A Prolonged Disappointment This movie is truly disappointing. If you've seen the original Halloween movie that this is based upon, then the remake is more of a prequel that goes a step further and bores you with a very unsuspenseful retelling the original.
In the original movie, a psychopath from a mental institution escapes and shatters the calm of Haddonfield, a peaceful and content community. In this remake, Haddonfield is hardly established as a peaceful and content community. We see Michael Myers grow up in a dysfunctional family where his mom Deborah Myers (Sheri Moon Zombie) is a stripper. His older sister is a tramp, and the step father is a loathsome and obnoxious crippled man.
If the movie were to have stopped at being simply a prequel, it would have been an imaginative and insightful look at Michael Myers' past. Unfortunately the movie drags on and does an exceptionally rushed and poor retelling of the original. It takes all the mood and suspense of the original and just rehashes the same material. The difference is that you really don't have a connection to the characters in the remake. It is just a series of murders one after the other.
This movie fails in every area where the original succeeded. In the original, the background music and video clips on television are used to foreshadow the impending horror. They set a mood of calm while conveying an anticipation of horror. In the remake, background music and television clips are thrown in as an homage to the original. It is as if the film makers did not understand the plot mechanisms which made the original movie good. In one scene a Rush song is blasting, and it has no apparent relevance to the story at all. In other instances they play Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear The Reaper", not only once, but twice. The mood is wrong and it is an awkward break to an already unsuspenseful movie. This movie lacks the original score or a comparable substitute, so the viewer has nothing to set the mood. It's all hack, slash, kill.
The casting and look of the characters is another disappointment. Most of the characters look unkept as if Rob Zombie himself had done their hair. Most characters looked, lived, and talked trashy. The foul language was tossed around without discretion as if to educate preteens rather than represent a realistic conversation. Malcolm McDowell completely fails in the role of Dr. Samuel Loomis. Rather than appearing as a wise and educated doctor, he comes across more as a concerned hippie who is friends to the family.
If you are impressed by curse words, rent the movie. If you want to see a great classic ruined, see the movie. If you like seeing unkept hair that's been run through a blender, rent the movie. This movie is not worth seeing in the theaters. It is not worth owning the DVD unless you just truly idolize Rob Zombie and want everything he's worked on.