Rob Zombie's Halloween Was So Bloody That One Star's Wife Walked Out Of The Premiere

Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of "Halloween" found a new angle on John Carpenter's seminal 1978 slasher classic. A new angle was required because Zombie's film was the ninth "Halloween" film, and the material was running a little thin. Also, the "Halloween" movies, while beloved by horror fans, were becoming increasingly dodgy; "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" (1995) was a terrible, re-cut mess, and "Halloween: Resurrection" (2002) was just plainly bad. Rob Zombie's remake of the original was more of an origin story than a slasher, and the results were at least original. Zombie chose to focus on the early days of Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch), examining his broken home life, the ignored stages of his early psychosis, and his journey to becoming a masked, mute, serial killer (played as an adult by Tyler Mane). 

The film is painful and bleak, focusing on the brutality of Michael's murders, and the cynicism that surrounds them; there is more crying in Zombie's "Halloween" than any of the previous "Halloween" movies. Zombie had previously directed equally brutal and bleak films like "House of 1,000 Corpses," so his violent milieu was well-known to fans and critics. 

Malcolm McDowell played Michael Myer's psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis, in Zombie's "Halloween," and he did an exemplary job of embodying a concerned, caring shrink who has, through years of analysis, concluded that Michael is too far gone to be saved. Michael is, succinctly, just plain evil now. McDowell attended the premiere of "Halloween" with his wife, Kelley Kuhr, back in 2007, and the actor knew what to expect. Kuhr, however, didn't, and was startled by the film's overwhelming brutality. McDowell was interviewed in the latest issue of Empire Magazine, and he told the story of how his wife walked out of the premiere. (The actor himself, more tactfully, stayed.)

During his conversation, McDowell mused about what kind of a man Dr. Loomis might be, noting that he must be a terrible shrink. After all, he had been treating the same patient for 17 years, and as soon as that patient escaped an asylum, the patient immediately began butchering people with impunity. Loomis, McDowell said, would never touch a firearm, making him different from the Loomis from John Carpenter's original (the version played by Donald Pleasance). Loomis' ego and incompetence would be more sharply highlighted in Zombie's 2009 follow-up "Halloween II." 

McDowell says he had a good time on the set of "Halloween," even if he was making a brutal movie. When it came time to actually watch the film, however, McDowell's wife could not abide the violence. The actor recalls: 

"I did enjoy doing it, because I did love Rob Zombie. I never saw the original. I still haven't. But I didn't need to see it to know exactly what it was like. Rob's take on it was pretty bloody. I think my wife only lasted five minutes at one of the premieres. She was up and out of there. I said, 'If I'm seen leaving my own movie, it's not good. I'd better stay.'"

McDowell stayed to the end. "Halloween" ended up being a big hit, making over $80 million at the box office. As mentioned, it warranted a sequel from Zombie, which was too wild for most mainstream audiences. McDowell and Zombie would work together a third time in 2016, with the actor appearing in the killer clown movie "31." Zombie's last movie was the 2022 comedy "The Munsters," while McDowell (82) remains prolific, set to appear in three movies in 2026.