Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboot does a lot of things right, and a few things really wrong.  The first thing it does right is the casting of the 6 foot 8 inch Tyler Mane as Michael Myers.  A man of intimidating stature makes Michael’s strength believable as he squeezes the life out of teenagers. One thing it does wrong, is that it takes far too long to get to Tyler Mane’s Michael.  It spends the majority of the movie on “Young Michael”. By the time you get to the adult version, it makes the movie feel like it is 3 hours long.

I am all for a good origin story.  Halloween has all the right ideas of how to make creepy kid Michael into a psychopath, but it misses the mark in a very important way.  It makes Michael Myers sympathetic. That he was just a product of his environment and circumstance. You are rooting for him to kill those that “deserve it”.  Then later, the psychologist tries to explain how Michael is and has always been just pure evil. The two concepts do not mesh well.

Halloween is not a very scary movie.  I think partially due to the humanization of Michael Myers.  He seems far less frightening when you feel sorry for him. I am looking forward to what Rob Zombie does in his version of Halloween II that he can devote entirely to adult Michael.