To this day, I still see Rob Zombie's Halloween films getting so much flack in forums and various Facebook groups, especially with the "Halloween resurgence" that's going on. Both films are very different, both are very polarizing, and quite honestly, I think both are great.
If you recall, the first film gave Michael a very disturbing but human backstory while the second took some very odd and somewhat supernatural turns, which garners the film a lot of hate. In a new chat with SFX Magazine (reported by GamesRadar), Zombie surprisingly reveals that he prefers his sequel over the "remake.
“To be honest, I would rather be doing my own thing anyway,” Zombie told the magazine. “But 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.”
“Okay, yeah, it was still the story of this guy searching for his sister,” admits Zombie. “But the guy was definitely more real… I didn’t have him appear and reappear in the movie like in the Carpenter film. I wanted to avoid people thinking he was supernatural. But it was not an easy movie to make. I kept being asked, ‘Hey, should we show this to Carpenter or so and so from the original and see what they think?’ And my response was just, ‘What the fuck do I care?’ When I get asked what my advice is in this business I tell people to just focus on what they want to do because if you start worrying about what other people think you are screwed [laughs]. I am oblivious to all that. I love Halloween and I wanted to do my own thing with it. Whether people like my Halloween or don’t like it is irrelevant to me. At least it has my own personal stamp on there.”
You can't deny, Rob Zombie took the franchise into bold and exciting directions with his entries. With a heightened level of violence and gore, a grungy grindhouse feel, and a massive Michael Myers (brilliantly portrayed by Tyler Mane).
My advice, revisit Rob Zombie's Halloween films, they're no as bad as you may remember and they're certainly better than a lot of the later entries in the franchise!
