Rob Zombie’s HALLOWEEN Hits the Internet Before Movie Theatres

August 29th, 2007 by Scott Marks

So I’m having lunch at the only quality hot dog joint in San Diego and, as always, talking movies. One of the owners, we’ll call him “Buddy,” asks if I saw Rob Zombie’s take on the Halloween saga. Seeing that the film is pretty much “critic proof,” the studio refused to screen it until the day before it opens.

“I saw it,” “Buddy” tells me before breaking into a crap-eating grin. (People seem to take great delight in having seen a movie before I do. Poor guy hasn’t seen one Sam Fuller film and he’s tickled because he watched a new movie on his computer. Thank God the hot dogs are good!)

It seems that Buddy is privy to an internet site, he called it a “BitTorrent Tracker,” that makes new movies available to internet pirates, in some cases before they hit multiplexes.

I can’t tell you how many times rent-a-cops frisk me for photographic equipment just prior to screenings. My goal is to forget 90% of the films I see, not preserve them on my cell phone. These internet copies don’t come from critics any more than they do morons parked in the back row with a camcorder aimed at the screen. Are the studios in total denial? In the case of Halloween, the copy is a work print that could have only come from an insider.

Legend has it that when the mongrel sh*tberg’s E.T. opened at the Edens Theatre in
Northbrook, IL, there was a truck parked out back with a TeleCine tucked inside. As soon as reel one came off the projector it was brought to the truck and transferred to video.

This nonsense has been going on for decades and one question remains: Who in their right mind would want to see a video on TV when they could go to a theatre and watch it on a big screen with superior sound? I don’t care how good your home “theatre” is, it’s no match for the moviegoing experience.

One complaint that I constantly hear is how much it costs to take a family to the movies. If you’re the type of parent who would encourage their offspring to watch fuzzy video dupes over 35mm prints, you should have your kids taken away.

I asked “Buddy” for the name of the site, but he refused to cough it up in fear that I’d turn his ass in. Without throwing ”Buddy” under the bus, I’d love to see these bastards go down.

I’ll do the right thing, see it tomorrow night at the Edwards’ Mira Mesa and get back to you.

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