Preface to Halloween: John Carpenter vs. Rob Zombie

Since this was to be my first Major Writing Assignment of my first quarter attending college, I decided to write about something with which I was already comfortable, namely film. Since high school, I have written extensively about cinema, and have penned countless film reviews and articles, so it seemed a natural choice. Since this was a contrast/comparison paper, it seemed like a perfect forum to compare a classic horror film with its modern day counterpart. Not only could I illustrate the differences between production values and style, I could also explore the major themes, and how they reflect the culture and time period in which they were filmed. In addition, I did not want to simply show how one was inferior or superior to the other, since in many ways these values are entirely subjective, so I decided to pick a film whose remake displayed some merit as well, but worked on a much different level. So, I took the film that officially kick-started the slasher genre, and the remake filmed by a shock rocker-turned filmmaker.

Prior to starting college this January, I had spent several years writing only sporadically, and had received practically no feedback on what little I did pen. Being that this was the first MWA of the quarter, the rough draft of this piece reflects it. Working on automatic, I had fallen into several stylistic ruts, and my predisposition to run-on sentences had again gotten out of control. Since I had been writing specifically to niche audiences for quite a few years—cinephiles in particular—I had forgotten how to reach a general audience. The feedback I received on this essay brought to light both of these issues, but hopefully my rewrite succeeds in rectifying this.