot me during that part). Everybody was also really excited when Harris announced she was going to show her breasts, but I'd seen so many breasts by this point in the movie that I was numb. In fact, the sex scene between her and Paul is even irritating in and of itself, as it's just them kissing and dry-humping each other, while saying, "You wanna fuck me?" "You are so fucking hot." Thankfully, Michael interrupts before they get down to the actual deed. Also, like Laurie, Annie's screaming and crying in the scene where she tries to warn her friend about Michael is so damn annoying. And in the end, I didn't care that she lives (although I would come to care in Rob Zombie's second Halloween, where Annie is much more likable).. 

I thought Kristina Klebe as Lynda was a lot hotter than Danielle Harris, but I think I disliked her character even more than Annie. She is, without a doubt, the most foul-mouthed and reprehensible of Laurie's inner-circle. She's heard talking about a teacher who got her kicked off the cheerleading squad, remarking, "Me, suspended from the squad?! I don't mean to sound conceited, but I'm like the fucking hottest cheerleader they got!", then says that the reason why she was suspended was because she suggested they flash their bare crotches at the audiences. She adds, "You know what that dried up fuckin' bitch did?...  Calls my dad and tells him what I said. Yeah. That C-U-N-T, yeah, needs to get laid!" When Laurie then asks what her dad said, Lynda says, "Oh, who cares? I'll just give him the little sweetie pants princess suck up routine: 'Daddy's little pooky would never say something like that!'" She goes on to act like a complete whore for the rest of her screentime, stupidly taunting Michael when they see him staring at them from across the street, asking him if he wants a taste of "the young stuff," and when Annie rides home with her dad, Lynda asks Laurie, "You think he was flirting with me?" Laurie tells her, "You are so demented," and Lynda, of course, says, "Totally." The kicker is that, after she and Bob have had sex, and she sends him to get her another beer, she calls Laurie and asks her if she thinks she's a slut, given that Annie called her that due to her cheerleading incident. Yeah, why would anyone think that you're a slut? And right after that is when she does the, "See anything you like?", line when she thinks Michael is Bob standing in the doorway, dressed as a ghost. She proceeds to trash his "performance" earlier, saying he's lucky she even let him touch her, and fortunately, that's when Michael breaks her neck.

As Sheriff Brackett, Brad Dourif is one of the few cast members who really shines. It helps that I'm a fan of him anyway but, what's more, not only is he actually playing a good guy, for once, but he comes out of both of these movies alive! He doesn't have much of a role here, but he comes across as a nice, likable guy who does what he can to keep order in Haddonfield. When he first meets Dr. Loomis, it's understandable why he's reluctant to believe his claims about Michael having desecrated Judith's grave and carrying off the enormous tombstone all by himself. He later tells Loomis that he doesn't like him due to his writing his book and profiteering off of the town's tragedy. But, when Loomis tells him that he believes Michael will go after his baby sister, Brackett attempts to call the Strodes and warn them, but doesn't get an answer. He realizes that something's wrong, and he and Loomis head out. On the way, he reveals that he was the first responder on the scene of Deborah Myers' suicide and, seeing the baby alone in her crib, "And I can't imagine this child growing up with this stigma around her neck. So, I omit her from the report. I drive her to another town and drop her off at the nearest emergency room. And I think this is gonna be the end of it. About three months later, I find out from a friend of mine, Mason Strode, that he's adopted a baby." Thus, Brackett now knows he may have unknowingly put the Strodes in Michael's sights. Before they can get to the Strodes' house, they receive the 911 call Laurie makes after finding Annie has been attacked at the Wallace home and head over there. By the time they arrive, Michael has chased and made off with Laurie, and while Loomis goes after them, Brackett stays behind to look after Annie. 

Finally, you have Dee Wallace and Pat Skipper as Cynthia and Morgan Strode, both of whom come across as very good parents to Laurie, especially the former. Even though Laurie tends to annoy her with her sexual jokes, you can see the nice bond between them, especially when she talks about the warm memories she has of her when she was younger. I also like how, even though she doesn't stand a chance against him, she tries to stop Michael from going after Laurie, screaming, "You leave my baby alone!" Still,

because it's the always likable Dee Wallace, that scene where Michael brutalizes her is hard to watch, even though most of it does happen offscreen. I don't have much to say about Morgan, since he doesn't do much of anything significant, except unknowingly put Laurie in Michael's path by having her drop off an envelope at the old Myers house (like in the original), but you can also tell that he's a nice, decent, loving father.

One thing that I will never deny about Rob Zombie is that he's really good on the visual side of things. He knows how to give his movies a distinctive look, and comes up with some images that will stick with you. In the case of Halloween, it includes those eerie images of young Michael in that clown mask, like when he's looking at his pet rat, Elvis, in his cage at the very beginning, standing over Wesley Rhoades before finishing him off, and looking out the window at some passing trick-or-treaters before he proceeds to kill Ronnie; the shots of him staring into the camera, 

with the most memorable being when he's sitting in the back of the police car after his first massacre and he slowly turns to look at the camera; adult Michael shuffling around or sitting and staring with that long hair obscuring his face, which is often also covered by one of his papier-mache masks; that shot of Dr. Loomis standing in front of a huge image of young Michael's glaring eyes, inter-cut with a close-up of Loomis' own eyes, during his lecture; the gruesome aftermath of Michael's killing spree at Smith's Grove; him standing in the dark and holding his iconic mask 

before putting it on in the old Myers house; and a good number of shots of him in his mask and coveralls during the third act, be it when he's standing in the dark, watching someone from the background, or when he carries Laurie down the street. There are also some noteworthy stylistic moments that Zombie goes for, like the sort of sepia-toned newsreel of reporters covering the aftermath of Michael's first killing spree, which transitions back into the normal color scheme as the camera pans over to him sitting 

in the police car. This is followed by some more news footage after we transition to Smith's Grove nearly a year later. Also, when Michael kills the nurse, it quickly cuts to CCTV footage of the act. Afterward, when everyone runs in and tries to get Michael under control, the only sound is the music score and the siren, and the action is played out in slow-motion. While Zombie had employed the former method in the lead-up to when Michael kills Steven, I think it's most effective in this instance. And there are some

noteworthy uses of old, Super 8 home movies of Michael's childhood, first in the scene where Deborah kills herself, and during the first part of the ending credits, going from Laurie shooting Michael point-black to footage of them when he was a kid and she was a baby.

