[LoudLon]

I got to see a sneak peek of it Wednesday night courtesy of a friend of a friend who manages a local cinema. Sure, not as great as the original (natch') but I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy it.

The first ten minutes, as stated, don't give much hope...but once it gets into the territory of young Michael and his new shrink (played expertly by Malcolm McDowell) it gets better.

It's definitely a Rob Zombie flick; he went out of his way to make it his own. I won't go into details since no one's seen it yet and I don't want to ruin it with spoilers...but I think Zombie overall did a good job with it. It's quite chilling in parts, and though I was sure the "backstory" would be empty and hokey, I was surprised with how deep Zombie went with it.

Is it great? No. Is it much better than I'd expected? Yep. It'll definitely be a love it or hate it kind of flick. Me, I find myself siding with it. Can't hold a candle to the original (as most remakes) but like the Dawn remake, much better than I would have ever expected.