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I found Rob Zombie's take on Halloween to be insufferable. Lacking everything that made the original appealing and containing Zombie's requisite amount of excessive vulgarity, it ranks as one of the worst remakes I have ever seen. To date I have yet to see the sequel, but if it's anything like the first, I have very little hope for it. Then it was announced that the next installment in beating a horse to death would be in the third dimension.

These plans have not changed, as Bloody Disgusting reports that the Weinstein Company is going to take Halloween 3, which was initially slated for a 2011 release date, in a new direction and are currently "open for pitches." Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer, who worked on My Bloody Valentine 3D together, were originally slated to bring Michael Myers into the third dimension, but as B-D notes, whether or not they're still attached to the project is anyone's guess.

While I'm sure the film will eventually get made, we can only hope they decide to eschew the third dimension in favor of, you know, a good story and competent acting. 3-D works in only a limited number of scenarios, and a slasher film is NOT one of them. I don't care how many eyeballs or pick axes get thrown at the screen, it ultimately serves as nothing more than a distraction.

Even though Platinum Dunes remade the 1979 film The Amityville Horror back in 2005, the Weinstein Company and Dimension Films on planning on remaking it, again. Bloody-Disgusting broke the news that execs are already discussing the project with a director, which leads me to think that the film could launch into production early in the new year.

Andrew Douglas' 2005 remake of the supernatural horror grossed over $100 million worldwide and I'm sure that Weinstein is hoping third time's a charm for them. Perhaps Weinstein was also motivated by the success of Paranormal Activity. Whatever the reason, this move reeks of desperation. The company has recently admitted to facing a serious financial crisis and recently tried to claw their way out of a hole by way of another horror remake--Rob Zombie's Halloween I & II. I expect that they plan on starting a whole new franchise with Amityville since the original spawned 8 other films.

I enjoyed the original Amityville but didn't like the rest of the series. The 2005 remake was pretty terrible; I mean, it had Van Wilder in it, c'mon. It seems pointless to remake something so soon but perhaps it will justify itself unlike the last one. MGM holds different rights to the film and were planning on developing The Amityville Tapes, so we may be seeing yet another version pop up soon.

The 1979 film, The Amityville Horror, is based off the bestselling novel of the same name by Jay Anson. it chronicles the reported real-life paranormal experiences of the Lutz family who move into a new home that was the site of a mass murder.

Someone needs to give the Weinstein company a run down of the method behind making and releasing movies as they seem to have forgotten the process. According to their business model, they believe they can release a bad movie (Rob Zombies Halloween II), announce a 3D sequel to it a week after it's tepid performance at the box office (this time in 3D and without Rob Zombie), sign a director to make the film in November (My Bloody Valentine 3D helmer Patrick Lussier), and then after all those commitments are done, think about taking a look at the script. Now there are a few obvious flaws with that production pattern, but the specific cause of the temporary undoing of Halloween 3D lays with the script, which, according to Deadline Hollywood, is not in a refined enough state to meet the November production deadline.

So what's the Weinstein's plan of action? Put the intriguing Halloween 3D on the back burner and put the critically hated and commercially limp Halloween II into theaters a second time. Because, ya' know, apparently no one told them it was word-of-mouth (and general disinterest) that killed it at the box office. Now, a cynic like me will say that the American movie-going public has a very short memory, but even I think it's not that short. Come October people will look up showtimes on a Friday night and ask a buddy, "Didn't that terrible Halloween II movie come out two months ago?"

Granted the re-release is confined to select markets, but it still seems laughably redundant at this point. I can understand if you don't want to rush Halloween 3D, but don't just put out, literally, the same crap in the mean time.