However, I'm not big on the movie's actual look, and it does mostly come down to my personal disdain for the excessive digital color-timing and coding that movies were put through at that time. I feel it makes them look synthetic and unappealing, with the daytime scenes, particularly the exteriors, having this yellow tint to them, while at night, it has an overwhelming blue-green look. I also don't like the former because it feels a bit too warm for what's meant to be a fall day in the Midwest (even though, while this was shot in California, it was mostly 

filmed in the winter and early springtime), whereas the latter just comes off as a rather sickly-looking counterpart to the beautiful blue lighting in the original movie. Plus, it's often so dark and murky during the nighttime scenes that it's hard to see, which is compounded by the very shaky camerawork. Whenever Michael, both as a kid and as an adult, attacks or chases after someone, the camera is constantly moving and shaking around, and the editing is so rapid that it's often difficult to tell what's going on or even where the characters are half of the 

time. Speaking of the visuals, Zombie has said that he wanted each of the movie's three acts to have their own distinct cinematography-style, with the first being all handheld; the second, at Smith's Grove, done in a manner that's either very still or slow, akin to Stanley Kubrick's style; and the third using a lot of Steadicam and dolly tracks, giving off much of the feel of John Carpenter's shooting style, before transitioning back into the handheld style during the climax. Of those three, the one I like the most is the 

second, as Smith's Grove is often shot in a manner that made it come off as very oppressive and overbearing for everyone there (patients, staff, and visitors), and I think the color-grading actually helped give it a very sterile, cold vibe. I also do appreciate the smooth, tracking shots during the first parts of the third act, before things get overly shaky.

Something else that seems to change from one act to another is the production design. During the first, everything has that traditional Rob Zombie gritty, white trash look and feel, with the Myers house coming off as a bit rundown and unkempt, with junk in the front yard and on the porch, and a faded paint-job on the outside, while the interiors have a very lived-in look and feel. The kitchen/dining room looks very cluttered, and the same goes for Michael's bedroom, which has all sorts of random stuff decorating the wall. In fact, it also seems like he 

might share that room with Judith, as when we see him in the bathroom, washing away the blood from where he killed his pet rat, you can see women's underwear hanging up, along with some feminine hair-care and makeup products next to the sink. The living room kind of looks okay, albeit still rather cluttered, and I do like the touch of the glowing jack-o-lantern on top of the old-fashioned TV set. We don't see much of Michael's school, just the boys' restroom, some hallways, the lockers, and the principal's office, 

but it doesn't look quite as filthy and covered in graffiti as you might expect (there is a little bit of junk on the hallway floor, though). One environment that I've always liked the look of is that isolated spot in the woods where Michael kills Wesley, as it's both lovely but also has an ambience about it, and Zombie makes sure you see plenty of it in the big, wide shots. And it goes without saying that the Rabbit in Red strip club where Deborah Myers works has a very sleazy look and feel, with tacky-looking, multi-colored lights illuminating her as she pole-dances, and a disco ball hanging from the ceiling.

 

When we switch to Smith's Grove, we get that cold and clinical feel, with the hallways and sitting rooms painted almost completely in sterile whites and grays, and the characters are often filmed in these big wide shots to where the place looks as though it's literally consuming them. The depressive atmosphere is added to by the music you hear playing in the background, which is that typical classical music that they feel the need to play in places like mental hospitals (like what Nurse Ratchet forced the patients to listen to in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). My personal favorite

part of the place is Michael's room, in how it's almost completely covered in the masks he's made over the years, which are hanging on the walls, from the ceiling, and sitting on the sparse pieces of furniture. I also like this long hallway where the floor slopes downward, which Ismael Cruz and Noel Kluggs walk Michael down when taking him to his last session with Loomis. Once Michael breaks out and returns to Haddonfield, save for the filthy truck stop restroom (like there's ever been such a thing as a clean one) where he kills Joe Grizzly, we get back to a look 

that's more akin to the original Halloween, with the long, tree-shaded streets, and the houses belonging to upstanding, middle class families (a lot of this was filmed in the same general area where the original was shot), which makes me wonder if the Myers family lived in a seedy part of town, or if the town's economy has improved over the years. Both the exteriors and interiors of the Strode, Doyle, and Wallace homes are so pristine and well-to-do that you really feel how Zombie has stepped out of his 

comfort zone, which I personally appreciate. Moreover, even though all we see of it is the library, the high school looks a bit more presentable than the elementary school, though the gun shop where Dr. Loomis purchases his .357 Magnum, and the hamburger place where he meets up with Sheriff Brackett, do have more of that redneck look which Zombie usually goes for. The cemetery that Loomis visits looks more or less like the cemetery in the original, although the dead coyote on the makeshift crucifix of sticks that he and Chester find near Judith's desecrated grave is Zombie's own personal touch to it (and the profanity, of course).

 

Finally, while the now old, abandoned Myers house doesn't look nearly as creepy as it did in the original, during the day or at night, it still serves its purpose. (I don't know why Lynda and Bob thought it was a good place to party and have sex, but according to their dialogue, they've apparently used it for that purpose before. I guess to each their own.) The most noteworthy part of it is the cellar where Michael takes Laurie, which he makes into something of a small crypt, placing Lynda's naked body in a dirt-filled patch of the ground, with Judith's tombstone and a lit 

jack-o-lantern up against the back wall. When Laurie first attempts to escape from him, she has to literally tear her way through the old, brittle wall, as the actual door has a padlock on it, and then has to rip through this old gate to reach the steps leading to the storm doors and out onto the lawn. There's also the attic, where the last bit of the film involves a cat and mouse game between them, as Michael repeatedly stabs up through the ceiling to get at Laurie as she's hiding up there.  And, during her initial escape, Laurie ends up falling into this empty, leaf-filled swimming pool, where Michael corners her before Loomis intervenes.

 

Pinpointing exactly what time period either half of the film is set in is rather difficult. Given some of the clothes, particularly young Michael's KISS T-shirt, hairstyles, the music you hear playing, and the old-fashioned headphones Judith uses at one point, plus the fact that it's Rob Zombie, who absolutely loves setting his films during this decade, you'd assume the first two acts take place some time during the 70's. I've heard from some sources that it's supposed to be 1978, like the original, and that when Michael breaks out, it's like 1994 or 1995. Others, however, have 

said it's 1990, and the second half is meant to take place in 2007, the year it was released. Either way, a lot of those elements in the first half apply to the second as well. Joe Grizzly looks like he came from a Blaxploitation flick with that Afro and Elvis-like sideburns; some of the jackets the teenagers wear, as well as their hairstyles (incidentally, this movie showcases some really awful wigs, especially the one that Nick Mennell wears as Bob), look like they're from the 70's; you're still not hearing any songs that are more recent than the 80's; and yet, you have modern-day portable and cellphones, the latter of which you're unlikely to have seen back in the mid-90's. 

