Writer's Note: As with my take on the remake of The Omen, my original takes on both this film and the subsequent remake (as well as The Devil's Rejects) are amongst those past newspaper reviews of mine that I don't have a back-up for, sad to say.
So, no longer having access to the archives of UAB's Kaleidoscope, those three reviews are amongst the ones I won't ever be able to recover, barring someone at that college taking it upon themselves to re-post past issues of the newspaper online, which seems unlikely, unfortunately.
I suppose I could go to the University library and they would likely have copies of the physical issues of the paper there, or perhaps even have them on microfiche or the like, but even if they did, I'd have to make copies of everything I needed, which costs money, and then manually re-type everything on my computer once I did that, and that just seems like a total chore, so it's unlikely it's ever going to happen.
Be that as it may, being as how I'm reviewing a lot of these movies for the first time, it's actually apropos that I would do a new take on Rob Zombie's Halloween movies for my current endeavor- reviewing the entire Halloween franchise. After all, my feelings about the movie have changed over the years, and though I don't quite recall exactly what I wrote the first time around, I seem to remember giving the first film a solid enough review. How do I feel about it now? Read on...
So, no longer having access to the archives of UAB's Kaleidoscope, those three reviews are amongst the ones I won't ever be able to recover, barring someone at that college taking it upon themselves to re-post past issues of the newspaper online, which seems unlikely, unfortunately.
I suppose I could go to the University library and they would likely have copies of the physical issues of the paper there, or perhaps even have them on microfiche or the like, but even if they did, I'd have to make copies of everything I needed, which costs money, and then manually re-type everything on my computer once I did that, and that just seems like a total chore, so it's unlikely it's ever going to happen.
Be that as it may, being as how I'm reviewing a lot of these movies for the first time, it's actually apropos that I would do a new take on Rob Zombie's Halloween movies for my current endeavor- reviewing the entire Halloween franchise. After all, my feelings about the movie have changed over the years, and though I don't quite recall exactly what I wrote the first time around, I seem to remember giving the first film a solid enough review. How do I feel about it now? Read on...
In order to get a handle on my current take on Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's classic Halloween, I think it's important to put things in their proper context. At the time that Rob Zombie hit the horror movie scene in 2005 with his debut feature, House of 1000 Corpses, horror was clearly in a down period.
The second Golden Age of slashers that began with Wes Craven's Scream had long since run itself into the ground, and some horror fans had about had their fill of watered-down PG-13, teen-friendly horror, which at the time was mostly haunted house/ghost-driven flicks, many of which were remakes of far superior Asian films (i.e. The Ring and The Grudge series).
Things slowly-but-surely began to change in the early 2000's with the arrival of a new guard of horror that included up-and-coming directors like Japanese madman Takashi Miike (Audition, Ichi the Killer), James Wong (the Final Destination series, the Black Christmas remake- he would later go onto to co-executive produce and write/direct FX's American Horror Story), Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, the first two Hostel movies), James Wan (the Saw movies- somewhat ironically, he would go onto re-invent the ghost story for a new generation with the Insidious and Conjuring films), and, of course, Rob Zombie.
I was a huge fan of the band White Zombie as a kid/teenager and saw them in concert several times. One thing I loved about Rob was his enormous affection for horror films. His lyrics, CD artwork, music videos and concert film back-drops were all peppered with references to the movies he loved, most of which was old-school horror from the beginning of film until around the 70's.
Rob sampled these films liberally in White Zombie's songs, going so far as to use dialogue from the films or even from the trailers or movie posters as lyrics. If you were a horror fan in the late 80's through the mid-90's, chances were you loved White Zombie, too. To quote a horror classic, he was "one of us, one of us."
Rob went solo in the late 90's, dissolving White Zombie, but continuing to explore the same sound the band had ended up with towards the end of their career, which is to say metal infused with a sort of techno sensibility, a la the industrial rock movement. (Think later-era Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, for those unfamiliar with the sub-genre.)
Moving into film was a natural progression, as Rob had directed many music videos for White Zombie and his solo material. He carried that same type of vision into his debut feature, House of 1000 Corpses, which hit the horror movie scene like a welcome breath of fetid air in the mid-2000's. Almost like a live-action horror cartoon fever dream, House was over-the-top, borderline insane and it definitely got people's attention, when it was finally released after a lengthy battle with the ratings board.
