15 Good Horror Films That Totally Lost It By The End

The Film:

Rob Zombie's re-imagining of John Carpenter's peerless and near-perfect slasher masterpiece of the same name, which expands Michael Myers' backstory and ramps up the sex and violence considerably. It's better than people say it is and is a watchable and punchy three-star film, although obviously it pales in comparison to the original.

The Ending:

Once Michael gets back to Haddonfield and starts his killing spree of sexually promiscuous teenagers, the film loses its way somewhat. The thing is, John Carpenter's original did the Haddonfield perfectly, and it's hard to improve on perfection. The trouble is, Rob Zombie doesn't seem to understand what made the original work so perfectly.

Carpenter used dark lighting, a suffocating and atmospheric aesthetic and agonizingly suspenseful long takes. Zombie, on the other hand, uses ramped-up gore and brutish, overly intense directing and while it is intense and reasonably thrilling, it isn't actually scary. By the end, it's just a mercilessly repetitive game of Tag between Laurie Strode and Michael, which ends with an unsatisfying cliff-hanger ending.

It's not a bad film at all, but there's a definite loss of quality during the film. It's genuinely good during the first half and Rob Zombie actually does something different, but the later scenes feel more like a trashy B-movie; fun, sure, but not genuinely scary. Still, it's a lot better than his lame follow-up in 2009.