When you watch his movies, it's clear that Rob Zombie does have a distinctive style: very gritty, raw, and realistic, as well as extremely violent and often disturbing. He basically makes modern-day exploitation and Grindhouse movies, full of vile, white trash characters living in grimy, rundown settings, with sadistic and often protracted death scenes, and gratuitous nudity. But, while I do respect him for establishing and maintaining his own directing voice, I don't think it works when applied to Halloween. I do credit him with trying to make it his 

own rather than just xeroxing the original, but John Carpenter's movie was never an exploitation film. It easily could've been but, instead, Carpenter decided to make it a classy, sophisticated, suspenseful thriller, with very little bloodshed and just a bit of nudity. I think the same goes for the majority of the sequels as well. Some of them did get pretty gory, and the franchise did become a typical slasher series in many ways, but it never became overly brutal, sadistic, and exploitative. And it was never about gritty realism either, but rather a creepy atmosphere and the idea 

that these people are dealing with a killer who's much more than just a typical, knife-wielding maniac, one who's able to seemingly become part of the night of Halloween. Even the most unsuccessful and tired entries tried to keep some semblance of that mentality. Zombie, however, tries to make this like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Last House on the Left (two films that I think he would've been more qualified to remake), and thus, his film never reaches the mythical status of either the original or a majority 

of the sequels, and it doesn't gel much with the Halloween vibe. In fact, it feels like it's set on Halloween just because that's the title. Granted, the original doesn't absolutely bathe in the holiday either, but I do get more of the feeling of it there, whereas this feels like it's just going through the motions with the dead leaves blowing in from off-camera, people dressed up in costumes, old horror movies playing on TV, the decorations, and the ever-present jack-o-lanterns. 

While we're on the subject of Zombie's style, I have to ask, what is his fascination with the majority of his characters being disgusting, foul-mouthed, white trash pieces of shit you don't care about one iota? The guy grew up in Massachusetts and went to college in New York, but he seems obsessed with these types of degenerate rednecks that you'd expect to find in the deep south. And is it me, or do these people feel out of place for a town that's supposed to be in Illinois? I know Illinois borders Kentucky, but these feel like 

people you'd likely find in Alabama or Mississippi, not a state that's practically Middle America. Since, while I have been to Illinois plenty of times now, I've only ever been to Chicago or Rosemont, it's possible I'm speaking out of turn and am also too wrapped up in the original to get it, but it doesn't feel authentic. Also, when Zombie employed this in his first couple of films, especially The Devil's Rejects, it worked, and felt new and fresh for the time. But when he did it again here, it led people to question if he's just a one-trick pony. He did change it up a bit with The Lords 

of Salem, and, again, went with a more upper class vision of Haddonfield during the latter part of Halloween, but in the sequel, he went right back to white trash, even doubling down on it in some cases. And going back to my original point, the majority of the characters in his films are virtually impossible to care for. In The Devil's Rejects, the dynamic of your main characters being sadistic serial killers and the person who's supposed to be the hero is, in reality, just as psychotic as they are, worked really 

well. But here, I don't care about a good chunk of the people that Michael Myers stalks and kills because they have it coming. And I  find it ironic that Zombie once said that the reason why, for him, the Halloween sequels didn't work was because you had "faceless victims and a faceless killer and a faceless movie," whereas you cared about the characters in the original. I agree with part of that statement, but he himself doesn't seem to know how to make characters you can get into. Again, some of the deaths are so brutal and horrific that some empathy does slip in naturally, but for the most part, when these people have been killed, it's no skin off my nose. 

Finally, yes, this is something you just have to expect with Zombie, but the amount of profanity and disgusting dialogue in this movie is ridiculous, and it's often so over-the-top that it's impossible to take seriously. Zombie has always defended it by saying that's what he heard when he was a kid and that people really do curse that much in real life. Okay, one, I'm glad I didn't grow up where he did, and two, no, they don't! I may live in the Bible Belt, but I've done my fair share of traveling and, while I've heard a fair amount of profanity here and there, I've never

Iheard stuff like, "Maybe I'll choke and purge my snork all over them flappy-ass tits," "Bitch, I will crawl over there, and I'll skull-fuck the shit out of you!", "Sit on my pole right now, bitch," "You think she'd suck my dick for a quarter and let me suck her tits?", and the like. Also, the people I went to high school with in Sewanee were pretty foul-mouthed too, but nothing like this (also, on a side-note, I remember when House of 1,000 Corpses came out and one of my classmates saw it and called it stupid). If there are

places where people talk like that, I hope I never end up there. And look, I'm not a prude. I'm not clutching my pearls and saying I'm offended by this. But the thing is, when just about every word you hear is "fuck," "shit," "motherfucker," and such, it becomes mind-numbing. Fortunately, the really nasty stuff is during that first act (not counting Lynda and Annie's sex-obsessed dialogue, especially the former's), but it's another thing that hurts Zombie's intention to create a realistic portrayal of Michael Myers as a psychopath and really get into his psychology when everybody around him are these virtual caricatures.

All that said, I wasn't expecting Zombie to just make a scene-by-scene, line-by-line copy of the original, nor would I have wanted him to. It may not appeal to me personally, but, again, I do give him credit for trying to do something different and making it his own... for the first 2/3, anyway. Once Michael breaks out of Smith's Grove and heads back to Haddonfield, the last hour or so is little more than an abbreviated retelling of the original movie, one that recreates some of its most iconic scenarios and imagery, as well as recycles many lines of dialogue, almost verbatim 

in some cases, particularly Dr. Loomis' quotes. Even the movie's most ardent defenders will agree that this is one of its biggest weaknesses, and it also causes its three-act structure to feel really lopsided. Now, to be fair, Zombie has said that one of his initial ideas was to split the movie into two-parts and end the first one after Michael escapes, then have Part 2 be akin to the original. According to him, he couldn't get any support for that approach at the studio, so his hands were tied. But still, I wonder if he couldn't have done

it some other way than simply making the third act a Rob Zombie-style, footnote version of John Carpenter's original. If he made the first half so completely different, why not keep that vibe going? Maybe it was studio-mandated, which wouldn't surprise me, since we're talking about the Weinsteins.

While Zombie does try to put his own spin on some of the original movie's most iconic moments during the latter half, it still often feels like too much of a repeat. You have recreations of scenes and scenarios like Laurie, as she's walking to school with Tommy Doyle, dropping something off at the Myers house, unaware that Michael is watching her from inside (in this instance, she slips an envelope through the slot in the door), leading to her being targeted; Tommy's obsession with the Boogeyman; Laurie seeing Michael watching her from across the street while 

she's in school, and when she looks out the window the third time, he's gone; Dr. Loomis having a tense discussion about Michael's escape with Smith's Grove officials; all three girls noticing Michael and at least one of them giving him crap; Laurie feeling like she's being followed as she walks home alone afterward; Loomis visiting a cemetery with the caretaker, who recounts how shocked he was when he heard about Michael's initial murders, and they find that Judith's tombstone is missing; Lynda showing her breasts to the disguised Michael and asking, "See anything you 

like?"; Loomis meeting up with Sheriff Brackett to warn him about Michael; Annie bringing Lindsey Wallace over to the Doyle house and leaving her with Laurie and Tommy so she can go be with Paul; and Michael chasing Laurie from the Wallace house back over to the Doyle home, breaking in, and chasing her and the kids throughout it. The Thing from Another World and Forbidden Planet are also among the old movies playing on the TV on Halloween night, in both halves. Michael killing Bob has probably the

most clever spin on it, as this time, after cutting from Lynda talking with Laurie on the phone, while Bob is getting her another beer, we see a figure in a bed-sheet, with glasses over the eye-holes, walking through the house. Suddenly, Michael charges at, grabs, and flings the figure, Bob, into the next room. (The downside is this only works if you've seen the original.) Yanking the sheet off him, he grabs and pins him to the wall, and then, just like in the original, sticks him to it with the knife, tilts his head while

looking at him, and puts the sheet over himself when he goes after Lynda. As the film draws to its climax, it starts to become more like its own film again, but Zombie still feels the need to replicate Judith's tombstone being placed near the body of one of Laurie's friends, and he also reuses the, "Was that the Boogeyman?", line exchange between Laurie and Loomis, albeit slightly modified.