After some criticized the film for feeling like a full-length version of one of his music videos- as if that were a bad thing- Zombie took a decidedly different tack for his follow-up, the sequel The Devil's Rejects, which stripped things down considerably, stylistically, going for a much-grittier, down-and-dirty look and feel. Some fans were a bit taken aback by this new approach, myself included, but in time the film really grew on me and it remains one of my favorite films of his.
That said, when it was announced that Zombie would be remaking my all-time favorite horror film, Halloween, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. After all, anyone who have followed his career knew that Rob was a die-hard traditionalist when it came to horror, and had even gone so far as to derisively dismiss slasher movies as "dead teenager" flicks that signaled the end of classic horror as he knew and loved it. Given that, why would he take on what many consider the much-reviled sub-genre's absolute masterpiece?
According to Rob, Halloween was one of the few slasher movies he actually held in high regard. After all, it was among the first true modern slasher films- even as a fan of the sub-genre, I'm the first to admit most of what followed paled in comparison. Apparently, Rob felt the same way, even though he was way more dismissive of slasher movies on the whole than I am. Be that as it may, it helped me get over some of the trepidation I felt about someone who wasn't normally a fan of such films taking on one of the best slasher films ever.
Advance word continued to be positive. Rob said in interviews that he'd refused to take on the project before getting the blessing of creator (*) John Carpenter, which was another good sign. Carpenter simply told him to "make it his own," which is advice Zombie certainly took to heart. The two would later come to loggerheads about the end result, but that’s another story.
(*Sidebar: Fans of the series already know how crucial the input of financier Moustapha Akkad (to whom Zombie's remake was dedicated), producer Irwin Yablans and co-writer/co-producer Debra Hill was to the original, so credit where credit's due there, but obviously, the vision of the original film was primarily Carpenter's, who had full creative control over the project, even if the initial idea wasn't his and Hill's contributions were essential to the film's success.)
However, there were other indications which gave some fans of the original cause for concern. Some were unfounded- one rumor had it that Zombie wouldn't be using the iconic theme music in any way, "shape" (😉) or form, which turned out to be completely untrue; though, like most of the films that followed the original, it was certainly tweaked for Zombie's new vision of the film.
One rumor that turned out to be true was that Zombie planned to shed some light on killer Michael Myers' childhood, giving him a much more elaborate back-story that would help to "explain" how he went from a relatively innocent kid to a psychotic murderer.
This material would compromise the first half of the film, while the second half would cover more familiar ground, consisting of more or less a more straight-forward remake- or a "re-imagining," as Zombie put it- of the bulk of the original film that took place after the opening bit with Michael killing his sister and his subsequent placement in a psychiatric hospital, under the care of Dr. Loomis. In other words, everything that took place in then-current-day 1978.
In addition, Zombie's film ostensibly takes place in 1978 for the first half or so, then flashes forward some seventeen years to approximately 1995 for the second half. I say "ostensibly" because it's never explicitly stated in the film that it's either 1978 or 1995, but the trappings suggest that it's around that time and the original script does say the film opens up in 1978, so I'm not just guessing here.
Seeing as this is a remake- excuse me, "re-imagining"- then, given that the original mostly takes place in 1978, this makes perfect sense, as it allows Zombie's version to pay homage to the original film's primary time period, as well as his most beloved era of horror.
It also allows Zombie to indulge himself in some time period-appropriate music, featuring musical artists that have served as inspirations to him, such as Blue Öyster Cult (the iconic "(Don't Fear) The Reaper," which was featured in the original film), Kiss, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, The Misfits, Nazareth, Rush, Bachman-Turner Overdrive and, um, Peter Frampton (!).
(Sidebar- I have this image in my head of Zombie sitting down with the person in charge of obtaining the music rights with a checklist. Supervisor: "BOC, but of course. Kiss, Alice, etc. Sounds good. Wait. Frampton? What the what?" Zombie replies, in his best Butthead impersonation: "Uh, sometimes you gotta have music that sucks, you know, um... for the chicks." Music supervisor, deadpan: "Whatever you say, Rob.")
Fast-forward to the movie's premiere and I'm both excited and uncertain. Even after seeing it, TBH. In the end, I think I gave the film a generally positive review, but having seen it a few times since, I think it's time for an overall reassessment. I thought about dividing things into the good, the bad and the ugly, but I think I'll just hop around a bit instead.
