I surprisingly didn’t hate it Halloween (2007) like I thought I would. It has some very creative set pieces (eg. Laurie in the crawl space above Michael in the climax), Tyler Mane being flat-out terrifying with and without the iconic William Shatner mask, the psychoanalytical approach to deconstructing Michael Myers as a character, and the chilling humanism at play in the first half; we’re essentially looking at the genesis of someone who would commit a mass shooting, and Rob Zombie’s depiction of The Shape is one that sees him as a man longing for compassion in a world that’s offered him nothing but darkness and cruelty. It's too bad they're all buried in the normal tropes one would see in Dimension Films horror movies, those being unlikable, cartoonish characters and juvenile dialogue along with Rob Zombie’s worst directorial impulses, from gratuitous violence to an excessively over the top tone and a garish handheld visual aesthetic. It’s worth noting that the use of the iconic Halloween themes in the score distract from the scenes in which they’re used because there’s so much new going on thematically and visually that Carpenter’s music sticks out like a sore thumb. Rob Zombie is a frustrating filmmaker because while his passion for cinema has shown admirably in his music videos and his time on TCM Underground, it sadly doesn't translate to his mostly ugly output. 2.5/5