 

This was definitely the goriest Halloween at the time, and the makeup effects, provided by Wayne Toth, are really well done. Not only are these kills bloody, brutal, and often very painful-looking, but the quality of the effects in some scenes come off as uncomfortably real (like Michael washing away the blood on the scalpel after he killed his pet rat offscreen), something that Zombie does excel at. In addition to the gore effects and the Michael Myers mask, Toth also created some nasty and very real-looking animal carcasses, like the dead cat they find

in Michael's backpack, the carcasses in the photographs he had on him, and the dead coyote he leaves skewered on some sticks at Judith's grave during the third act. As much as I don't think that was necessary, and it, again, goes too far into typical serial killer territory, the sight of them are disgusting, to say the least.

The death scenes are also often impactful because of how savage and cruel they are, with Zombie definitely not pulling any punches. Some, I think, go on a bit too long and are overkill, but the majority serve their purpose. The first death is that of Wesley Rhoades. While his mother is talking with Dr. Loomis and the principal in the latter's office, Michael runs to his locker and removes his clown mask. Outside, Wesley leaves the school, talking about killing Michael if he runs into him again, and as if we 

didn't already realize how loathsome he is, he takes one kid's hat, spits in it, and throws it. Unaware that he's being stalked (there's a well-done shot of Michael watching him at the end of a line of trees), he cuts through a wooded area on his way home. When he reaches a tree, Michael, wearing his clown mask, comes charging out from behind it with a ferocious yell and whacks Wesley in the legs with a large branch. He falls flat on his stomach, and Michael follows that up with two more blows to the small of 

his back. Turning over onto his back and looking up to see Michael, Wesley yells "You're so fucking dead!" (not a smart thing to say to someone who's standing over you with a weapon like that). In response, Michael continues pummeling him and his demeanor changes quickly. He begs for Michael to stop, and after being beaten again, attempts to crawl away. Michael follows him and beats on him some more, at one point causing him to roll down a small slope. By this point, Wesley's face is busted open, with blood all over it, and he literally cries as he begs 

for mercy again, even saying he's sorry for what he did (as much as of a scumbag as he was before, I actually feel a bit bad for him here). Standing over him, Michael pulls his mask up, reaches down into Wesley's pocket, and pulls out the flier for Deborah's strip club that he used to taunt Michael. After glancing at it and putting it away, he pulls his mask back down over his face, and as Wesley realizes he's doomed, Michael finishes him off by whacking him repeatedly until he's lifeless. Michael then walks off, leaving the body lying in the woods.

 

Michael's Halloween night massacre begins when, after coming in after trick-or-treating, he finds Ronnie asleep in the chair. After sitting at the dining room table, eating and playing around with some of his candy, he takes a roll of duct tape out of one drawer, and a large butcher knife out of another. Walking back into the living room, he puts the knife down, yanks out a roll of tape, and, in the next cut, has literally taped Ronnie to the chair. Putting his mask back on, he takes the knife, but then walks to the window when

he hears some laughing outside. Seeing that it's just some trick-or-treaters walking down the sidewalk, he closes the curtain, then walks around behind Ronnie, looks down at him, and with one swift motion, slices his throat open. (I think it would've been better to just have him do that to begin with, as the sight of this guy duct-taped to the chair is not only silly but pointless, given that he wouldn't have been able to get far or call out once his throat was cut. And wouldn't you know if someone was doing that to you, even if 

you were in a drunken sleep?). The blood pours out of Ronnie's neck wound, and you can hear his muffled choking, as he looks up and sees Michael looking down at him. After he expires, Michael removes his mask. Meanwhile, upstairs, after he and Judith have had sex, Steven Haley puts on his clothes and comes down. He doesn't notice Michael watching him from inside a room he walks by in the upstairs hallway, nor does he realize he's following him, wielding an aluminum baseball bat. Downstairs, Steven goes into the dining room, oblivious to 

Ronnie's body, and starts making himself a sandwich. As he's sitting at the table, Michael comes in behind him, with the bat raised, and hits him right in the head. Steve is knocked to the floor, his body convulsing, and Michael proceeds to beat him again and again and again, reducing his head to a mass of bloody pulp. Michael drops the bat and leaves him lying there, as blood pools out from under his head.

 

Michael next heads back upstairs and goes into Judith's room, where she's lying on the bed, listening to music through her headphones (she's listening to Don't Fear the Reaper, appropriately). Watching her lying there, he lifts his mask up, then looks down and sees the mask that Steven brought lying on the floor. Without a second thought, he reaches down, picks it up, and slips it on. He walks over and, very creepily, runs his fingers up her leg. Judith initially giggles, thinking it's Steven wanting to have sex again, and 

she tells him that once is enough for the night. She grabs his hand, then looks over her shoulder and sees that it's Michael. Irritated at this, she demands that he explain himself, cursing him out and even smacking him a couple of times, unaware that he's hiding the knife behind his back. He swings around and stabs her right in the gut. She instinctively grabs the blade, and he pulls it back out. Shocked as to what just happened, the next cut finds her staggering out of the bedroom, making her way down the hall. Not only is she bleeding profusely from her stomach, with blood 

all over her legs, but there are other wounds on her body, suggesting that Michael sliced at her some more offscreen. He steps out of the room behind her, and when she turns and sees him, she desperately tries to run, but can't exactly do that in her weakened state. Michael pursues her down the hall and stabs her repeatedly in the back, causing her to fall to the floor. She tries to crawl away but quickly expires as she lies there.

 

Michael's last victim before adulthood is the nurse at Smith's Grove who's left to look after him while Dr. Loomis sees Deborah out. When she turns her back on him to read her newspaper, he takes his fork, comes up behind her, and stabs into her neck. We don't see the gory details of the actual kill (though when it cuts to the CCTV footage, you see him really digging into her neck), but we see some of the aftermath, as she lies on the floor in a pool of blood, with a close-up of her bloody hand twitching, as well as one of her face as she dies.