First and foremost, I do think Zombie absolutely made the film his own. This is undeniably, from start to finish, a Rob Zombie film through and through, and if you like his work on the whole, you probably like this, too. It's not Carpenter's Halloween, nor is it really trying to be. I certainly won't argue or belabor that point. After all, the man himself told Zombie to "make it his own," and he certainly has done that.
Furthermore, I’m not one of these caterwauling Millennials always going on and on about how something or the other has “ruined my childhood.” The lady Ghostbusters didn’t bother me, even if I wished the end result had been a little better. After all, the original Ghostbusters is still present and accounted for, and I can watch it whenever I want. Ditto the original Halloween.
There are also some pretty good ideas here throughout, though not all of them are executed as well as they could be, admittedly. On the good side, I dug the bit where, after Michael kills the nurse, the sound goes out except for a siren, as everyone freaks out and Michael's mom screams and so on and then all the madness ends in a freeze frame. It's a very cool, very 70's sequence and it worked for me.
I also liked the scene where Michael kills one of the bullies that was tormenting him in the woods, and the camera-work pans upward, scanning the trees and the skies, as if to mimic the blissed-out fugue state he goes into when killing a human being for the first time. It's a neat idea, and I wished there was a little more of that sort of thing. We do get those weird "vibrations" of the camera later on, as if to infer the increased brutality of Michael's kills as an adult, but that was more strange than effective and kind of distracting.
The scene where Michael is arrested by the cops and they all stand around, frozen in mid-motion is almost cool, but I wish Zombie had had the courage of his convictions and let the scene play out a little more so that it worked that much better. Though the technique isn’t unprecedented- for instance it was used in a few 80’s music videos, like David Lee Roth’s “California Girls” and The Romantics’ “Talking in Your Sleep”- it would later be perfected elsewhere, in the likes of FX's Legion and the X-Men films.
He’s obviously trying to pay homage to the final shot of the famed opening sequence, but it just doesn’t quite work as well as it could have. I do like the way Zombie pays tribute to the first two films in the series via certain call-backs. For instance, there's the bit where Michael kills the poor guard, in part drowning him in a way that is obviously intended to invoke a similar scene in the original Halloween II.
From that same film, Zombie smartly ret-cons the whole "Laurie is Michael's long-lost sister" thing- which Carpenter himself has always admitted was the result of drunkenly being unable to come up with anything else that could make what amounted to somewhat of a retread of the first film into something slightly more interesting. Here, Laurie is part of Michael's family from the jump, so it makes way more sense and feels like far less of a cheat than it did in the original film.
There's also the scene where Laurie hides in the walls of the Myers' house, which brings to mind Laurie hiding in the closet in the original, as does the bit in the basement with Lynda posed in front of the gravestone, a la Annie in the original. Making the "Rabbit in Red" a strip club Michael's mother works at is also inspired. (In the original, it was seen on a matchbook that the nurse has, as she and Loomis go to fetch Michael for his transfer to another facility.)
But Zombie kind of botches the best idea he has to this end- making the Bob "ghost" actually Bob before Michael attacks and kills him, later adopting the costume as his own- by plowing through it quickly and clumsily with such speed that it barely registers how cool it is before it's over. Given that the same character has a different death in the deleted scenes, I’m assuming it was a re-shoot done on the fly, hence the rushed quality.
Also, as cool as it is for Zombie to have left much of Dr. Loomis' memorably verbose dialogue intact, it also feels a bit lazy at times, which is precisely why I think he dialed it back in the final cut. (There's even more of it in the deleted scenes.) Which is why it's such an odd violation- and worse, ruins what could have been an effective bit- when he botches the famous "Was that the Boogeyman?"/ "As a matter of fact, it was" exchange of dialogue by slightly changing it. (Or, to be fair, perhaps actor Malcolm McDowell did and it somehow got by Zombie...and everyone else, apparently.)
Whatever the case, hardcore fans were no doubt so distracted by this that the subsequent Michael attack, which would have legitimately been a solid jump scare under normal circumstances, is completely screwed up. Instead of jumping, I was like: "Wait- that's not the line" and then it was too late. Oh well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose. I imagine it probably did work with those less familiar with the original, though.
Indeed, one of the key lines of defense I always hear about the film is that it "explains things better" than the original. This is actually one of the bigger problems I have with the film in the first place. Maybe it's a generational thing- although Zombie himself is considerably older than I am- but I don't get the weird desire that some people have to have everything spoon-fed to them in excruciating detail.
