The advance word on Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake/origin story hasn’t exactly been lighting things up, and the movie’s press day yesterday in Los Angeles was, according to one colleague, full of plenty of awkward silences. Another colleague, whose opinion I typically respect, laced into the movie for about a full 15 minutes recently. The gratuitous violence for violence’s sake was one aspect he found objectionable, but he also said it was riddled with lapses in logic, and basically suffered from a schizophrenic storyline that spends 50 minutes or so trying to explain Michael Myers’ actions by delving into his adolescence, then jettisons any potential causal relationship by having him snuff a sympathetic guard and deemed “just evil.” So which is it, my friend asked, seemingly justifiably. I’ll have more on the film next week, after I catch it. In the meantime, regardless of where this latest entry takes us or how it plays, this superb documentary on the series will whet your appetite anew.