So, Ivy and I did get a chance to check out the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween during our long weekend. In a word: BRUTAL, I was cringing within the first 10-15 minutes of the film. I must say that I enjoyed Halloween a lot more than Ivy did. Her take on it was that it was a) too trashy b) too gory. Which are both pretty accurate statements.

Rob Zombie’s (RZ) Myers family isn’t as clean cut as John Carpenter’s. Little Mikey has a stripper mommy, a drunk abusive stepfather, and a whore-in-training big sister. This aspect of the film is what I loved the most—the amount of detail put into Michael’s back-story. RZ added so much depth to the character, you almost felt sympathy for him at times. Here’s a kid who lived such a shit-hole life that it’s no wonder that he turns into a homicidal maniac. You could almost call it a prequel to all the other Halloween films.

That being said, the biggest let down of the movie is how quickly the second half went by. It was like, once Michael got back in town a nonstop bloodbath ensued—a very graphic, squishy bloodbath. This is the part where true die hard fans are going to be judging you, and RZ kinda let it go. My feeling is that so much time was devoted to the back-story that when the fun finally got started it was time to wrap things up. Rob Zombie’s Halloween lacked the suspense of the original, the suspense is what separates the turds from the classics. You’ll sit through an hour of cheesy dialog just to see the edge of your seat three minute thrill ride that gets you every time. Instead, RZ gave us wham bam slash you mam.

I guess the verdict is that it was a good movie with a good story that did better than most remakes at breathing new life into an old film. So, all the kids out there who’ve been crying that Zombie would forever tarnish the Halloween franchise can sit down and shut the hell up.