It reminds me of a movie Zombie undoubtedly hated, Scream. As Billy proclaims at the end: "It's a lot more scarier when there's no motive." (Granted, he goes on to provide a motive, anyway, but point taken.) To me, it really is scarier for a killer to just show up and start killing people than it is to get some long, elaborate back-story as to the "why" he (or the occasional she) does what (s)he does. It's what made the original film so scary to me as a kid: The Boogeyman exists, and he just does what he does. He doesn't need a freaking REASON.
To that end, the first section of the movie plays as if Zombie sat down with a well-worn copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders- aka the DSM- and went down a check-list of common traits of a psychopath and just crossed them off, one by one. Abusive home life? Check. Bullied as a child? Check. Tortured and killed small animals? Check. Quiet, sullen and kept to himself? Check. Prone to violence? Check. And so on. And on. And on.
That said, I won't deny that actor Daeg Faerch gives a pretty solid performance as the young Michael. Most kid actors inherently suck, but he manages the neat trick of going from convincingly innocent and even sort of cherubic to a blank, expressionless face void of any sort of discernible personality.
As such, this makes the film's conceit of Michael's obsession with masks work perfectly- he thinks of himself as ugly, so he hides behind masks to shield his horrific visage from the world. Ironically, the vast majority of the masks he creates are far more outwardly scary than his real face, at least as a child. That, of course, makes his favorite mask the perfect representation of how he really feels about himself.
It's also worth noting that, of all the films since the original, this is the one that comes the closest to getting the mask right. You'd think it wouldn't be so hard, but if you think that, you obviously haven't seen some of the sillier versions of it in the previous sequels. Obviously, I'm early in the process of re-watching everything, but I seem to recall one of them having blonde hair at one point, and another to have massive eye-holes- I think it was H2O.
But the one here is unequivocally great. Zombie obviously took the time to get it right, and hired somebody that genuinely cared, Wayne Toth, who nails it. He does a great job of making it just grungy and filthy enough when the film switches to "present day" to make it very effective, and yes, pretty scary, all things considered.
I remember hearing that, when Michael was unmasked in the original Halloween, audiences screamed, even though it was just some random guy (Tony Moran) that wasn't especially scary-looking or scarred or what have you. He just looked like a normal dude. Just the very thought of seeing what was under that mask was enough to scare people, and that's because the mask itself was so effective.
To this end, Zombie's Halloween absolutely gets the mask and the casting of the young Michael right. Faerch is both relatively normal-looking and yet, slightly off- I think it might have something to do with his being so blonde and chipmunk-cheeked. He's kind of got this Hitler Youth thing going, and what's scarier than a vile, racist white kid? Answer: one in a creepy mask, wielding a deadly weapon.
I also have to commend Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon for her quietly moving and even subtle performance. Against all odds, after mewling her way through her husband's first two films- albeit no doubt at his guidance, as Moon readily admits she had no designs to be an actress until he suggested it- she actually does a great job here as young Michael's somewhat clueless mother.
They say that parents of psychopaths are often the last to know about their kids' unruly behavior- hence the whole "but he was a quiet boy, kept to himself, never bothered anyone" defense. Moon really sells that approach, in that she really does seem convincingly stunned and horrified after finally seeing irrefutable evidence of who Michael is before her very eyes at the hospital when he kills that nurse, to the point of committing suicide even with a child at risk later on in the film.
I legitimately believe that this is a woman who, deep down, knew the truth about her son, but was in full denial of it, to the point of deluding herself, even after he killed his entire family, save herself. Only when she witnesses the aftermath of Michael killing that nurse does her own facade of denial evaporate and she can no longer keep lying to herself. Here it is, your son's real self laid bare- and it's too much for her to bear, so she takes her own life.
It's a pretty riveting performance, I must say, and worlds away from the histrionics of her Baby character. And mind you, I don't hate that character- but I also don't deny it's a bit of a cartoon, either, especially in House. Moon's acting here is far more multi-layered and nuanced, and it serves the movie well in the first half.
A decent turn to be found in the film's more problematic second half is that of a young Scout Taylor-Compton as the "new" Laurie. (She was also the only one of the film's "teenage" cast that was actually a teenager.) In my mind, she was more annoying than she turned out to be on the re-watch, but I think in retrospect, I might have confused her performance in the sequel with the one in this film.
