Halloween

News About the Rob Zombie Halloween Remake

Updated August 31, 2007

Rob Zombie Halloween Remake What's going to be interesting about watching the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween this weekend is going to be figuring out how much of it is a remake and how much of it is an entirely new film. According to a recent MTV article, Rob Zombie's Halloween includes plenty of in-jokes intended to make fans of the original happy. I'm not sure that in-jokes will succeed, but at the same time, I won't be missing the movie either. (Apparently one of the "in-jokes" involves Lynda's constant use of the word "totally" to describe everything she talks about.)

Another way that Rob Zombie is trying to stay true to the spirit of the original Halloween is by filming this version on the same California streets as the original. (Even though the movie is set in Haddonfield, Illinois, it was filmed in California.) One of the most memorable aspects of the original Halloween, to me, was the unforgettable ordinariness of the setting. Maybe it reminded me of my own hometown, but it captured a small-town American feel in a very real way.

Some of the early reviews from Ain't It Cool news have been decidedly negative and have made a little bit nervous about this movie. Quint's review of Rob Zombie's Halloween was particularly negative. He basically said that Rob Zombie's movie wasn't as bad as he'd expected it to be; it was worse. (By the way, skip their reviews if you don't want spoilers.) The funniest thing I read in Quint's review was this line, "If all you want out of a horror movie is tits, ass and blood then you might like this movie." I'm sure some people are looking for nothing more than that, but I hope that maybe he got it wrong on this one.

(Quint published a review of the original Rob Zombie Halloween script that apparently pissed Zombie off earlier this year, if you're interested in reading that.)

A couple more reviews of the new Rob Zombie Halloween remake:

Ford Fairlane's Review of Rob Zombie's Halloween - This was written after seeing a workprint online, not the final product, and it's full of spoilers. Fairlane says it's not horrible, but it has problems.
Moriarty on Rob Zombie's Halloween - He talks about more than just Halloween in this piece, but his insights into movies are sometimes pretty interesting. He had a decidedly negative opinion of this film, calling it "creatively bankrupt". Not good news for those of us who liked The Devils Rejects and were hoping for something really special.

After reading through some of these reviews, I'm a little more pessimistic about seeing this new Rob Zombie Halloween. But I'm still going to go see it. I could disagree with the reviewers on this one. As of this morning, Rotten Tomatoes only has Halloween at 19%. That's a lot of reviewers for me to disagree with.

More Rob Zombie Halloween News

Updated January 30, 2007.

Rob Zombie will direct a remake of the John Carpenter classic, Halloween. This will NOT be a sequel, and it will be a complete "re-imagining" of the movie, similar to Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead. (Halloween was a 1977 film in which a patient in a mental hospital, Michael Myers, escapes the asylum and goes on a killing spree. He was pursued by Dr. Loomis, who was brilliantly portrayed by the late Donald Pleasance.) Dimension Films announced the remake the first weekend in June, 2006.

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Rob Zombie will not only serve as director of the new Halloween, but he is also a producer and music supervisor. Halloween will be Zombie's third gig as director, after House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. Andy Gould is one of the co-producers; Gould has worked with Zombie on his two previous movies. The new Halloween was originally slated for release in October 2007, but the release date has been moved up to August 31, 2007.

Zombie says that this will be a "new take" on the Halloween franchise, and he hopes that it will oblige fans of the original while offering something fresh to movie-goers. The film is planned to be both a prequel and a remake of the original. The story is set before the events of 1981's Halloween 2, and will focus on Myer's youth (before he was institutionalized) and how he develops into a serial killer.

Rob Zombie had this to say about John Carpenter in an interview with Variety:

"The original 'Halloween' is hallowed ground to me, and I talked to him about it and he was very supportive of what I wanted to do," Zombie said. "He said, 'Go for it, Rob. Make it your own.' And that's exactly what I intend to do. Over 25 years and a lot of movies, a very scary character became something of a Halloween cliché, with Michael Myers dolls that play the Halloween music when you press their stomachs. By the end of the sequel cycle, there was little connection to the original. I take that film very seriously, and I want to make it terrifying again."

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