 

As I've said, Michael's escape plays out differently depending on which version you watch. Again, for now, I'll focus on the theatrical version, which I think is the more effective and palatable one. It's as he's being moved from one cell-block to another, escorted by a group of guards. After Zach "Z-Man" Garrett complains about how slowly Michael's walking, Larry Redgrave opens an automatic door leading to a security point and sends him on through. While Patty Frost waits on the other side, Garret, Redgrave, and

another guard, Stan Payne, continue the escort. As Redgrave attempts to open the other door, Michael makes his move. He breaks his hands loose from his restraints, swings around, and smacks Garrett's arms, causing him to drop his rifle. He then decks him right in the face, does the same to Payne, and charges at Redgrave. Redgrave tries to pull out his nightstick, but Michael grabs him and repeatedly bashes the back of his head against the window, coating it in blood. Frost, who's been futilely yelling on the other side of the door this whole time, opens it, only for Michael to

grab Payne and use him as a human shield. She accidentally shoots him as a result, and Michael, tossing him aside, lunges at Frost. He pins her up against the wall and rips her throat open with his bare hand. He watches as she slumps down to the floor, gagging and gasping, and after she's dead, he drags her down the hall, leaving a trail of blood along the floor.

 

Regardless of the version, his next victim is Ismael Cruz, who shows up for his evening shift. Walking around to find the place seemingly deserted, with nobody answering the phone at one of the stations (it's revealed that Michael killed the woman there by also ripping her throat out), Ismael unlocks and steps through a gate, and comes across the guards' bodies. He's then faced with Michael. Knowing that this has to be his handiwork, he attempts to talk him down and get him back into his room. He takes a pair of

handcuffs from one of the guards' body and goes to put them on Michael, who seems cooperative. But when he gets close enough, Michael grabs him, slams him against the wall, then throws him across a table. Michael flings the table out of his way with a grunt, then grabs Ismael, pulls him up off the floor, and slams him against the chain-link wall around one of the gates. Danny Trejo gives a genuinely poignant performance, as Ismael cries in despair over this pummeling, telling Michael that he was always good to him. Michael then shoves his head into a sink filled

with water three times in a row, progressively turning the water red with blood coming out of his mouth (the only thing that kind of hurts this is, when you see the shots of  Ismael's head from under the water, Trejo has a bit of a disinterested expression on his face). He throws him down, and as he lies on the ground, coughing up blood, Michael finishes him off by smashing a large TV onto him. (Damn!)

 

After escaping from the asylum, Michael comes upon the truck-stop and watches Joe Grizzly, as he gets out of his truck's cab after leaving it to the washers and heads to the restroom. Michael follows him in there, then walks up to Joe's stall door and knocks on it. Doing his business while looking at a pornographic magazine, Joe, seeing Michael's feet from underneath the door, tells him it's going to be a while. But when Michael doesn't leave and knocks on the door again, this time harder, Joe realizes this guy is going to be

trouble. He warns him that he's messing with the wrong guy and gives him one more chance to leave, but when he doesn't, Joe pulls up his pants, takes out his own knife, and opens the door. Coming face to face with Michael, Joe introduces himself and threatens to cut his mask right off his face. That's when Michael attacks. He grabs a hold of Joe and shoves him back into the stall, up against the wall. The two of them struggle violently, when Michael grabs the hand clutching the knife and slams him repeatedly against the stall's left wall, bashing a huge

depression into it and breaking it off of its hinges. He manages to take Joe's knife, and although Joe gets a punch in, Michael stabs right in his gut. He stabs him again for good measure before he finally dies. While Joe's truck is being washed outside, Michael takes his coveralls and walks off, leaving him lying in a pool of blood.

 

After he arrives in Haddonfield, and stalks Laurie and her friends and family all day, Michael's first victims come nightfall are Lynda and Bob when they go to the Myers house to drink and have sex. Like I said, despite the different location, the scenario plays out almost exactly like the original. Michael watches them having sex, then makes short work of Bob when he jumps him while the latter's heading upstairs with a sheet over him. He slings the sheet off him and slams him against the wall, lifts him up by the throat by one hand, takes out the knife, and stabs him in the

torso, sticking him to the wall. We even get a shot of Bob's convulsing feet going limp as he dies and, again, Michael inquisitively turns his head while looking at him, before walking away. Also like before, Michael appears to Lynda in the doorway, wearing the sheet and Bob's glasses. Lynda taunts him, showing her breasts, but he just stands there, watching and breathing heavily. Quickly growing tired of this, she asks for her beer, and he holds it out in her hand. When he doesn't walk over and give it to 

her like she demands, Lynda gets up, stomps over to him, completely naked, takes the beer, and cracks it open. That's when Michael takes the sheet off, comes up behind her, grabs her by the neck, and squeezes, slowly choking her, before breaking her neck. (These are among the movie's weakest kills, as they're little more than rehashes of the original, but with none of the suspense or creepiness.) After she collapses to the floor, he picks up her body and carries her down the hallway outside.

 

Michael's such a dick that he attacks Laurie's parents after she leaves with Annie to go babysitting. Cynthia and Morgan Strode are heading back inside the house after seeing Laurie off, when the latter lingers on the porch for a little bit. Suddenly, Michael comes out of nowhere, slashing his throat, then forces him inside the house. Standing in the doorway leading into the living room, he drops Morgan's body onto the floor, then slowly approaches the terrified Cynthia. She attempts to defend herself with a fireplace poker, but he easily gets rid of that, then corners her. She

screams and it cuts to outside the living room, lingering there for a few seconds. Cynthia comes crawling out and heads to a phone on a table. Just as she reaches for it, Michael grabs her from behind, puts her in a choke-hold, then shows her a framed picture of Laurie, silently demanding to know where she is. Cynthia knocks the picture out of his hand and struggles in his grip, yelling, "You leave my baby alone!" He throws her through a coffee table, then grabs her by the hair, pulls her head back, and, while

looking down at her, breaks her neck. And apparently Michael wasn't done yet. When Sheriff Brackett attempts to call the Strodes after Dr. Loomis tells him that he believes Laurie is Michael's target, it cuts to a shot of their living room, which now has blood everywhere, Cynthia lying back in the chair, and Morgan lying by the fireplace, both looking much more brutalized than they were before.

