Sixteen years ago, a ten year old boy called Michael Myers brutally kills his step father, his elder sister and her boyfriend. Sixteen years later, he escapes from the mental institution and makes his way back to his hometown intent on a murderous rampage pursued by Dr Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) who is Michael’s doctor and the only one who knows Michael’s true evil. Elsewhere a shy teenager by the name of Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton) is babysitting on the night Michael comes home… is it pure coincidence that she and her friends are being stalked by him?
I have to confess I’m quite a big fan of recent spate of classic horror remakes and eagerly awaited the release of this movie, mainly because the previous 5 entries was sub-standard in comparison to the original and parts 2 and 3 and the fact that Rob Zombie was behind this remake/reboot, I knew that it was would be a graphic and hard-hitting which I was ok with considering the subject matter was a homocidal liking machine.
In this version, we get to see around 45 minutes of Michael Meyers backstory giving the the viewer a real insight into how Michael came to be the way he was, the dysfunctional family including Zombie’s real life wife playing Michael’s mother and his simply hideous, abusive stepdad played brilliantly William Forsythe. The movie then jumps to the present day and you’d be forgiven for thinking that Zombie was reverting to the original Carpenter movie – however, when you think you know what’s coming, Zombie steers th viewer into new territory and it veers off on its own course, which in any kind of remake/reboot is a must.
The major difference is this version’s Dr. Loomis, here he is a more layered character and doesn’t just spend the entire movie trying to convince Haddonfield’s finest that this maniac is in fact THE Michael Myers from all those years ago. In fact, Zombie has this Loomis giving up on Michael at one point to attempt to profit from his experiences into a series of books and public speaking engagements.
Zombie does a great job of bringing a variety of up-to-date touches to this movie, changing it to ensure it is still worthwhile, but not so much that isn’t instantly recognisable as a Halloween movie. It 100% delivers the menace and pure evil of the orignal Michael Meyers character and to some degree ramps up the magnitude of the deaths, without over-doing the gore and ultimately, for me, it ticks all of the boxes.
This could never replace the orignal and I don’t think that is Zombie’s intetntion. What this movie does is make a proper case for how a remake/reboot, if done properly, could actually be a good idea.