Best Fan Film. Ever.

My cousin Mat is back from boot camp . He's a private 2nd Class, United States Army, now. He's a good kid, and still a kid at heart even at 21. My aunt and uncle had a cookout, and Mat assured there was a huge inflatable bouncing house (shaped like a purple dragon).

TKJr spent the entire day in there, jumping to his content. Let me tell you, his content is HUGE. He requested that I join him several times. I reluctantly agreed. At one point, I had 4 little kids shooting me and blasting me with Force powers to knock me over so they could pig pile me.

It turns out Star Wars is popular with the youngins. I didn't bring it up, nor was I wearing a SW T shirt today. I was pleasantly surprised, and delighted to join in and try to convince them that the Jedi are the bad guys.

Had I know, I would have brought my armor.

At any rate, TKJr had a blast, and wore himself out jumping all day. Isabel entertained herself with my cousins' 2 cats and dog. She loves puppies.

Last night I watched Rob Zombie's Halloween. I was a tad closed minded going in, I must admit. Some movies can stand a remake. Some, however, are damn near perfect the first time around and don't need to be retold. Halloween was perfect. It stands the test of time. It's unsettling and frightening in it's simplicity. The Shape: Heartless, remorseless, relentless. A blank face with no eyes that just did not stop.

His origin was disturbing because of it's simplicity. Just the notion that some generic middle class suburban family could produce a sociopath of such monstrous proportion out of thin air was scary. That one night he unleashed his demon, and then quietly brooded for fifteen years before unleashing it again.

Zombie went in a different direction. He lowered the tax bracket of the Myers family, and spent the first third of the movie humanizing Michael. You get to know the boy. You begin to feel for him a bit, though you're shown pretty damn quick what a monster he already is.

Rob then quickly blows through the rest of the movie, dispensing with most of, if not all, the character development of the original. Sadly, he also dispenses with everything that made the original scary. There's no fear to be had here, just the thrill of watching a madman go to work.

Not that that is without it's charms. I'm just saying.

What am I saying? I didn't dislike it. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. It was engaging, well executed, and I liked it. Most importantly, it didn't shit on the original. Zombie took his favorite movie and put his own stamp on it. I'm cool with that.