Remaking Halloween: How to Miss the Point Completely

For me, the word “reboot” is increasingly a sign that a film, or a TV series, will be good. Think Batman Begins. Or Casino Royale. Or the “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica. In fact, I was wondering whether I would ever find an exception to the “reboot = good” rule. But it happened. Oh yes, it happened. This weekend. When I watched the remake/reboot of Halloween.

The original Halloween is a classic film, pure and simple. It is a taut, clever piece of film-making. It created a modern cinema monster who has been endlessly copied. It was, for many years, the most successful independent movies of all time and it launched not just a franchise but an entire genre of movies.

The reboot, on the other hand, is a piece of crap that sullies the class of the original film. Hell, the reboot is so bad that it sullies the memory of Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers. On every single level, the remake misses the point.

I’m not going to go into all the details of what makes this film so bad. It is quite impressive, in a warped sort of way, that the reboot manages to add nothing to the original, despite being a lot longer. But overall the remake seems to be product of a slightly demented mind. Like someone watched the original as a teenager, and because it had boobs in, it slipped into their masturbation fantasies. And the sex scenes grew in their mind, becoming more and more graphic, until they had no relation whatsoever to the original film. At the same time, the dark, silent figure of Myers slipped into the subconscious of that someone who decided to remake the film. As a lonely teenager, they started to identify with Myers on some levels. And started to feel that he didn’t go far enough.

So when they had the chance to remake they film, they decided to put what they remembered up on the screen. Hence the mindless, sadistic tit fest that became the remake.

On reflection, though, I should have known it would be shit. After all, it is written and directed by Rob Zombie. And anyone who calls themselves “Rob Zombie” probably isn’t going to be a cinematic genius…