 

Michael later attacks Annie and Paul while they're making out and just about to have sex on the Wallaces' living room couch. He grabs Paul by the back of the neck while he's lying on top of Annie and kissing her. He pulls him up, stabs him, and throws his body aside, before advancing on Annie. She tries to run outside and almost makes it out the door, but Michael grabs her and pulls her back in. She kicks him in the stomach, runs into the kitchen, and gets a knife to defend herself, but when she goes to stab him, he backhands her down onto the floor. He then

flips her over onto her back, and she tries to crawl away (how many times have I written that?), but he grabs her leg and drags her back into the living room. Again, you don't see what Michael did to her afterward, but when Laurie brings Lindsey back over, they find Paul's body hanging from the ceiling, with a jack-o-lantern on his head, and Annie lying on the floor, bloody and bruised. Laurie sends Lindsey back across the street, telling her to call the police, then, after checking on Annie (if nothing else, she could've put something over her to cover her naked torso),

goes to call the police herself. When she leaves the room, Michael emerges from behind the front door and closes it. He walks by Annie, looking down at her, then inspects his own handiwork on Paul's hanging body, before heading into the room where Laurie's making the 911 call. Sheriff Brackett and Dr. Loomis receive the call in the former's car, but they're still ten minutes away. Annie desperately yells to Laurie, trying to warn her, when Michael grabs her from behind. Breaking loose and turning around to

face Michael, she then fumbles back towards the French window-style kitchen door. Finding it locked, she smashes a chair through the glass and climbs out (I'll give her points for not wasting time by fumbling the door handle, like Jamie Lee Curtis did in the original). She runs across the lawn and back down the street to the Doyle house, screaming for help, with Michael right behind her Like in the original, she has to desperately bang on the front door and call for Tommy to let her in. When he does and she gets 

inside, she frantically asks where Lindsey is. Hearing her, Lindsey comes downstairs, when Michael starts pounding on the other side of the door. Seeing him looking at them through the window above the door, Laurie yells for the kids to go upstairs. Right as they do, Michael breaks down the door, sending her running up after the kids. They take cover in the bathroom and sit in the tub, with Laurie telling the kids to be quiet.

 

The police show up at the Doyle house and two officers head inside. One sends the other to check the upstairs, while he searches downstairs. The latter comes to the locked bathroom door and, when he tells them who he is, Laurie and the kids try to warn him about Michael. He tries to coax them to open the door and Laurie slowly walks towards it. He assures her that there's no one out there, but just as Laurie unlocks the door, Michael slams his face against the glass and stabs him in the back of the neck, causing him to cough blood onto it. The cop's face slides

down the glass, and Michael bursts his knife-wielding hand through, before bulldozing his way completely inside. Before he can attack, the other officer shows up and points his gun at Michael, ordering him to freeze. Turning to look, Michael charges at him. The cop shoots but just grazes his left shoulder, only causing him to grunt and stumble a bit, before he reaches the cop and hacks him to death. That done, he turns back around, goes back into the bathroom, and lunges for Laurie. He drags her away, screaming and struggling in his grip, as the kids can do nothing but

watch and scream in terror. The next cut suddenly turns eerily calm, as Michael walks out of the house's front door and down the street, carrying Laurie, who's now unconscious, in his arms. Brackett and Loomis arrive at the Wallace house and, walking through the front door, find Annie. While Brackett sees to his daughter, Loomis ducks back outside and flags down an oncoming ambulance. At that moment, Tommy and Lindsey come running across the street and tell Loomis what happened. They point him in the direction that Michael took Laurie and he tells them to wait by the ambulance, while he head on down the street.

 

Laurie wakes up in the Myers house basement, sees Lynda's body lying nearby, and crawls over to her. She tries to "wake" her, but soon realizes that she's dead, when Michael emerges from the darkness behind her. As he approaches, she starts to panic and begs for him not to hurt her, when he drops the knife on the ground. He then tries to connect with her, getting down on his knees, taking the old picture of them out of his pocket, and handing it to her. When Laurie insists that she doesn't know whose those kids are, Michael then takes off his mask (you can't get a

good look at his face because of the long hair and the darkness) and drops it on the ground. Spying the knife lying nearby, Laurie repeatedly says she wants to help him, while slowly moving towards it. This whole time, Michael has head down, and when Laurie is close enough to the knife, she grabs it, stabs him in the left shoulder, and after he falls over onto the ground, she runs to a screen door with a lock on it. Unable to get it open, she breaks her way through the brittle, rotting wall, and manages to get on the other side. Michael gets back up, pulls the knife out of his 

shoulder, puts his mask back on, and bursts through the wall, as Laurie attempts to get through the locked gate before the steps leading outside. She rips through the chain-link with a rock, and despite Michael grabbing at her, manages to slip through and head up the stairs. She gets outside and runs across the lawn, while Michael rips the gate off its hinges and stomps up the stairs. Laurie falls into the dried up swimming pool, where Michael finds her after getting out and walking through the yard. Watching her while she 

screams for help, and seeing that there's no way she can climb out, he walks down into the pool after her. That's when Loomis arrives (in a cop car, even though the last shot of him had him running down the street) and yells for Michael to stop. Michael merely glances at him, then continues after Laurie, forcing Loomis to shoot. He shoots Michael twice, yelling at him to stop, and finally, he has to shoot again, seemingly putting him down, as he collapses near Laurie.

 

This is where the movie really begins to overstay its welcome. As Loomis helps Laurie out of the pool and into the cop car, giving her his trench-coat to keep her warm, and clearly regrets how he had no choice but to "kill" Michael, I know full well that he's not dead. And, wouldn't you know it, he smashes through the window on Laurie's side, grabs her, and drags her out and back towards the house. Loomis follows and tries to talk him down, to which Michael reacts by throwing Laurie aside and lunging at him. He grabs his head and appears to crush his skull, as well as 

shove his thumbs into his eyes, while Laurie runs inside the house. Unable to find a way out, she's able to break through the wall and hide in the space between it and the opposite one. (I was now really wishing this damn movie would just end, but it goes on for almost another ten minutes.) Michael drags Loomis into the house, then searches for Laurie. Finding Loomis' discarded coat in a doorway, he takes out his knife and seems to ponder where she could be. He searches around, as she nervously watches from her hiding place. Then, figuring where

she might be, he starts kicking and smashing through the wall, searching for her. By this point, she's left her hiding spot and is standing up against the side of the wall across from where he is. When he then walks into the next room, Laurie goes to take Loomis' Magnum, but just when she grabs the handle, Michael walks back in and sees her. She gets to her feet and runs, quickly climbing up into the attic. Though he doesn't see her when he looks up through the opening she crawled through, Michael does know where she

is. She watches him through the floorboards as he looks up at the ceiling, then he takes a big, wooden beam and starts smashing it up through the ceiling. For well over a full minute, he makes his way down the hallway, jabbing the beam up, while Laurie attempts to stay ahead of him in the tight attic. She comes close to getting jabbed by the beam a few times, and after he stops, she crawls ahead and falls through a weak part of the ceiling. She then awkwardly gets to her feet, stumbling badly, when 

she sees Michael standing in the doorway across from her. She raises the gun, but before she can shoot, he drops the beam and charges at her. They both go through the boarded up window behind her and fall off the balcony, down to the yard below. Laurie blacks out, then wakes back up to find herself lying partially on top of Michael. Seeing the gun on the ground to her right, she grabs it, then sits up and points it at his head. She clicks an empty chamber, then spitefully spits on his mask, and tries to shoot a 

couple of more times. After two more empty clicks, he grabs her wrist, just as she's pointing the gun right at his forehead. She struggles with his grip (Rob Zombie has said he may be trying to stop her, or fixing her aim so she can end his miserable existence), then finally shoots him, getting splattered in the face with his blood. The movie then ends with her screams fading into a montage of Super 8 home movies of the young Michael, as the credits roll.

