Everything Old is New Again. Again.

Despite the underwhelming box office performance this past weekend of Rob Zombie's Halloween II, Dimension, the studio behind it, announced a new sequel for next summer. This is only marginally interesting because A) Rob Zombie won't be involved and B) It's gonna be in 3-D. Studio head Bob Weinstein, in announcing the sequel said they were "in negotiations with a new director who has experience with horror and has a different take on the franchise." Rumors surfaced today about who that director may be, and let's just say, I doubt horror fans are too excited. The best source for all things horror movie, Bloody-Disgusting.com is reporting that Steve Miner might be the man. Miner, who's made a 3-D movie before, certainly has "experience with horror" as the guy who directed Friday the 13th Part 2 (a film so incompetently directed that there are POV shots in the movie where people look directly into the camera, indicating that they, in fact, would be looking directly at Jason) and the sequel, Friday the 13th Part 3 in 3-D. This movie is a ton of fun, because the acting is so bad, the directing so poor, and the 3-D gags so cheesy that I can honestly say that any time it hits a revue cinema, I do whatever I can to go see it. However, none of those things would make me want to actually hire this man to direct a movie. And don't get your hopes up for "a different take on the franchise" cause we've already seen that. Miner was the guy they hired when they "re-booted" the franchise back in 1998 with Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Jamie Lee Curtis' return to the franchise.

I understand that horror films are like the fast food of the film industry. There's not a lot of care ken in the production of these movies, and they're often churned out as quickly and as cheaply as possible, but how lazy can it get? They've already recycled the Halloween plot over and over again until after twenty years of sequels, they brought back Jamie Lee Curtis to play Laurie Strode so they could finally have Michael Myers kill her. After another pointless sequel (with a recycled director, Rick Rosenthal, the director of the original Halloween II came back to shoot the embarrassing Halloween: Resurrection, which saw Busta Rhymes try a kung-fu move on Michael Myers) they finally had to scrap it all and re-start it from the beginning so Myers could stalk Laurie Strode again. Now, after two shitty Strode "reboot" films, they're back to recycling a director who previously made an unimpressive entry in the series to make Halloween 3-D? Really? Getting rid of Rob Zombie's a great start, but recycling a director with zero good horror movies on his resume is a classic case of one step forward two steps back. And the step backwards is directly into a pile of dog shit.

UPDATE: Steve Miner will not be directing Halloween 3-D; but it will be someone with links to Miner's Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later.. It was announced September 7th that Patrick Lussier, the man behind My Bloody Valentine 3-D will direct the sequel. Lussier has a history with Dimension, as he was the editor on the Scream films as well has Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later. Expect a by-the-numbers slasher with an emphasis on fun rather then scares.