Here, I'm happy to say, she's just fine and perfectly likable and relate-able, aside from a brief bit early on involving her character's parents and an unassuming bagel, which is pure Zombie and completely out of character. Fortunately, he course-corrects that almost immediately and leaves the more overtly sexual and vulgar stuff to her pals, Lynda and Annie. Thank God, because it's mostly downhill from there elsewhere, so we need that central character to root for as things get progressively harder to deal with.
One exception: Danny "Machete" Trejo gives an uncharacteristically quiet and subtle performance as one of Michael's guards in the sanitarium he's committed to after killing most of his family. You genuinely hate to see him go, and indeed, audiences weren't thrilled about it to such a degree that the producers tried to convince Zombie to drop the scene.
He refused, saying that it showed that Michael was so far gone at that point, it wouldn't do for him to show mercy or discern a "good" person from a "bad" one. (He also cut the film's original ending for similar reasons, as it showed Michael letting his sister go free when confronted by Dr. Loomis, which showed mercy in an even more overt way.) Point taken, but it's also one of the rare murders you don't almost actively root for because the characters are so reprehensible.
To that end, this leads me to one of the film's worst issues: the characters on the whole. As ever, Zombie is more sympathetic and engaged by the villains of the piece than the "good" guys- we almost expect it by this point. This means that the more choice dialogue- if you want to call it that- goes mostly to the vilest characters, who spout nasty, sub-Tarantino "witticisms" exhibiting racism, homophobia and just general douchebaggery with alarming consistency.
In other words, almost every character sounds the same, and the way they sound is NOT a good thing. Oh, I'm sure that some reading this will consider this yet more evidence of how "soft" the Millennial generation is, and how far we've fallen as a society that people can't take a joke anymore. But for the record, I have no problem with ribald humor- I love Sarah Silverman, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, and South Park and plenty more foul-mouthed comedy where that came from, as well as the aforementioned Tarantino.
But there is an artfulness to what they do, and it seems to escape Zombie's writing altogether. He hits the ground running at crass in the first five minutes with abortion "jokes" and a leering stepfather drooling over his stepdaughter, and it only gets worse from there.
Admittedly, this worked fairly well in his first two movies- who didn't get a hearty chuckle out of "tooti-fucking-fruity"? But in Halloween it all comes off as especially mean-spirited, and that's saying something when you're comparing it to the likes of Rejects and House. I mean, who among us thought it could actually get worse? The truth is, this just isn't a very fun movie, by any stretch of the imagination.
And okay, fine, it's not like it has to be, but still. The "jokes" often land with a thud, the characters are mostly the worst, and the whole thing makes you feel like you need the longest of showers afterwards. This is not remotely improved by the unrated "Director's Cut," which features a vile, senseless, pointless, needless rape that was so unnecessary that even Zombie allowed it to be excised from the theatrical cut after audiences balked. Why he chose to restore it for his own cut is hard to say, but it certainly doesn't help matters- and time has not been kind to the scene, given the current social climate.
Which leads me to another big problem with the film, the barely-concealed misogyny on display. Pretty much every female death involves some form of nudity, save maybe Moon's character's, and she kills herself! (Probably after she saw that rape scene.) Mind you, Zombie has her playing a stripper, so he does show her ass earlier, almost in a teasing way, as if to say: "That's all you get, boys, she's mine!"
Zombie shows no such restraint when it comes to the other women, though. Judith (Hanna Hall) and Annie (Danielle Harris) both get topless before, and in the case of the latter, during their respective attacks, and poor Lynda (Kristina Klebe) gets fully naked from all angles, before getting brutally slaughtered, although Annie does squeak by with her life, which I did appreciate. (Of course, that didn't stop Zombie from killing her in particularly brutal fashion in the sequel.)
Mind you, I'm no prude. I'm a straight guy, and under normal circumstances, you better believe I enjoy seeing a beautiful naked woman. But it's so joyless and ugly in the way it's done here that I can't imagine hardly anyone enjoying it, at least once the attacks begin in earnest- save maybe the sickest of fans out there, which I've no doubt do exist. (They probably also enjoy the sickening images of mutilated dead animals, too, which were also fairly unnecessary.)
