A Defense Of The Universally Despised ‘Halloween’ Remake

Wally Bryton7 years ago

It’s October, and October always makes me thinks of one thing: horror movies. Okay, two things: horror movies and having to find a birthday gift for my older sister, but my family doesn’t matter to me nearly as much as horror movies do. Horror movies never forgot to pick me up from soccer practice, or forced me to take up soccer in the first place. The point is, fuck soccer.

October is the month of Halloween, which is my favorite holiday. When you’re a kid, it means dressing up as Batman and getting free candy. When you’re older, it means getting hammered and puking all over your friend’s Batman costume. When October rolls around, I always revisit the Halloween movies. Specifically, I watch the beloved original and the dreaded remake made by the dreadlocked Rob Zombie.

A lot of remakes suck balls. The Psycho remake had the nerve to try to make us scared of Vince Vaughn, and the 1997 Godzilla movie is the second worst thing America has ever done to Japan. But I actually love Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween reboot and its sequel, and I will die on this hill if I have to.

People hate the Halloween remake more than Donald Trump hates Elton John’s smash hit “Rocket Man.” You don’t need to venture far on the internet to see passionate criticism thrown at it. Critics hate it, fans hate it, hell… At this point? Rob Zombie himself probably hates it. It’s definitely far from perfect, with a list of flaws longer than the Bible. All the characters talk the same (like foul-mouthed truckers on a meth binge), the “unrated” version has an unnecessary rape scene that was just thrown in for tasteless shock value, and the climax gets laughable near the end. But it’s like the old saying goes, “Nothing is perfect (except for Margot Robbie).” And I, for one, enjoyed the Halloween remake’s imperfection.

A lot of people hated the concept of showing Michael Myers’ childhood, saying it humanized him too much. I disagree. I thought there was something especially disturbing about showing such an evil child. There’s nothing creepier than a homicidal kid; it’s why I do my best to stay the fuck away from my little sisters (damn, my sisters are catching a lot of flak in this article.) A lot of people think the remake’s gore went too far when compared to the original, which left it all up to the imagination. Not me. Maybe I’m biased, but I prefer gory horror because that’s what scares. Put a ghost or an evil doll on screen and I don’t give half a fuck, but once the blood and guts start spilling? That’s when I get uncomfortable.

The 2009 sequel to Rob Zombie’s Halloween is even more universally loathed than the remake because it’s basically the weirdest movie in the history of weird movies. Which is a shame, because I think it’s a hidden gym and arguably an underrated masterpiece (and I say that knowing I’m now at risk of assassination). In it, Michael Myers has hallucinations of his mom and a white horse. It’s a confusing fever dream, and the whole thing feels like a fucked-up acid flashback. It also has a cameo from Weird Al, which automatically makes any movie Oscar-worthy.

There are certain things we hate because it’s cool to hate them, but don’t always jump right on the bandwagon. Rob Zombie may look like a douchey burnout that hits on high schoolers and thinks wrestling is real, but his Halloween movies are actually pretty dope..

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