The Halloween series started in 1978 with the one film in the franchise that everybody loves, and for a few years, looked like it would end with 2002’s Halloween: Resurrection, the one that everybody hates. But in 2007, director Rob Zombie gave the property its real resurrection with a remake that divides fans to this day.
Though Zombie’s Halloween reboot didn’t fare well with critics, it did a lot better at the box office, holding the record for highest grossing entry of the series until David Gordon Green’s new movie took that title. To this day, the film and its 2009 sequel have their passionate supporters who appreciate the filmmaker’s characteristically unpleasant reworking of the property. And apparently, the director himself remains among these defenders, showing no regret for breaking away from the norms of the franchise when he spoke to SFX Magazine:
“I am still proud of both Halloween movies. I prefer the second one, which might surprise people, but the problem is that when you do a remake you can never get a true judgement on what it is you have done. I think it’s the same deal when someone remakes A Nightmare on Elm Street or anything else – it’s just too hard to completely break the formula. Everyone knows Michael Myers and a lot of the fans want the same thing again, but maybe with a small twist – like when they did the eighth one and he’s part of a virtual television programme or something [laughs]. One thing that I got a lot of was, ‘This is what it should have been,’ or, ‘He should have done it like this,’ but if that is the barrier we set then you cannot ever do anything. I really wanted to rework what Halloween was.”
Regardless of what you think of Zombie’s Halloween flicks, there’s no denying that his scuzzy style brought something new to the series. In fact, going by producer Malek Akkad’s recent statements, the uniqueness of the cult director’s vision may have been one reason why the team decided to reboot the property once more after Halloween II.
“That’s where the Rob Zombie film comes. I know Rob Zombie’s films, like every single one of these films, they’ve got their die hard fans and their detractors,” Akkad shared with Bloody Disgusting. “That’s one of the beauties of horror films is that people just love to debate and talk about them and discuss them. We did the Rob Zombie era if you will. We did two films with Rob which we didn’t really know we were going to do two. We never considered doing three. So after two of those, I didn’t really see any other director continuing in Rob’s voice a part three and using those characters that he had set up.”
Subsequently, the latest Halloween would provide a more traditional approach to the series, creating a new continuity that directly linked with the 1978 film while bringing back Jamie Lee Curtis as the original Laurie Strode. At the same time, Zombie is currently making a third installment for his own original horror series, with Three from Hell due for release next year.