Halloween (2007)

Good movie but grossly overrated

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

We all know and agree that John Carpenter's original Halloween film is a masterpiece in its own right, one that is almost impossible to top. With that out of the way, let's look at this competent reboot. Zombie decided to begin the story with an overlong display of Myers' rough upbringing, which I suppose gives it that different edge to any of the previous Halloween films. For the most part during these sequences, the acting could be better and the overall atmosphere should have been creepier. We were supposed to be looking at a child with the devil's eyes, but all we saw was a misunderstood little psychopath that wasn't all that intimidating. I commend Zombie for attempting to do the backstory justice, but it was all in vain. Once we get past the small glimpses of originality in the script, we then move onto the slasher portion of the film which takes up roughly the last hour. Zombie surprised me with the crafty way he recaptured the spirit of the original Halloween. The acting from Laurie and the two children was thoroughly convincing, and for brief moments the atmosphere was thrilling. It was a worthy recreation in my view. At two hours long, this movie should have felt like a slog to get through, but it was engrossing enough to keep me interested until the end. That's more than I can say for a couple of other Halloween films produced over the years. While some of the character depictions (particularly Laurie's) were horrendous, I was pleasantly surprised at how competent the movie was. My special shout-out goes to Malcolm McDowell for doing justice to Donald Pleasance's immortal portray of Samuel Loomis.Finally, I would rate this film somewhere around a 6 or 6.5/10, but I feel the overall rating on IMDB is too low, so I've bumped it up to a 7*.

1ST and foremost Rob Zombie is a hack---compleatly ruined my favorite movie of all time--The start of the film already sets the tone for the train wreck your in for--Wow Michael Myers is white trash--NO!!--in the original he looked like he was from a good house hold not the trailor park--Vulgar -torture porn--and the second part of the movie is just a cheap rushed Zombied out version of the original--and why is Myers this towering giant like Jason he was an average sized dude in the original--Terrible movie and director--save your time and just watch the classic you will be glad you did and PLEASE for the love of all thats good DO NOT watch the sequel it is worse than this one.

Honestly I thought I was going to like it but it became mediocre. The background story could of been cut out because we already have a well explained background story. Why is the theme white trash? IT DOESN'T FIT IN A HALLOWEEN MOVIE, IT FITS IN A TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE MOVIE! Damn it Rob Zombie! I could direct this film better. Anyways poor story, bad characters, weak plot, and bad script. I'm done.

HALLOWEEN 2007 Dir.: Rob Zombie Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Brad Dourif, Scout Taylor-Compton 10*s out of 10 Halloween (2007) is, to date, Zombie's best film .. he has since had the wind taken from his sails; his recent cinematic outings have been the types of failures that people and critics alike always accused him of making - although, it seems obvious to me that he's only since fallen apart since this film ....... it's a masterpiece. I said it .. and it's true.. especially in context of how awful the genre, generally, can be. The Carpenter film is mysterious, yes, atmospheric as hell, yes .. but overrated .... now, please don't judge me - I consider myself a major lover of films , aka a true cinephile, and I am not a teenager or a Rob Zombie fanboy .. but this film here, albeit idiosyncratic and purposefully expository, is genius, and a superior film to the original film , whose influence far exceeds its actual greatness; the 1978 film's influence and reputation - whether deserved or not - made up the minds of the remake's audience even before they saw it ... laypeople and critics alike sat down and expected Mr. Zombie to try and emulate Mr. Carpenter ,, but he did not .. he instead made a detailed, hyper-realistic, epic-like, postmodern insta-classic, at least within the genre .. and I always grade in context .... the Zombie remake has its own heart and its own character, and with the brutal, unwieldy, idiosyncratic style that Rob Zombie used to subject audiences to . I've heard a lot of people complain about the backstory here .. they seem to say that too much motivation is given for Michael's 'evil'; they say Zombie humanises him too much with the child abuse, poverty, socio-politics, etc ..... well, all that has been exaggerated by fans of the original and its larger (technically poor) franchise... well, this Michael Myers just isn't quite as existential, lol .. but not much motivation AT ALL is provided by Zombie beyond general child abuse.. and all this remake really suggests is that Michael is a 'perfect storm' of various colliding factors; i.e. nature AND nurture .. Zombie, however, does NOT systematically break down why Michael becomes a killer .. this aspect of the remake I think just serves as the biggest symbol of the two film's differences, and, therefore, laypeople go on and on about it ....... the truth is: it's obvious from the first viewing that not at any time did Zombie want to emulate, or replicate, or rework the original film .. he just took 'Michael Myers' as a big, monstrous, horrifying myth, dissected it/him, then reassembled it/him in a brutal, jagged, and even surreal film - one which is just not meant to be compared to the original film any more than it has to be ... basically, I believe that what the laypeople have seen as unnecessary, detrimental backstory/motivation is just Zombie's hyper-realisitc, ultra-violent 'image' (so to speak) of what Carpenter relays in the original when little, angelic, bloodless Michael snaps and kills his sister -- it's essentially just Zombie's TRANSLATION of that .. not much more .... everything about Michael snapping - at its essence - is as 'out of the blue' as when Michael snaps in the 1978 original. 10*s out of 10