Whether you love the Rob Zombie Halloween films or consider them to be a stain on this long-running slasher series, there’s no denying their uniqueness in a franchise that has often opted for more of the same. And though the 2007 remake and its 2009 follow-up fared about as well with critics as any of the previous Michael Myers sequels, they both performed pretty respectively at the box office, raising the question of why a third installment never saw the light of day.
As a producer on both Zombie movies and the new David Gordon Green-helmed flick, Malek Akkad is in a pretty good position to shed some light on the situation, and in an interview with Bloody Disgusting, he offered a little context on their decision to reboot once more.
“That’s where the Rob Zombie film comes. I know Rob Zombie’s films, like every single one of these films, they’ve got their die hard fans and their detractors,” Akkad said. “That’s one of the beauties of horror films is that people just love to debate and talk about them and discuss them. We did the Rob Zombie era if you will. We did two films with Rob which we didn’t really know we were going to do two. We never considered doing three. So after two of those, I didn’t really see any other director continuing in Rob’s voice a part three and using those characters that he had set up.”
Indeed, for better or worse, Zombie’s filmmaking personality oozes from both of his movies in a way that we arguably haven’t seen from any other director involved in the series since John Carpenter’s 1978 original. So if a third film were to continue in the grisly and polarizing style of the first two, it’s hard to imagine anyone but Zombie being right for the job.
Subsequently, the latest Halloween would mark a return to the original Laurie Strode and Michael Myers we remember from the old days, wiping the not just the Zombie movies but every other prior sequel from the series timeline. And while the Scout Taylor-Compton-led films will always have their fans, the consensus is clear among critics and audiences alike that Green’s more traditional take on the horror saga is the generally preferred version.
As for Zombie, he’s currently making a third installment from another psycho-centric series, with Three from Hell due for release some time next year.
