A Sequel A Day Keeps The Doctor Away.

Or in the case of Halloween III: Season of the Witch, an absence of your series' central character keeps the audiences away. For those of you not terribly well versed in serial horror cinema, you may not know that Michael Myers, the star attraction of the Halloween pictures, was omitted from the third film. This puzzling move was done in an attempt to make the Halloween series an anthology of horrifying tales rather than overplay Michael. Turned out to be a worse mess than the victims of ol' Mike himself.

Quite the opposite problem came with Rob Zombie's reboot. Too much of a good thing can spoil it. Turns out, same goes for too much of an evil thing.

Michael Myers: Man or Bogeyman? 

To humanize or not to humanize, that is the question faced by all great horror filmmakers. When creating the face of evil that will stalk your protagonist and her friends, the creator must ask themself if they want the audience to feel for the foreman of their fears. John Carpenter clearly did not want the audience to relate with his monster. His turn to murder, unexplained and unprovoked, came packaged in a iconic thirty-second introduction.

The events covered in the original film's opening sequence stretch out over nearly forty minutes in the remake. In that time, we find motivation and explanation along with a dysfunctional family. Further, this time Michael talks. A lot. In this time we see a soul evaporate. While this strikes a cord in "realism" by creating a sense this or something like it could actually occur, it is much less horrifying than pure elemental evil.The way Michael Myers was meant to be.

Behind this mask is just a scared little boy. Someone named Zombie decided that was more terrifying than the Devil. Go figure.

It's All So Sad!

Zombie's film is less of a scare flick and more a melodrama. Far too much time is spent on presenting the cause for Michael's turn to evil. Upon his turn to darkness, he immediately kills one of his only three friends in the world by hurling a TV at him. I can't make this shit up. Really. Why spend 50 minutes humanizing a monster only to have his first act as an adult be entirely inhumane?

Zombie goes for the Frankenstein effect and begs for sympathy for his monster. The difference, and the problem, in this film is that Michael kills a lot of innocent people. Frankenstein didn't hurt anyone. Michael Myers is a murderous psychopath. He is thoroughly unlikable as well he should be. No matter how much time you waste trying to convince me otherwise. (51 minutes 31 seconds)

Another black-eyed, white-faced, long-haired Michael with Daddy issues. 

Who Will Survive? And What Will Be Left of Them? 

REELapse is headin' on down to Texas! Just when ya'll thought it was gon' be a good ole-fashioned swing dance of a time, the chainsaw revs up. It's all fun until someone loses an eye. And a leg. And an arm. Then a couple of heads. Leatherface is wreckin' up the joint as we explore The Texas Chainsaw Massacre(s).
Blood?
Allusions to real-life killers?
It's all here!
There's nothing to lose... other than your limbs.