Since the plot is remarkably the same, I’m just going to copy-paste my original plot analysis from the original film:

“Halloween is about Michael Myers, a man that many years ago, murdered his own sister as a child. Locked away for years, he finally escapes and wreaks havoc on a random set of teenage friends, but not before stalking them first.” – Review of Halloween (1978)

Oh sorry, that’s not exactly accurate – this time, his victims aren’t as random as the original movie. This time, you more or less discover as the film moves along what you discover in the 1981 sequel – that (spoiler alert), [spoiler] Laurie is Michael’s younger sister. So his murderous rage is all about killing his family [/spoiler] – that much you know about in the original series, but it’s more than that now, because you now understand on a deeper level how truly horrible his childhood was before he became the monster. In the original film, Loomis briefly explains how he intimately knows the extent of Michael’s evil ways – in this film, we see it. We see his abusive and repulsive family, his budding interest in death beginning with animals, his fascination with masks and self-loathing, and his untamable hatred towards the mental hospital but surprising respect towards Dr. Loomis. We see all of this because it takes its sweet time introducing us to his history that we needed the first time around!

More than that, it introduces us to more than just an idea that this man is evil, but also a physical representation of one heck of an intimidating beast of a man. Seriously, this guy is huge. He’s a hulk. The original film had a typical guy in a mask. Why was he wearing a mask? Because it’s Halloween, I guess…this movie explains everything. It took away all of my complaints about the first movie and then some. The best way I could describe this film is as if they took the script for the original movie, got a better director, got a better writer to rewrite certain scenes and introduce integral elements, got better actors, invested in better equipment and technology, and hired a different director of photography – because it actually shows us what we needed to see that the first film left out. In my honest opinion, this movie improved on just about every level.

However, where it didn’t improve – was partially in casting. I do believe this is the best guy to ever play Michael. It made the most sense, but the rest of the cast was either just fine, or a bad choice. Now, I like Malcom McDowell as much as the next guy, I think he’s a wonderful actor, but Dr. Loomis wasn’t the right choice for him. Loomis needs to be Michael’s opposite, someone caring and understanding but ultimately hurt when he can’t get through to Michael’s inner child. Donald Pleasence did a pretty good job in the first film, but McDowell looks and sounds too evil to play this type of role. It almost went to John Hurt, which would have been perfectly fine. I would have also accepted someone like Liam Neeson in that type of role. Not McDowell. The rest of the cast did a fine job at acting, but not so much at creating something memorable…and the original did when it came to Jamie Lee Curtis.

In my honest opinion Halloween was better than the original – but only on a technical level. It didn’t change anything about the series that was already good to begin with. It just improved on the parts that the original lacked. If you watched the rest of the classic series, you’ll notice that they’re always struggling to explain plot holes in order to make another movie – this movie mostly got that out of the way from the beginning as to not run around aimlessly trying to find direction. As far as horror goes, it’s a solid slasher film. The series has never really been a favorite of mine, but I definitely respect the film went with this remake. Check it out!

Oh boy, another movie I'm in the minority opinion of... or am I? I actually don't know this time, I think this movie has like a cult following or something. Which says a lot about this movie more than other horror remakes that are brought up. I've seen other people on here give excellent reviews explaining why this movie works more than what the common viewer gives it credit for, but I'll just share a couple random thoughts of mine.

This movie does not in any way tarnish the original movie or "ruin" what John Carpenter's movie created. I personally believe Rob Zombie took a run-of-the-mill slasher film, upped it a few notches, and tried to explore characters much further. I give Carpenter all the credit in the world for all he did for the horror genre; his music and movies completely revolutionized the medium, for better or worse. But what Zombie was able to bring was a little more humanity to the picture, yes, I'm actually saying that. The scene at the hospital where Michael Myers screams in his mother's face, like emotionally gutted me. Imagine your a mother, and you see this child, your son, that you've raised all your life to love and be a good kid, just murder someone right in front of you and scream in your face when you try to console them. Imagine the guilt and failure that goes on in her head. That whole sequence with the sirens going off and the slow-motion happening is one of the most brilliant scenes in a horror movie I've seen. Captivating and mesmerizing. Great work all around.

Zombie knew just all the right elements to make this unique, yet also play perfect homages to the original classic. I can understand this over-the-top white-trash style not working for some people, I agree with that, but it's hard to argue the amount of brilliance seen in this. It's one of the smartest horror remakes ever made. Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Lumis? Come on, that not perfect casting? I might post some more thoughts later after I watch the four hour documentary on this Blu-ray, but I wanted to get things out. I wasn't sure how I'd dig this, but I'm really leaning towards loving it. Rob Zombie did a commendable job paying tribute while expanding the universe. In fact, I believe Zombie enhanced the original and the character.

Well it has Malcolm McDowell, and he delivers in the master of accents kind of way.

But....1 star for being a reboot, out of principal, especially a reboot of a slasher film that, well, I always thought the deal with those was to keep adding and adding until you have to look up the Roman Numerals in Encyclopedias to make sure you're numbering them right.

"Halloween MCMLXXVIII: This Time it's Easter," You know, that sort of thing.

But we will add one for Malcolm McDowell just because, yeah, he delivers.

So two stars: ** And then it seems like Zombies idea was to show a lot of nudity and especially a lot of naked women getting killed by a horrible male monster after committing the sin of fornication.

