At its core, John Carpenter’s Halloween (the true Halloween) is a suburban WASP nightmare. Nothing ever dramatic is supposed to happen in Haddonfield.  It’s a metaphor for a safe America filled with rows and rows of boring, everyday middle-class families. Michael Myers is the shadow of that banal community, raised in a banal home by banal parents. Evil is always born of banality.

Zombie’s Haddonfield is a tainted hellhole from the get-go. His rendition of the Myers family is a drunken dad and a mom who works the poles. References to daughter rape and domestic violence pepper the breakfast table. Michael Myers loses all his folkloric mystery to an origin story filled with animal abuse and enjoyment of KISS’ Destroyer album. By the time we get to the part where we recap the original flick, it feels like the real horror is that someone dumped $15 million into it. This is not a scary movie to enjoy with your girlfriend on a Saturday night, it’s a grimy flick that makes you feel uncomfortable for coming out to see it.

Look, I get it. It’s dark and disturbing. It’s edgy with its vulgarity and gore. Zombie’s making his own version and not just mimicking John Carpenter’s. But, Jesus, these films were also supposed to be entertaining. Part of the reason I became a horror fan is the mystery and myth of it. Michael Myers — John Carpenter’s Michael Myers — is scary because, even after 37 years, he’s an enigma. In the original, his motivations may be tied to his past crime, but why he does it the way he does (stalking, scrutinizing, observing) is fucking disturbing. Death isn’t a pleasure to him, it’s a science experiment.

I read an article once where Zombie asked: “would you have preferred another sequel where Michael gets used as a punching bag by Busta Rhymes?” Probably not, but I don’t exactly want to watch him get off by violently stabbing and torturing a half-nude Danielle Harris either.