Halloween (2007) – What happened to this horror film?

Halloween: Resurrection in 2002, the door seemed to be closing on the release of the original film. It ran out of fuel and failed both critically (with a score of 10% on Rotten Tomatoes) and commercially, grossing only $37 million on its $15 million budget. The next year, Freddy and Jason would clash and Leatherface received the remake treatment from studio Platinum Dunes. While Freddy and Jason got their own remakes in 2009 and 2010 respectively, you know you can't keep a good masked villain down for long. So before his two biggest slasher rivals had their day in the sun, Michael Myers got his own remake, which came out in 2007. With a drastically different attitude and a new producer at the helm. Halloween would get the chance to do something completely different than anything we had seen before. When we find out what happened to Rob Zombies, everyone is entitled to a major scare Halloween.

As already mentioned, resurrection was not well received by fans or critics when it came out in 2002. The Akkad family, who owned the rights and had very specific rules for the character, knew that he shouldn't be outnumbered for too long, even with Laurie Strode's storyline finally coming to an end. While we all now know that a certain musician and horror lover would eventually take over the helm of the project, there were a lot of ideas floating around to begin with. A first thought would be a crossover like Michael's slasher colleagues received, but this film would mix our silent stalker with the Cenobites from the Hellraiser Series. Clive Barker himself agreed to write the film and efforts were made to bring John Carpenter back into the director's chair. Barker was looking forward to being less of a brawl between characters and more of an exploration of these two worlds and how they could be connected. This failed as it proved unprofitable, especially after internet surveys showed that audiences were not interested in it.

Other unrealized ideas for the franchise included Halloween: Bad Bloodwhich would bring back the Jaimie character who died in part 6, Halloween: Retribution, Halloween: Asylum, And Halloween: The Missing Years. retribution would bring back a different set of characters. Michael would kill Busta Rhymes resurrection character and then face off against Laurie's two featured sons H20 and former Haddonfield Sheriff Leigh Brackett, who sought revenge. This film was supposed to end with John Tate drowning Michael in a frozen lake and exacting revenge for his mother, but goes the Jaime Lloyd route by suggesting that Tate could be next to take up the mantle. asylum would ensure that Michael served a prison sentence for his crimes, but when he was about to be executed, he would find a way to escape and wreak havoc. The missing years would take an even more extreme route, which is also completely out of continuity, by having Michael back in Haddonfield during the events of Season of the Witch. Considering that this film doesn't even exist in the same reality as the other films, it's probably for the best that this film never saw the light of day.

None of these made it far into production, and while Moustapha Akkad and his son Malek were working on another idea involving a character from the 6th film, Moustapha tragically died as a result of injuries sustained in a bombing , while attending a wedding in Jordan. Moustapha had served as producer on the first eight films, and it was now up to his son to carry on that legacy. After preparations were interrupted by the tragedy, Malek eventually gave up the job and worked with Dimension Pictures and the Weinstein brothers. The man chosen to take the reins on the remake of one of the most hallowed horror films in history would be musician and writer/director Rob Zombie.

Zombie, frontman of the band White Zombie and later a solo artist, has always been a fan of horror. His band's name is a reference to the 1932 Bela Lugosi film of the same name, and many of his music videos contain public domain horror or are horror-themed. Zombie isn't a fan of remakes, especially horror films, but after the success of his first two features House of 1000 Corpses And The Devil's Rejectionshe was a solid name Halloween Out of respect, he even went to tell John Carpenter about it and was surprised by the result. He was told that Carpenter really was no longer involved or interested in the franchise and that Zombie should “make it his own.”

Filming took place in Pasadena and Los Angeles, the same location where Carpenter simulated Haddonfield, Illinois in the original, on a budget of $15 million. The cast was a mix of zombie regulars, horror legends, new faces, and even a returning member Halloween Franchise. Faces such as Bill Moseley, Sid Haig, William Forsythe, Ken Foree and Sheri Moon Zombie had all worked with the director before and were all given roles ranging from cameo appearances to roles that were of utmost importance to the plot. Dee Wallace (who would become a zombie regular), Malcolm McDowell, and Brad Dourif would add horror pedigree to their major titles, and two of them would return for the sequel. The newer faces would be some of the most important roles of all, with Daeg Faerch as a young Michael Myers and Scout Taylor Compton as Laurie Strode. Compton actually beat Danielle Panabaker for the role, and Panabaker subsequently took a lead role Friday the 13th Remake a few years later. Compton was also the only Girlfriends cast member who was a real teenager, just like Jaime Lee Curtis in the first film Halloween.