So three stars: *** And that is because he MIGHT--with a really big stretch on that--have been trying to do a satire thing of the slasher genre with all the naked murdered women.

But...he could have also been going for mainstream snuff porn.

I'm honestly not sure which way to go on this one...so We are back to two stars: ** Just because it really might not have been an attempt at satire and I sort of want to be sure.

And we can't add any more because well...

It was already made and when it came around in 1978 it was moody and atmospheric and, well, it really looked a lot like Halloween, only a nightmare version of it.

Zombie's remake feels more like a cheap version of Halloween and really, the outdoor shots that are supposed to give you the seasonal feel remind me more of Thanksgiving pick-up football games. They look and feel less like a nightmare version of Halloween than Season of the Witch's small Southern Town atmosphere.

And the horror parts, really, ANY slasher movie and, by the way, since when was Halloween about T&A? I thought Friday the 13th owned that stereotype and we went to Halloween for, you know, atmosphere and scares...at least in the first 2 films.

So really, I guess my point is that it has Malcolm McDowell and that is slightly redeeming. He's always fun to watch...even in his bad movies...like this one.

I'm unmoved by this 'Halloween' remake.

I guess that is of little surprise as I'm not someone who overly enjoys the 1978 original, I do like it but it is nought special to me personally. All in all, based on reading back my review of that aforementioned flick and based on my thoughts whilst watching, this is a weaker film in every way.

The only true positive I have is the Michael Myers theme, which is just a carry-over from the 1970s release - as ace as it is to hear it again, I would've preferred if they went without it... it kinda feels like they forced themselves to find spots to use it for the sake of using it. This production missed a Jamie Lee Curtis-esque performance, no-one stands out in that regard - Scout Taylor-Compton tries, but to no avail.

I never found Michael Myers himself all that scary or uncomforting in the original and that is again the case here, even to a further degree in all honesty. Myers just feels so brute-force all the time that there is no intrigue or creepiness about him here in my opinion. Malcolm McDowell didn't do anything for me as Loomis either, though it's cool to see Brad Dourif appear.

The opening 50 minutes and the closing 50 minutes felt like a bit of an abrupt switch too, admittedly I might have noticed something that doesn't exist but that's how it felt. It seemed early on like a noticeably different portrayal of 'Halloween', then the latter part felt more like a more standard, by the numbers remake.

If not for the name, this would be a very forgettable movie... in my eyes, anyway.

I don't have a problem with remakes per se. Even though I am not a big fan of the original "Halloween" film directed by John Carpenter, I do acknowledge it as a film that started a horror slasher trend and served as an inspiration for many of the films that came after it. Since I am not crazy about the 1978 film, I thought I would be able to enjoy this remake without being too influenced by my love for the original film. After seeing this remake, I started to appreciate the original version a little bit more, since Rob Zombie turned the story and its characters into a vulgar mess.

The original film mostly focuses on the life of Laurie Strode going on about her business and interacting with her friends for the most part, while we see the mysterious Michael Myers stalking her, appearing from out of nowhere, and we never really get to know why (without taking the sequels into account). In this remake, Rob Zombie attempts to explore little Michael Myers' psychology, giving our villain a soul and establishing the roots of his evilness, taking away all the mystery and darkness surrounding the character. The results are not good by any means and the only thing it proves, is that sometimes, mystery is scarier and more disturbing than having everything explained, especially if the explanation is as predictable as "he was raised in a bad environment". The audience doesn't want to be spoon fed and I think it's clear that one of the main reasons why the original villain was scary, it's because Michael Myers remained as an enigmatic character from the beginning until the end. In the original film, Myers appears to come from a seemingly normal family, but for some reason, he turns out a merciless killer anyway. While the original "Halloween" film is not my favorite, as I established before, I do give the film credit for giving us a villain that no one could ever sympathize with. This film basically tries to portrait Michael as a poor little thing who was poorly raised and eliminates any possibility of seeing him as a genuinely dark and fear-provoking character. This overexposure of Michael's early years lasts about 40 minutes, which gets tedious, it makes the villain more pitiful than frightening and in the end, they don't really manage to establish a point about his insanity all that well either.

Once again, Rob Zombie casts his wife, Sheri Moon Zombie, who was great in 'House of 1000', playing a Insane, trashy girl… but why did she have to play almost the exact same character here? I don't know what's the deal with Rob Zombie having the need to show us his wife stripping and being sexy all the time, maybe it's some kind of fetish they have and it's all good... but 'Halloween' was not the right choice to show Sherri Moon dancing and showing her body again. Another thing that Rob Zombie seems to borrow from his film "House of 1000 Corpses" is the fact that the characters are swearing most of the times and while I have nothing against foul language whatsoever, but I think it sounds repetitive and silly when we hear the f-word every 5 seconds. The amount of stupid lines that could be easily compared to some of the crappiest PG-rated films that came out throughout the last years.

I'm really disappointed. I didn't think I was going to hate it so much, but I do and it's a shame because I really wanted to like this film. Better luck next time, I guess. My noble advice for all fans of the original 'Halloween' movie is: Don't watch this remake if you're sensitive, because this hurts a lot. I know I felt cheated, even if I'm not a fan of Carpenter's version either.