It was Labor Day weekend, which meant it was time for a Halloween movie. Yes, that sentence should sound a little strange. Once again the masked psychopath Michael Myers has returned to the neighborhood of Haddonfield with a bitter taste in his mouth. With his unique vision of terror, musician-turned director, Rob Zombie, pledged to deliver an updated take on a legendary tale conceived back in 1978. Therein lies one of the most common mistakes in the history of cinema.

When the original horror classic Halloween was made, director John Carpenter did it for a mere 300,000 dollars. It quickly went from being an unknown film to one of the most successful low budget films ever made. John Carpenter’s Halloween instilled a fear in audiences with its skilled and inventive camera work as well as its proper sense of what truly creates tension and terror. Carpenter’s Halloween has always been known for single-handedly revolutionizing the horror genre.

Here enters Rob Zombie. To update the already perfect Halloween, Zombie insisted on telling a back story to the infamous masked killer. In the original, it was not knowing what made Michael Myers tick that made the story so frightening. In Zombie’s updated version knowing that Michael had an abusive step-father, a stripper mother and a pet rat named Elvis made it laughable in places it used to be scary. Replacing sex scenes for character development and gore for scaring an audience also didn’t help the film. Zombie’s Halloween is nothing more than a foul-mouthed and distasteful trailer trash representation of what used to be a sophisticated masterpiece.

What was thought to be an interesting idea turned out to be a disaster. It happened when Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. You don’t remake The Godfather just like you don’t go near Citizen Kane. Halloween meant a lot to the horror genre and simply shouldn’t have been changed. This should have been obvious after the numerous failed sequels.

*This reviewer gives the movie one star out of four.