I think McDowell was awful in both films, much worse in the second.
As I said, a brother trying to save his very morally bound sister and a patch up a relationship that he screwed up, and giving a woman that was involved with a horrible relationship the kind of guy that she deserved if they both survived had me more invested than anything about the characters in Zombie's films did.
lol. Well I don't think we're going to find much common ground, but I think we can keep it civil.
I liked MacDowell quite a bit and his relationship with Michael really was the driving force of RZH. That is why I think that movie worked, especially with the work print ending. The best scenes were easily Loomis interviewing Michael as a child and the climax isn't Michael reaching Laurie in the swimming pool, but Loomis reaching out and confronting Michael, someone he admits is his "best friend."
Yeah, your description of the protagonists of FT13 sounds like some interesting leads, but it's lipservice. Their backstories are not important to the series. They're window dressing or a backdrop to gain quick audience sympathy. But despite the guy saying this to the cop and his new gal pal, there is no actual psychological development of what this is doing to him or of his personality, really. It serves no purpose to the movie and is just filler so the audience has someone to root for. We never see anything from Whitney that deals with this pain. We actually see Loomis and Michael's connection and see their relationship develop, as well as see the destruction of his sympathy and it leading to his sad mother to slowly lose hope. There is some meat to that movie and even though H2 is a bad film, Laurie's arc is actually crucial. Her discovering she is Mike's sister and her bad dreams involve her entirely empathetic path of self-destruction. There is nothing that interesting in FT3.
As I mentioned in my review, I think Loomis going out in H2, and to a lesser extent even in the first one, just felt tacked on because it's like Zombie suddenly realized at the tale end that he was supposed to be more than a 1D ******* so he threw something in there in a weak, underdeveloped attempt at making him somewhat likable at the last second.
And I'd agree with you on Loomis's depiction in H2.
and I think H2 is better than RZH btw, but they're both terrible.
Really?
Really?! Ok. Agree to disagree on that one.
Jason was PERFECT in F13, and I cared about atleast a few of his victims...
That may be, but I never cared for Jason and the movie gave me no reason to start doing it now. And why would you care about any of the victims? They are interchangeable cliches. Yeah, Zombie is guilty of populating his movies with them too, but was there anyone in it whose death was as sad as Annie's or as fully developed as Laurie, Sheriff Brackett or Dr. Loomis (whether you like this interpretation or not)? I thought they were really pretty future soap actors in FT13 waiting to get skewered, myself.
As you said yourself and I was going to point, of course you think F1309 sucked...you think F13 in general and even the genre in general, which is why it wasn't made for you.
touché.
I was the target audience for both, I've loved both since childhood and I find the original Halloween, which is the film was directly remaking last time, far superior to any F13 films...and I find F1309 to be very good, and RZH and H2 to both be cinematic abortions. Both two of the worst films of the years that they came out (and I'm a hardcore horror fan, it pains me to hate a Michael or Jason film so much that I have to put in that category, but Rob has done that now..twice).
To each their own. But based just on cinematic qualities, RZH (which is no screen gem) has more to offer than any FT13 film ever made and H2 may, but it is pretty bottom rung. I personally love Carpenter's original and find the original Halloween II a pretty good follow-up that is quite satisfying. I also liked Curtis's performance in H20 enough to overlook how boring that movie otherwise was. And...I like Scream? See...I don't hate
all slashers. 
