Metacritic reviews

Zombie delivers a scary horror movie immediately recognizable as his own -- something that will come as a welcome relief to fans who've diligently sat through seven "Halloween" sequels in hopes of one day reliving the original's terrifying magic.

Horrific as it is, Halloween isn’t so much a horror film as a biopic, and a superb one at that.

Halloween is a real, classic-style horror movie, not an exercise in gross special effects. Oh, and for those who’ve missed Carpenter’s classic, this will scare the candy corn out of you, but the original is still champion.

As it stands, he made a noble attempt, and it could've been a Hell of a lot worse, but it's not as great a film as its potential hints at.

As usual, Zombie has added an element of camp fun to the proceedings with his clever casting of B-movie icons in small roles, including Dee Wallace, Brad Dourif, Danny Trejo and Sid Haig.

This is not a good movie but, considering what Halloween has evolved into over the course of seven sequels, it's perhaps better than it has a right to be.

It's a more polished, high-fidelity version of a story that's played out on screen many times since 1978, but once Zombie runs out of subtext, he's right back to the same old slasher text: "Blood. Guts. The end."

Filmgoers looking for copious amounts of mindless violence won't be disappointed.

Leaves nothing to the imagination: Michael Myers is always right there in plain sight, committing mayhem sans suspenseful buildup or mystique.

As with Zombie's two previous schlock horror features, "House of 1000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects," the atmosphere here isn't so much tense and jolting as unnervingly weird and gory, but it's effective.