Halloween

HALLOWEEN (2007) - Sept. 5, 2007
The latest in a long line of unnecessary/inferior horror remakes, this definitely wasn't as bad as something like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it certainly wasn't good, either. One of the film's main problems is the whole first chunk of the movie, with Michael Myers as a child. All that stuff works fairly well on its own (though it does feel a bit overlong once Myers gets to the mental hospital), but as part of a Halloween movie it is unnecessary, and worse, makes Myers a far less compelling villain (part of what made him so creepy in the original was that he had no motivation to do what he did, he was just evil -- pure evil). Then there's the rest of the film, with Myers as an adult. The problem here is that there aren't really any compelling characters, and the film essentially goes from one scene of Myers killing teens to the next (Myers kills a ridiculous amount of people -- this seems like an odd complaint for a slasher film, but the movie doesn't really create much suspense or make us care about any of these people, because it's too busy killing them off every five minutes). I didn't hate this movie; I was never all-out bored, and I thought Rob Zombie's direction was pretty good (aside from his tendancy to get a bit too jittery during action scenes). It could have been worse, basically. But it could have been a lot better. **