Halloween (2007)

(Directed by Rob Zombie, 2007, USA)

Usually I try to never see sequels because I am sure to be disappointed.While having very fond memories of John Carpenter's Halloween (1978), I guess I should have stuck to my basic rule: NO WATCHING REMAKES.

Rob Zombie's Halloween starts off with good intentions, but doesn't go anywhere. Yes, we see the young teen Michael Myers with his unhappy homelife: drunk stepdad (William Forsythe), slutty sis Judith (Hanna Hall), lil' baby Boo and stripper Mom (the ever watchable Sheri Moon Zombie). The first act of the movie focuses incessantly on the young 12 year old Michael Myers and his upbringing: torturing and killing animals and eventually turning on the people who pick on him at school. He comes under the care of Dr. Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) and eventually is institutionalized after the usual family blood bath. Everyone is killed except for stripper mom and baby. Needless to say, little Mikey is sent to a state hospital for the criminally insane.

Fifteen years later, Mikey Myers gets out to wreak his revenge by going home. There is very little connection to why Michael Myers returns home: he's (I think) looking for the baby girl (?), his sister and doesn't care who gets in his way. Typical slasher mayhem ensues. It's incredibly not interesting.

It was very hard for me to watch this tepid remmake without thinking about John Carpenter's original: with a lesser budget than this movie and practically no special effects. This remake was the ultimate curse of a horror film: it was dull, and just not really interesting, not even in its climax. By focusing on how Michael Myers became the killing machine, the director neglected one basic fact: we want our horror movie killers to be killers, not have some mopey, artsy background, explaining why they did it, what turned them into this....blah blah blah. The final girl was no Jamie Lee Curtis either: in the original, Curtis is resourceful; here in the remake, the girl screams a lot, lets the kids she's babysitting to fend for themselves and you really don't care.

Stick with Carpenter's original, you won't go wrong.