With Compton secured as Laurie Strode and Faerch as young Myers, the other two main driving forces would be Malcolm McDowell as a very different interpretation of Dr. Loomis and Tyler Mane star as the most imposing Myers we would get in the film. McDowell had a legendary career, of course, but Mane started out as a wrestler for the now-defunct WCW promotion and was the first live-action Sabretooth to appear on screen for Fox X Men franchise in 2000. He would work on it with Zombie The Devil's Rejections before coming on board in back-to-back films as the Boogeyman's version in this two-film set. Laurie's best friend Annie would eventually be Compton's real life best friend, Danielle Harris. Harris is the recurring franchise actress we talked about previously, as she played Laurie's daughter Jamie in both Part 4 and Part 5 before the character was killed off in Part 6, where she wasn't played by Harris. She was not wanted to return and had to audition for the role, but was keen to shed the children's show image she had gravitated towards Halloween 5.

Rob Zombie increases the violence and nudity in his films to almost grindhouse levels Halloween is no different. Both Harris and actress Kristina Klebe signed knowing there would be nudity and gory scenes, and for Harris this was a plus in shedding the actress's image with which she had been branded. The film follows the original plot, but only in the second half of the running time. This running time, which is 109 minutes in the theatrical version and 121 minutes in the director's cut, was the longest running time in the series up to that point Halloween ends was released in 2022. However, the director's cut still holds the record when viewing the film in its restored form.

The reason for the length is that Zombie originally suggested a duology of sorts when he was offered the role of driving creative force for this remake. He wanted an entire film centered around young Michael and his origins, including the origins of the mask, followed by a proper remake of the original film. Zombie's intention was to truly show that Myers was a psychopath, and the only time this topic had ever been addressed before were in deleted or alternate scenes from the first two films and the accompanying novelization of the first film. Despite being rejected for the two-film contract, Zombie was able to incorporate most of these ideas into the first half of his vision Halloweenincluding Michel's first speech. With the transformation of Michael into a more specific psychopath, the body count was dramatically increased from 5 in the original to 22. This includes all of his murders as a child before he kills his sister and the people he takes out on the way to Laurie. Unlike the first film, we know immediately that Laurie is Michael's sister and find out what his family life was like before he too becomes a character.

Zombie was disrupted at almost every stage of production and states that it was one of the most stressful shoots he has ever been involved in. When he took the job directing a sequel, he assumed it couldn't be worse than what he went through for the remake, but as we know, things were a lot worse for him while making Halloween II. The remake wasn't released in October like the original, but was instead scheduled to release in August so it didn't have to compete with the current horror juggernaut Seen Series that up to Saw 4 Then. Unfortunately only a few days before Halloween was supposed to be released in theaters, a workprint version was leaked online. Zombie came out and assured the audience that it would be different from the final version, and he was right, as scenes were changed or deleted entirely. There were fears that it would damage box office success, as it was attributed to piracy Hostel part 2, Nevertheless, the film was released as planned in more than 3,400 theaters, more than ever before in the franchise.

Halloween would be a financial hit, grossing $80 million from its $15 million budget, but was largely hated by critics and is still met with discord among series fans. While most critics felt that it was too crude or offered nothing new to the character or story, there were some who gave Zombie credit for making it his own. Something Carpenter had told him before the first scene was even shot. The unrated cut was released on home video and also became a financial success, but at the same time offered a different look at the final product, with some scenes altering the story in ways that made it a different film, including an alternate ending. Zombie would continue Halloween II in 2009, but there the franchise would be on hiatus until David Gordon Green would release his own trilogy, forgetting everything after the first film. Although it grossed less than the remakes Friday the 13th And Nightmare on Elm Streetit also enabled their productions to be carried out. Whether you like it or hate it, it's certainly a unique take on the night HE came home… and now you know what happened to Rob Zombies Halloween.

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