Halloween
Halloween
6.128%59%
After being committed for 15 years, Michael Myers, now a grown man and still very dangerous, escapes from the mental institution and immediately returns to Haddonfield to find his baby sister, Laurie.
LivewireAdmin reviewedOctober 22, 2025
Rob Zombie’s Halloween feels like a film that mistakes volume for tension and grit for depth. The visuals have some bite — gritty, grimy, and occasionally striking in a way that fits Zombie’s world — but that’s about where the praise ends. Everything else, from the writing to the characters, feels overcooked and underthought.
The film’s attempt to “explain” Michael Myers drains the mystery that made Carpenter’s original so haunting. Instead of a silent embodiment of evil, we get a loud, blunt backstory that turns him into more of a product than a presence. The dialogue is rough, the performances often veer into caricature, and any moments of potential tension get buried under noise and aggression. Scout Taylor-Compton, Kristina Klebe and Danielle Harris turn in decent performances as the core characters of the film but Malcolm McDowell' Loomis comes off as more ego driven than panicked pursuer. Don't get me started on Sheri Moon Zombie as Michael's mother.
There’s a certain raw visual flair — the camera work and lighting occasionally capture a grimy, claustrophobic menace and Zombie does a decent job of capturing the vibe of a small town in autumn — but it’s not enough to overcome how hollow the rest feels. It’s a brutal, mean-spirited remake that forgets what made the original terrifying: simplicity and silence.
letterboxd: FilmPhanPA