It's been a rough few years being a long-time horror fan. If we're not being pummelled by various remakes and re-duxes of beloved films, we're victimized by either watered-down Hollywood efforts or overly violent fare that seems to think all genre fans are only in it for the blood.

That's why, when it was announced that John Carpenter's seminal classic Halloween was going to be redone at the hands of musician-turned-filmmaker Rob Zombie you could hear a collective groan amongst the older horror crowd. Sure, Zombie might have been able to get a few plaudits out of me with House Of 1000 Corpses and its sequel The Devil's Rejects, but this guy isn't the second coming of horror like some would like you to believe. And after sitting through his "re-imagining" of what is essentially the perfect scare flick, I can safely assure you that this does nothing to sway me in that direction.

The main problem with Zombie's version of Halloween is that he wants to do too much. The 1978 original worked so well because it was simple. It set out on a straightforward mission (to scare the piss out of you) and it delivered. Plus, John Carpenter was smart enough to know that the best horror is the kind that plays on your mind. Show less, see more. It's something Tobe Hooper also brilliantly pulled off with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Instead, Zombie decides to try too hard to flesh-out a back-story for iconic masked killer Michael Myers and have a whole slew of bloody mayhem. I will say this though: at least it's not the Black Christmas re-do.

Zombie visits white trash Heaven from the get go here and continues his odd obsession with the topic as we're shown the Myers household and introduced to its inhabitants. There's the stripper mom (Sheri Moon Zombie), the whorish sister, a foul-mouthed boyfriend, and the animal abusing ten-year-old Michael (Daeg Faerch). Now I know that Zombie wants to paint a grim home life for Michael to try and make his later actions more reasonable and realistic, but when he's subscribing to the dialogue writing school of "let's say the word f*ck every second word and have numerous crude sexual references" within the first five minutes it's pretty rough going. I am not a prude, I do swear in my normal everyday talk, but there is such a thing as overkill and it's finely on display here.

The next forty minutes or so leading up to Michael's slaughter of most of his family shows him as a lonely boy and lets Zombie use the tired clichés of abuse and revenge on the local bully. It's a tired and overdone attempt at establishing the Myers character and Zombie even brings in Doctor Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) beforehand which only helps ruin the relationship between the characters that Carpenter established so well.

We fast forward to fifteen years later, Michael has become a silent, brooding, mask wearing long-time resident at Smith's Grove asylum. That's all about to change, though, when a few of the guards decide (in the movie's most pointless scene) to rape a female patient in his cell. This leads to a bloody escape as Michael heads home to track down his now grown sister, Laurie (Scout Taylor-Compton) who's oblivious to her past and just wants to have a quiet Halloween night of babysitting.

The rest of the story is pretty standard as Michael returns, starts killing off Laurie's friends (including Danielle Harris who co-starred in the fourth and fifth Halloween sequels), and eventually comes for her while Loomis tries to hunt him down and stop him. In fact, the second half treads much closer to the framework set by Carpenter in the original and it gives the movie a more muscular heft before it all falls apart in a finale that goes in too extreme a direction to work (the alternate ending included on the DVD is better).

To say I had mixed feelings throughout this would be an understatement. My anger of the first half gave way to Zombie's breakneck pace in the second only for irritation to return in the last fifteen minutes. I liked some things about Halloween, such as some stylish and kinetic shots, plus I dug all the cameos by B-movie actors, but I also couldn't shake the feeling that Zombie wanted so badly to make this movie "old school" but with the excess of modern horror. Gone is the subtlety of Carpenter's original and that's why that movie will always be considered a benchmark and outright classic and this overlong re-dux will probably be just a footnote.

Review based on unrated version. (Chris Hartley, 12/17/07)

Directed By: Rob Zombie.
Written By: Rob Zombie.

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Sheri Moon Zombie, Tyler Mane, Scout Taylor-Compton.

Picture Ratio: 2.35:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: The picture here looks a bit grainy, but seeing as Zombie's past movies also did, I'm going to assume it was on purpose. Otherwise the transfer here looks perfectly fine with no noticeable issues, solid colour, and good clarity.

Extras: While I didn't care for the movie too much at least this 2-disc special edition manages to offer up a good batch of special features. It's something Zombie has done well on his past movies and this one is no exception (though it can't come close to matching The Devil's Rejects feature length documentary).

Disc one's only feature is a talkative commentary from Zombie that goes over how the project came to be, what he intended to do, and various other production notes. The main thing that comes through on all of his commentaries is that he does indeed love the genre. There's glimpses of this in his films, but it's more obvious here.

Disc two contains all the rest of the goodies as it opens up with seventeen deleted scenes with optional commentary. It's easy to see why a lot of them were cut as they attempt to offer-up some comic relief which really doesn't belong in a movie that's trying to be so grisly. Next up is the aforementioned alternate ending with optional commentary as well and, like I said, it would've been a much tidier finale (and cut out at least ten minutes of runtime). There's a humourous blooper reel, a featurette entitled "The Many Masks of Michael Myers" which covers the killer's look, a three part "Re-imagining Halloween" featurette which nicely covers the film, production design, and effects; a featurette called "Meet the Cast" which talks about Zombie's casting decisions, and Taylor-Compton's screen test.

That's right, this is a pretty packed edition. If you're a fan of the movie, you'll love it. If you've just happened to rent it, it's still worth checking out the ending and some of the other extras.