Rob Zombie’s latest clown-based horror film, 31, has recently been released through on-demand services, and that—along with the coming fall season—has got people thinking about his 2007 Halloween remake. The film wasn’t especially well-received, but it made a ton of money primarily on the strength of the Michael Myers brand and how awesome Rob Zombie’s “Dragula” is. Appropriately, then, the changing of the season is also reminding people of a talk that horror icon and original Halloween director John Carpenter gave to the New York Film Academy back in April, in which he called Zombie a “piece of shit” and casually dismissed the remake.
This came during a Q&A section in which a woman asked Carpenter for his thoughts on the remake. He initially explained why remakes are so common these days (money, obviously), and noted that he was fine with the idea of a Halloween remake at first. He says he was “incredibly supportive” of Zombie’s project and told him to “make it [his] own,” but at some point Zombie gave an interview to the History Channel or Biography Channel (Carpenter doesn’t remember which) and lied, claiming that Carpenter was “cold to him” when he said he was remaking Halloween. Carpenter says he doesn’t know why “that piece of shit” lied, but that it “will color” his opinion of the movie now.
That whole thing aside, though, Carpenter still doesn’t like the new Halloween. His criticisms mirror the ones that a lot fans have, specifically that Zombie’s film takes away a lot of the original’s “mystique” by explaining too much about the story. He also says the guy playing Michael Myers was “too big” and didn’t feel real enough. He doesn’t go much further than that, but it’s pretty clear that he’s not a fan of Zombie’s work (though he doesn’t mention “Dragula” at all).
UPDATE: A YouTube video of Carpenter’s chat with the New York Film Academy has been taken down.