 

Due to the rather tumultuous nature of its production, there are three complete versions of Rob Zombie's first Halloween. In addition to the theatrical version and Director's Cut, there's a so-called "workprint" that leaked out a week before the theatrical release. Edited together way back in May of 2007, this version includes material that didn't make it into either of the officially available cuts, as well as some other differences. The opening credits, for instance, take 

place as young Michael slips away to murder Wesley Rhoades, with the movie's title appearing on a still frame of him running down the school hallway (which I always thought looked really dumb). Among the most notable newer scenes are some more therapy sessions between young Michael and Loomis, including one where they're sitting in the courtyard. Michael keeps saying, "I need to get out of here," and when Loomis finally tells him, "Yes, that's not gonna 

happen for a while, Michael. I'm afraid you'll be going nowhere," he says, "Then I have nothing else to say," marking the moment when he stops talking altogether. (While an abbreviated version of this scene is in the Director's Cut, that last line isn't, which is a shame). The scene where Ismael and Noel Kluggs go to fetch Michael from his room is inter-cut with news interviews where Udo Kier's Morgan Walker 

and a character named Councilman Edwards (Tom Towles, in a completely different role) insist that Michael should never be released, whereas Clint Howard's Dr. Koplenson argues that his continued incarceration is taxing an "overburdened system." Here, the orderlies take him to a release hearing, where the officials debate this, and Walker ultimately denies him. While she's complaining about being 

suspended from the cheerleading team, Lynda has a moment where she's even more of a bitch than she already was: she curses out two girls she thinks are laughing at her, then takes one's drink and pours it over her head, and steals her textbook, all while Laurie profusely apologizes to them. You actually see Michael steal Judith's headstone, after having killed the groundskeeper (a different actor than Sid Haig), and the cemetery is also where Loomis meets Brackett. Michael attacking Morgan Strode has him

walking up to the house in full view, and because it's Halloween night, Strode doesn't realize the danger he's in until it's too late. Michael slashes his throat reaches him, which is the bit you see in either of the official cuts). And here, Michael attacks and kills Bob while he's looking for beer out in the van.

Finally, the ending is very different (if I'm not mistaken, it's available on the DVDs and Blu-Rays as an extra feature). After Michael rips Laurie from the car and Loomis tells him to let her go, Sheriff Brackett and the police arrive. Loomis tells them not to shoot, insisting to Brackett that he can handle this, then turns around and, again, asks Michael to release Laurie. Looking down at her, and flashing back to the home movies of him holding her as a baby, while Laurie herself begs to be let go, Michael complies. He even drops the knife, much to Loomis' relief. But 

when he then tries to follow Loomis and Laurie, Brackett and the police gun him down. After absorbing an enormous amount of gunfire, Michael collapses, and the movie ends with Loomis crying over his dead former patient, as audio from their first therapy session years ago can be heard. When this ending didn't go over well at test screenings, the climax in the house that we have now was shot as part of some reshoots that took place during the last few months before the theatrical release. I don't really know if I would've preferred this ending, as it feels too anti-climactic and it makes Michael much too sympathetic for my liking.

 

When Halloween was released on home media in December of 2007, both the theatrical cut and the Director's Cut got separate releases, albeit with the same bonus features. But, over time, the Director's Cut became the most widely available version, at least here in the United States, whereas the theatrical has become harder to find. The theatrical typically gets shown on TV but, in terms of home media, your best bet is either a UK edition, or a Canadian Blu-Ray set that has the theatrical versions of both of Rob Zombie's Halloweens. I actually found my copy of the latter at an FYE in Florida back in 2018, which I picked up because I wanted to be able to see the theatrical versions, which many had said were superior. And that, I hope to God, was the last time I will ever end up with a copy of this movie. Seriously, even though I got rid of both of those initial DVDs I had, it seemed like this was a movie I could not escape. In January of 2017, I was at another FYE, this one in Chattanooga, when I stumbled across Scream Factory's amazing Halloween: The Complete Collection box-set, specifically the big, 15-disc version. It was only $100, so I grabbed it (and I'm glad I did, as that thing, particularly

that version, is now out of print and goes for stupid money online) and, as a result, ended up with Rob Zombie's Halloween again. I was confident that that was definitely the last time it would ever happen, too. And then, because the Director's Cuts were, yet again, the only versions of both this and Zombie's Halloween II in that Complete Collection set, I got that Canadian set in 2018, meaning I've either bought or ended up with four different copies of this damn movie over the years. (When they say, "The night he came home," they weren't kidding!) Fortunately, that set was very cheap but, still, I know, I'm an idiot. You don't have to say it.

Getting to the Director's Cut, it's eleven minutes longer than the theatrical version (either way, this is the longest film in the franchise), and reinstates a lot of stuff that Zombie had to cut during post-production. Instead of violence, this additional material mostly consists of character moments and lines of dialogue, which actually have quite an impact, both positive and negative, despite how brief some of them are. The first major one comes during Michael's sessions with Dr. Loomis, wherein we see a series of black-and-white video diaries narrated by Loomis, detailing Michael's worsening mental state. These are effectively unsettling, with the scratchy footage of young Michael coming off as rather ghostly, just as Loomis describes him in the final one, and they give more of a concrete progression of Michael's psychosis. In addition to an abbreviated version of the scene with the two of them sitting in the courtyard from the workprint, we have a moment where, following one of Deborah's visits, Michael and Loomis sit across from each other at a table, the former not saying anything. Speaking of Loomis, when he resigns following the fifteen year time-skip, this cut has him pat Michael on the shoulder, telling him to take care, and he

looks back at Smith's Grove as he walks out, obviously contemplating his failure to help his patient. These moments make Loomis more sympathetic, whereas in the theatrical version, it cuts from his telling Michael that he needs to move on straight to his book tour, implying that he very quickly washed his hands of him. Following Michael's escape, there's a confrontation between Loomis, Morgan Walker, and Dr. Koplenson in Walker's office, where they pass blame as to who's responsible. Here, Loomis asks how difficult it was to

simply keep Michael locked up for the rest of his life, Clint Howard has a nice line, as Koplenson says, "Christ, you can barely tell he's breathin' half the time!" Disgusted with how they're not going to do anything, Loomis storms out, quoting, "He is mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf." In this version, during their confrontation outside before Loomis leaves, he flat-out tells them that Michael is heading back to Haddonfield, and Walker yells that it's a hundred miles away (which makes it hard to believe, 

given Zombie's insistence on Michael not driving, that he could make it back there on foot overnight). And at the end of the movie, after he's seemingly had his skull crushed, Loomis is shown to still be alive when Laurie takes his Magnum, and he also futilely grabs onto Michael's leg to try to stop him from chasing her.

