The leaked workprint is not the final film.

Its not? it looked pretty final to me, i heard they made zombie add more kills, the cut i saw had 15 kills, and the scene where he supposly raped his dead sister was not in the film i saw.
Anyway, i thought the film was pretty weak, showing his backstory was a mistake IMO, to me here he's just an annoying punk bitch boy who snapped because he was bullied at home by his cripple stepfather and at school by 2 wimps, and whats with the grunge look for him and dr. loomis in the first 40 minutes?
I thought it also had some bad acting, Malcolm McDowell was awful as Loomis.The only one that i thought acted well was that chick from Devils rejects who played michael's mom.
Laurie didnt have any character development at all, she's just there to scream along with those 2 little kids.

Meh, if this was not the final product then ill see the film in theatres on friday and see if it has improved.

The workprint is the pre-reshoot version. Michael's escape is entirely different. The ending is different. Plus little things sprinkled here and there.

Ill see the film in theatres then but i dont think the change will be drastic, atleast i hope michael's end is dealt with better.

The soundtrack will likely be different too. Not too sure another cut will improve this film... I just hope it doesn't make it even worse (cough, cough Halloween 6).

Neowolf,

New finale; new deaths; Myers breaking out of the asylum in WWF fashion; etc. Some things are better, some worse. Some scenes are set differently and occur in a different order. Additional characters are added.

Some scenes and characters are cut down -- or out. Some shouldn't be and vice versa. Both cuts are shamefully missing exposition for present day. Sadly, one reviewer reports that this -- the working print -- is a better cut than the theatrical one is. We'll see... I haven't seen it yet.

------------------

Some spoilers!

This film had a few moments, but just wasn't very good. It had a few good elements mixed among too many bad ones. Frankly, this is not the film this should be, and that we, as fans, should have gotten. This should have been the "Casino Royale" or "Batman Begins" of the "Halloween" franchise. Sadly, it was not...

One thing's for sure: Those "best horror movie of the decade" reviews were absolutely plants. There is just no way any adult critic, in their right mind, would declare this film the best horror film -- in any category. It doesn't redefine anything, and isn't that good.

I think the advertising is way too deceiving. They're pumping this as a "purely scary" film when there's not much that's scary about it: There is a good 10 minute section (from Annie's sex scene to Tommy's bathroom) that fits this (it's probably the best part of the movie, and is really more threatening than scary), but that's all. There is absolutely nothing scary -- at all -- about the prequel part. The first 10 minutes play off as comedy: opening to the "Monster Mash," Myers telling the principle to fuck off, talk about saggy tits, the fight... It was all just so lame, but did provide me with a few unintentional (or maybe intentional) laughs.

Myers tends to have a knack for teleportation in this film too. I felt like I was watching "Jason Takes Manhattan" a few times: Myers is at Annie's house, then at the Myers' house, but back at Annie's house again all within 3 minutes.

Once again, Zombie is caught in lies: He stated the shooting draft was very different from the leaked draft -- when, in fact, they are 90% identical.

On the bright side: Zombie gives us some nice looking stalking shots (and a not too bad 70's time setting), etc., but he sucks as a writer. The script is by far this film's biggest problem... I do believe that if Zombie had just directed this film with a better writer (much better -- even if Zombie gave input), we'd be looking at a much better film. Let's keep the shaky cam to a minimum too... I did think the nicer chatter moments between Laurie, Tommy, and Lindsey were cute and realistic.

Bottom Line: This is pretty much disgraceful to the original Halloween. It's a mockery! However, if you can displace the original in your mind, there are a few moments here -- but not enough. Many people will absolutely despise this film because they won't know what to expect. They'll think they're going to see a scary movie (or a traditional "Halloween" film) when they're actually going to see a trashy drive-in movie with sprinkled cheap comedy that turns exploitation at times. The tone shifts from lame, to comedic, to violent, to huh?, to dull, to lame, to tense for 5 minutes, back to lame. It's all over the place.

I won't fault the actors because they did what they could with the atrocious lines they were given. I would have liked to see these actors work off a better script because I think they could have provided us with something worthwhile.

Laurie, Annie, and Tommy, for example, aren't bad actors from what I can see. The script limits them. I'd like to see all three in better roles because I think they have potential. Honestly, the vast majority of the actors here aren't bad actors in general -- or in other roles.

Character development is sorely lacking for characters we should care about, and might have cared about if we saw them on screen more. Annie especially gets a scene that would have worked if we got to know her character more during the course of the film.

Zombie tries to do too much with one film, and ultimately fails. One thing I will say: the cameos didn't personally bother me at all. Not sure why or why not, but they just didn't. The film has much bigger problems than the cameos it uses.

Uh, what? The alternate cut of Halloween 6 is much better than the theatrical version.

This film is brutal. I can handle a lot but young Michael is one scary little kid. And older Michael is just as sadistic. He beats the living hell out of people. But see, as cool and different as that was, it took away the suspense that made Halloween the 'classic' horror that it is today.

I laughed every time Zombie showed Michael basically tip-toeing behind his next victim. The escape from the mental hospital is also laughable.

Also, I've never been a fan of Zombie's style of film, from the dialogue to his camera-shaking during a killing (it's effective in Bourne, NOT in Halloween), but I expected all this going into it. On the plus side, it's a good, no-holds-barred horror film and the performances are decent. I'll give Zombie credit for a solid re-imagining of Halloween; it was interesting. But it could have been handled better. And, considering that this is not the final cut, hopefully the final cut has a more realistic escape scene from the mental hospital and fixes some of the little problems.

B-

It's not scary at all. I honestly think Halloween: Resurrection is scarier (and I'm talking legitimate scares, not the quality of the film).