(Sidebar: I had a similar experience watching the last season of GLOW, but in a completely different way. After Betty Gilpin's character (spoiler) seriously injures Alison Brie's character on purpose, I was so mad, I couldn't even fully enjoy Gilpin's subsequent full-on nude scene, and it was quite the sight to behold, let me tell you. My point being, the context and vibe of a film/show can make all the difference.)
Once again, don't get me wrong- I truly don't hate the film. There's much to admire here, from Zombie's more assured direction and the impressive cinematography on display, to the excellent soundtrack and solid performances I mentioned previously.
It's also great seeing Danielle Harris, one of my all-time fave Scream Queens, return to the franchise, after being unfairly and unceremoniously dumped by it in the sixth installment, The Curse of Michael Myers. As aforementioned, Zombie even lets her live, in a rare display of mercy of his own. Although, the sequence in which she's attacked is admittedly hard to watch as a fan, especially knowing about her IRL experiences with a stalker. (Somewhat ironically, it wasn't a horror fan, but rather a fan of her character on Roseanne- go figure.) Still, I'll take what bright spots I can with this film.
It's also cool seeing both vets from Zombies' previous films (Sid Haig, Bill Moseley, Ken Foree, Tom Towles, William Forsythe, Lew Temple, Leslie Easterbrook) and from horror films in general, such as Brad Dourif (the voice of "Chucky" from the Child's Play series), Dee Wallace (The Howling, Cujo), Richard Lynch (Bad Dreams, Alligator II), Udo Kier (Andy Warhol's Dracula and Frankenstein, Blade), Clint Howard (Evilspeak, Ice Cream Man), Sybil Danning (Howling II, The Tomb), Courtney Gains (Children of the Corn, The Burbs) and, in the deleted scenes, Adrienne Barbeau (The Fog, Creepshow), aka John Carpenter's ex. Granted, their appearances are all pretty fleeting, but I did appreciate them being there in the first place, as we fans don’t get to see them as often as we’d like these days.
Finally, we have, in the iconic role of Dr. Sam Loomis, actor Malcolm McDowell. As with actress Compton, I mis-remembered McDowell playing Loomis as a massive, annoying tool, but I once again realized that I was thinking of the sequel. You do, however, get a glimpse of what the character would sadly devolve into in the deleted scenes, which features a scene with Loomis flirting with a younger student that would ensure him a place on the #metoo hit list IRL for sure. Thankfully, Zombie mostly sticks to the source material in this film, down to, as I said, flat-out quoting some of his dialogue from the original.
In fact, I do like the fact that we get a brief but memorable sequence in which we see Dr. Loomis genuinely trying to reach Michael and doing his best to engage with him by inviting his mother to visit and striking up a platonic relationship with her to try and get them both through this, while at the same time tempering their expectations of where this is headed.
As we see, in time, Michael eventually degenerates to much more familiar territory, later becoming completely non-verbal and not uttering a word for years to come. We only see his face as an adult briefly as well, much as in the original film. As I mentioned, this first section of the film is quite effective and the cast is a big part of that. It's only in the second half, in which Zombie has to stick more closely to the original that he falters, story-wise, having nothing much to add to the proceedings.
According to reports, Zombie actually wanted to completely stick to this material for the entire film, but the movie's producers insisted that he tread more familiar territory in the back half, and he finally relented, as he had no choice in the matter- it was either that, or not make the film at all.
In the film's scariest moment by far, over the end credits, we see who one of the main culprits of that was: none other than real-life Boogeyman, Harvey Weinstein himself, along with brother Bob, the head of Dimension, the company behind the film, who drafted Zombie in the first place. Regular producer Moustapha Akkad's son, Malek, also took over for his late dad, who died before the film could come to fruition, and Zombie got himself a producing credit as well.
No matter what you (or I) think of the final result, uncut or otherwise- there's also a "workprint" version floating around out there that was leaked at some point before the film's official release- the end result remains the highest-grossing (and the most highly gross) of the entire franchise to date. Perhaps the new installment will change that, but for now, at least, Zombie remains the Halloween king, for better or for worse.
Join me later this week as we tackle the dreaded second Zombie Halloween film, which did not go over well with hardly anybody, including hardcore Zombie fans. Will I like it better this time around? We shall see, but I'm not expecting some grand revelation of having misjudged the film for all these years, so I'm not getting my hopes up too high. I do, however, promise to try and keep an open mind. You never know- it could be a misunderstood classic. Probably not...but you never know. 👹
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