The critics are wrong…again. Well, at least as far as I am concerned. This remake is not bad at all. A lot of people are comparing it with the original which is understandable. A lot of people says that it is crap compared to the original which is not understandable. At least not by me. This is one of the movies where I have seen the original and it was even one of my favorites at the time. I think this remake holds up quite well.
At first I was a bit worried that it was said to be a prequel. At least partly. However it is not really what I would call a prequel. It has a bit of extended background in the first quarter or so but that is not really what I would call a prequel. I think the movie was pretty much what I expected or perhaps I should say what I hoped for. It is a slasher-movie of course but it resists the temptation to go all overboard. Nowadays you do not really get scared or even shocked by these kinds of movies so I was not really expecting to be. I was just enjoying Michael’s rampage through the town. It is of course a bit scary in itself that you are watching a madman going on a killing spree through a small town and enjoying it but hey, it is all fake!
One problem with the extended background at the beginning of the movie is that now there is kind of a plot-hole that is a bit annoying. When and, more importantly, how did Michael turn from a deranged kid to a supernatural killer with the strength to carry away one ton worth of tombstone and survive being stabbed as well as shot at?
Apart from that I think this movie was not bad at all. Sometimes I actually felt that Michael was behaving a bit too human like when he was stumbling when crashing through walls etc. but on the whole I quite liked this movie. The style is different from the original for sure but I do not feel it is worse or better for that matter.
It is a bit surprising (well maybe not, the French are bizarre when it comes to scheduling movies and TV-shows) that Cine+ did not schedule this movie for actual Halloween instead of the crap they did show. This one would have been perfect then instead of a day after.