That's what I said.

Not too sure another cut (meaning the theatrical cut) will improve this film... I just hope it (the theatrical cut) doesn't make it (this movie) even worse (than this cut). Because this cut isn't exactly that good to begin with.

Try to stay with us.

While the Halloween 6 original cut is better than the garbage that was released, it's still not a very good movie overall. Actually, most of the Halloweens suck balls, and I've been trying to figure out all day why I didn't dump the series many moons ago. Living through false hope is a killer.

I loved every minute of this.

Seriously, i'm a massive fan of the Halloween franchise and have been since i can remember. So i went into this with low expectations, especially with it only being a workprint version.

But i loved it. It can only get better from this and the theatrical version is going to kick ass.

I found the film very intense and as Zing said, Brutal.

It seemed, to me, much more realistic than the original, especially the last 50 minutes, and the characters of Laurie, Annie and Lynda seem much more realistic.

Anyone who says the characters are less devloped in this than they are in the original, is talking absolute shite in my opinion.

i highly recommend this.

I don't think it's scary (or that's not what I implied). I think young Michael is freaky and film, in general, is brutal, but it's not scary at all because Zombie doesn't even try to make it suspenseful.

I think he is, though. Zombie has always said his problem with the first (and H20, I've heard) is that we don't see Michael very much. We don't see him steal the mask, grab the tombstone, etc. But there's a reason Carpenter didn't show us these things. Michael is in this film so much that he ceases to be scary. Lynda's murder in this is flat-out boring when you compare it to the scene in the original, where it's the climax of the build-up to seeing Michael.

Plus, Laurie's character seems rather insignificant in Zombie's Halloween, when she shouldn't be.

She never has any scenes by herself. In the original, we get Laurie in the classroom, Laurie in her bedroom, etc. In this film, she's either always with her friends, Tommy, or being chased by Michael.

The scene in the Myers House basement is almost exactly the same as the "sissy Michael" attic scene in Halloween 5.

And for the record, I'd give the workprint a C/C+.

Yeah, Zombie just ins't a very good writer......at all. Every other conversation in this movie is about tits, fucking, pussy, fags, cock, or some variation of the five and are mostly accompanied by forced swear words. The beginning of the movie especially is guilty of this and gets the film off to a wretched start. And for the love of god Rob, stop putting that talentless bitch of a wife of yours in your movies, because she can't act worth shit. But then that classic music starts and you can forgive the weird juxtaposition with the onscreen imagery and allow the rush of nostalgia to overcome you. Despite my hatred for the opening scenes, the murder of Michael's sister, stepfather and the boyfriend were well done and brutal and everything that followed in the asylum was pretty effective as well. And then Rob has to revel in his own perversion again and forces a disgusting rape scene on us that has absolutely no justification for being in the movie (thankfully I hear the final cut removes this). The bit at the truckstop is cool, simply for the fact that Rob used Rush's Tom Sawyer in the background. And then we're off to Hadonfield and Laurie Strode, who is well played, but severely underwritten. Her moments with the kids are really good and she screams really well. Despite the fact that Michael is not really that scary (nothing really is these days after having grown up on these slasher movies), he is an awesome presence and pretty much all the death scenes are cool and well directed. Ummmmm......yeah, Malcolm McDowell is incredibly bad in this movie and took me out of it whenever he was onscreen. I could actually tell from his body language that he was uncomfortable with some of the shit he was uttering. The workprint ending could have been sad if it hadn't been handled so terribly. Maybe some slo-mo and freebird blaring could have saved it....

So basically for some of the well handled early Myers portions, the kick ass music, the cool grown up Myers, the death scenes, some of the visuals and Laurie and the kids, I give the Halloween workprint a C+.

For the love of god, people are actually voting? The version you saw wasn't even the real film! And someone already voted and F! WOOT WOOT!

Shit. Reshoots can't save this turd. Just awful. In every conceivable way.

F

Thank you for your input. Really.

Christ I was a moron because I watched this.

A person taking a shit would be more entertaining, please Rob go back to music you are actually decent at that. Is it worse then The Devils Rejects? Not quite it has a few bursts of style, this saves it from an F but not by much

D-

I can't imagine the full cut being much better. I'm 100% with Neil on this one.

It's like it was written by a twelve year old who's just discovered swearing and fantasises about getting back at the bullies and girls at his school.

For the workprint one, C+
The main problems with the entire movie is we see way to much of Micheal. We see him in the original but no the point were we know how laughable the "monster" actually is. Points in the film I tried to hold it back because he's just standing their and its, just unintentionally funny..what works with the original is we see but not completely all the time and it gives us suspense on who he is. The background history on Micheal is fine, but I dont entirely care for it. I would have liked more character development on Laurie, because we get nothing on her, were literally thrusted into the final act. It has a good amount of style, and decent kills but the kills are never unexpected agian because we have full shots of Micheal approaching his victims. Which is fine but at least some nice sex scenes, then bam there dead. My main problem is Laurie, she is not as strong as Curtis in the original, and her and Micheal never have this understanding which you can tell Laurie and Micheal in the original do. But it was pretty entertaining and the little chase between Lauria and Micheal near the end is quite good. See how the theatrical cut improves or not.

So it's a disgrace to the first? Is the back story for Michael atleast "interesting"? Remakes to movies that were good in the first place shouldn't be allowed.

We now have two backstories for Michael:

Backstory A -- he's really the product of some freaky scientists/cultists who cursed him with ancient magic, or

Backstory B -- he's the product of a parody-like white-trash family.

Also, when i saw michael all grown up i thought to myself, what a huge motherfucker!
He was so huge he made someone like Danny Trejo look like a little boy, thats amazing.