Quelle surprise, eh? Halloween is upon us and – guess what – we talked about Halloween movies on the podcast. Well, suffice it to say that I don’t think it will have been the last time this happened because this franchise has at least one or two more entries that are interesting (or controversial) enough to fit within the parameters of the show, but for this particular occasion we rolled out the big guns.

Yes, in the Halloween episode of the show we discussed Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake of John Carpenter’s 1978 original as well as its 2009 successor. And, boy, was this a debate! Come to think of it, I didn’t exactly expect this episode to become anything less than emotionally charged given the fact I know what kind of movies Rob Zombie makes and the most polite way I can define him as a director is to say his movies are an ‘acquired taste’, with a heavy proviso that they are most assuredly not for everyone. He doesn’t make horror movies to show your girlfriend who says she’s into horror. His movies require you to remove your moral compass for the duration of the movie to avoid dying of gross disgust. And even though his entries to the Halloween franchise were somewhat tamed by the requirements of the series and other people imposing limits on what he could and could not do in an effort to drive the viewer well over the limit of what is typically considered good taste, they were sufficiently gross, exploitative and gratuitous to make the idea of Rob Zombie as a director a focal point for the entire debate. But that’s not even the half of it. We also did talk about his connection to the exploitation cinema of the 1970s, the flawed notion of humanizing Michael Myers, the stylistic over-the-topness of both movies and we even got to dig a bit deeper into the sequel, to which the panel had a much warmer approach.

Tune in and enjoy your Halloween with us!

But be warned, the conversation in this episode may be unsettling to some listeners due to the graphic and disturbing content discussed within it.

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