Halloween: Critic Reviews

It's a decent diversion.

The new Halloween has sympathy for the Devil, but not enough.

Contains dialogue so nasty and stupid, you'd swear (right along with the characters) that the booker for Jerry Springer wrote it (Zombie did).

As a sensory experience, the redo is flat. Even if giving audiences a start were Zombie's strength, fans already know when the scares are coming.

The life and times of a fictional monster may not be as respectable a subject as a historical monster like, say, Idi Amin or Truman Capote, but Zombie's portrait is every bit as reverent, scrupulous, and deeply felt as any Oscar-grubbing horrorshow.

Rob Zombie's lousy remake of John Carpenter's 1978 slasher classic Halloween adds to the argument that horror movies are losing their box-office appeal because filmmakers no longer know how -- or have any desire -- to create genuine suspense.

The set-up is tediously slow, while the later murders are packed so tightly it's like watching a blender on high speed.

Carpenter's original, a series of brilliant joy-buzzer jolts, treated the horror as a dark pop joke, courting our giggling disbelief. Zombie turns it somber.

Michael Myers is back. And no, you still shouldn't care.

The best that can be said about Rob Zombie's Halloween remake is that he makes it his own, though the considerable alterations only flatter John Carpenter's 1978 slasher-pic template.

The Batman Begins of slasher movies, and one of the more frightening stabathons of recent years.

Rob Zombie's Halloween remake isn't scary, which is really all you need to know about it.

Trick or treat? Rob Zombie's "re-imagining" of John Carpenter's 1978 horror classic Halloween must sadly be consigned to the former category and it's not even a very interesting, suspenseful trick at that.

The most depressing thing of all is that Michael will likely survive even this dire endeavour.

Although it's not saying much, this is director Rob Zombie's most impressive outing behind the camera.

The result, though undeniably preferable to yet another misbegotten installment of the long-exhausted franchise, certainly doesn't compare to John Carpenter's landmark original film.

Anyone can trace a Picasso.

Teen slasher flick remake is brutal and bloody.

When it comes to Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's Halloween, they don't get any more unnecessary.

Modernizing the classic slasher staple, Rob Zombie's film is surprisingly adept.

Modernizing the classic slasher staple, Rob Zombie's film is surprisingly adept.

Zombie's fury is dulled by his veneration of the horror classic

Zombie's constant use of long lenses, close-ups, and rapid-fire editing are crude attempts to jack up action that is not staged particularly well.