I cannot express how much I despise the first 50 minutes of this film - I always have. Because I completely understand why Michael would kill his stepfather, his sister and her boyfriend. I can't imagine a more annoying family than that. And therein lies the problem - I don't want to understand why Michael is the way he is.

From the original film, Donald Pleasence's character said it best: he's pure evil on two legs. And while I appreciate what Zombie was trying to do, and I know he was told to make it his own, I cannot pretend that I enjoy the first half of this film. From the song "Love Hurts" to the quote "It hides my ugliness," I just can't help but cringe.

It does get better, though. Marginally. But Laurie's character here is not the innocent girl in the original Halloween (her first scene, where she mimics being molested, shows us that) - her two friends are worse. In fact, there are few sympathetic characters here - funnily enough, I think the most sympathetic are Laurie's parents, and we see what happened to them (same can be said for Danny Trejo's character). We have some worthwhile sequences in this film, such as Laurie trying to escape from Michael nearing the end, but too much here just bothered me. Truth be told, the best character had such little time, and that, of course, would be Joe Grizzly. This might have some decent gore, but it's just a disappointing movie, and a disappointing remake.