The web site for this August’s new spin on the Halloween franchise has gone live, featuring a pretty substantive trailer warning that viewers must be “age-appropriate.” OK, thanks. Written and directed by Rob Zombie, the film is of course an origin story of sorts, with Malcolm McDowell inheriting the role of Dr. Loomis, made so famous earlier in the series by the late Donald Pleasance. I’ll be getting into this more later in the summer, but I’m not necessarily one of those franchise purists automatically set to hate this picture. Zombie, after all, did some pretty amazing things with The Devil’s Rejects, which was merrily depraved and of a singular vision, whatever one’s value judgment of it. In old-school fashion, though, I do miss the frittered-away, tattoo-fed, man-in-black plot strands of Halloween V. Call me crazy, I guess. I would’ve loved to have seen something pick up on those, though maybe they’ll be interwoven into this picture, if only slightly; Zombie was noncommittal on that matter when I last interviewed him. At any rate, the trailer works as a sort of sermon to the choir, I guess, but younger genre fans may need a more focused sales job. To access the Halloween site, click here. Be aware, though, that its base-level sound is cranked to bejesus-high levels.