Unfortunately, most of the additions only serve to make many characters even more unlikable than they were in the theatrical version. At the beginning, when Judith turns down the scrambled eggs that Deborah made for breakfast, she adds, "They're chicken abortions, and they're fucking gross." When Deborah says, "They are not chicken abortions," Judith says, "Like you know what an abortion is," to which Ronnie laughs. (It's easier to understand how Deborah was able to get over her death in this version.) In the asylum, Sybil Danning's nurse not only stupidly turns

her back to Michael but, looking at the photo with him and the baby, she comments, "Cute baby. Couldn't be related to you," thus making her murder another personal act of vengeance on his part. After the time-skip, when he and Ismael Cruz are getting Michael ready for his session with Loomis, Noel Kluggs is even worse to him, sneering, "Don't look at me. I'll be a shitstorm in your worst nightmare, motherfucker. I'll come in here and fuck this place up one night. You watch." Even Laurie is just a little bit

more obnoxious in her introductory scene, adding to the obscene, sexual gestures she makes towards Cynthia using the bagels. When she comes home from school that afternoon, she helps her mother with a skeleton decoration she's having trouble putting together. As they walk into the house, Cynthia tells Laurie that she's still not happy about that joke she made.

 

By far, the worst part of the Director's Cut is the different way in which Michael escapes. Here, Kluggs and his cousin, Jack Kendall (Courtney Gains) decide to take advantage of the graveyard shift by raping this inmate who's unable to talk. That's already disgusting, but then Kluggs, who's such a bully that he can't let go of his need to screw with Michael, has them take her in his room. Seriously, how stupid can you get? Not only do they go in there and take turns raping her on Michael's cot, but Kluggs taunts him, trying to provoke him into joining in (he even goes as far as to

stick his fingers into the poor woman's crotch and try to get Michael to smell it), and they touch and wear his masks, which, as noted, is his berserk button. Naturally, he proceeds to get up and pulverize them. He grabs Kendall, slams him against the wall, and throws him down onto a table, before chasing after Kluggs, who hit him across the back with his nightstick. Kluggs can't run because his pants are still down around his ankles, and he stumbles outside and falls onto the floor. Michael grabs and throws  him against either side of the hall, before finally smashing

the back of his head against it, leaving a bloody mess. This was another scene that didn't go over well at the test screening and so, Zombie begrudgingly shot the alternate escape sequence in the theatrical version. Besides the stupidity of the whole thing, I hate this scene, one, because I can't stand rape scenes in general (Zombie is creepily obsessed with them, as well), and two, I don't like the idea that Michael was provoked into getting out. I like it more in the theatrical version when, as he's being moved, he just

decides, "I'm out of here," and breaks loose. (When Ismael Cruz arrives afterward, they use the footage of him finding the dead guards from the theatrical version, suggesting that, after killing those orderlies, Michael went postal and killed everybody else in the building.)

There are some other small additions here and there during the third act, mostly dealing with Michael's stalking of Laurie. When she drops off the envelope at the Myers house, Michael takes it and sniffs it. Initially, I thought this was just another depraved Zombie addition, but I've also heard a suggestion that he possibly somehow recognizes Laurie's scent (if that makes any sense). As Laurie walks home alone after Annie and Lynda go off by themselves, you see Michael following her, and he watches as she and Cynthia walk into the house. And when night falls

following the scene at the cemetery, instead of it simply fading to Lynda and Bob pulling up in front of the Myers house, it cuts to a title card, like the ones throughout both this and the theatrical version (which I think are modeled off of those in The Shining), that reads "TRICK OR TREAT," and then to a shot of Michael sitting in the house, when he hears the van outside.

 

The music score is by Tyler Bates, who'd also scored The Devil's Rejects and would work with Zombie a couple of more times, including on Halloween II. His score mostly consists of recreations of John Carpenter's original music, specifically the main theme, Laurie's theme, the Myers House theme, Michael Kills Judith, and The Shape Stalks, the latter two of which I think are used far too much. I'm not very big on the way Bates re-orchestrates some of these pieces, although I do think that the main theme sounds better here in the actual movie than it did in the trailer, where it was really overdone (though it doesn't work too well when you first hear it as young Michael Myers runs down his school's hallway). The Shape Stalks simply consists of the, "Dun, dun-dun," played over and over again, with no sense of build-up within it, and it's done so loudly that it becomes more obnoxious and distracting than terrifying. Michael Kills Judith sounds passable, but I don't like hearing the back end of it over a montage of Deborah finishing her stripping, getting her clothes on, and heading home. The Myers House theme fares the best, especially when you hear it near the end of the ending credits, as does Laurie's Theme, although I don't think it fits with this version of the character. Bates' original music isn't much to write home about, as it mostly consists of just this low, droning sound, similar to what he did for The Devil's Rejects. You hear this sound a lot, often whenever Michael appears, is slowly stalking someone, or going in for the kill, and while it is menacing, it gets overused. The rest of the original music does little more than try to add to the intensity or the dreadful atmosphere, and isn't all that memorable.

One might say that the actual music scores in Zombie's films matter less than the choice of songs, especially seeing as how The Devil's Rejects made use of some great ones like Midnight Rider, Seed of Memory and, most notably, Free Bird during the ending. But with Halloween, Zombie seemed to have lost some of his touch in this regard. I didn't mind the use of KISS' God of Thunder at the very beginning (the workprint used The Monster Mash there), and, just like the original, he's got to have Don't Fear The Reaper playing at a couple of points. But using Love Hurts by Nazareth during the montage of young Michael sitting outside the front of his house, while his mom pole-dances at the Rabbit in Red, made my jaw drop the first time I saw it. That does not feel like anything I should be seeing and hearing in a Halloween movie! And while I don't mind the version of Mr. Sandman, performed by Nan Vernon, that's used here, I still scratch my head about it even being here, since Zombie bashed the sequels so much, not to mention how I still don't think that song fits with this particular franchise.

 

At the end of the day, Rob Zombie's Halloween just isn't my cup of tea. There are definitely things about it that I do like, such as some of the characters, including Dr. Loomis and Laurie Strode; the look of Michael Myers, especially when it comes to the mask; some nicely gory, brutal kills; and some good instances of cinematography and production design. But there's still a lot that I don't care for. Many of the characters are completely unsympathetic and loathsome; the amount of profanity and downright disgusting dialogue gets annoying and distracting; I find the characterization of Michael Myers and the details of his backstory both uninteresting and not well executed; regardless of the cut, the film goes on far too long and really drags during the last half hour; the score and soundtrack are a mixed bag; and Zombie's attitude is what especially tends to taint it for me. When the director is someone who seems untrustworthy, and whose reaction to the fans who don't agree with his decisions is one of, "Bite me," it really hurts my ability to enjoy a movie. Not that it matters, as Zombie has his own hardcore fanbase, and there are quite a few people who do like this movie, and that's perfectly fine. And if you even like this more than John Carpenter's original, great. I don't understand it, but by all means, continue to do so. It's just that this movie does not appeal to me, it never has, and even though I think the theatrical version is better, this is not going to be a Halloween movie that I pull of the shelf that often.