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Michael Myers is a perfect psychopath. He's called Satan at one point in "Halloween," the Antichrist at another. And those don't quite do him justice.

A superior remake of John Carpenter's high-pitched 1978 classic, Rob Zombie's latest flick is told in three heart-jolting, awesome acts.

Act 1: Twenty-or-so minutes of Eminem as a deranged little kid. Cuddly animals, a bully and his stripper-mom's deadbeat boyfriend all feel the consequences of occupying the same general space with an ugly kid who has no soul. He doesn't quite kill the bully; just beats him into a bloody, gurgling, twitchy mess. His mom's evil boyfriend, though, gets the hell killed out of him. So does his half sister.

We now pause for a moment to reflect on Zombie's genius. There have been many, many bad gory movies released in recent years. I've heard "Hostel," "The Hills Have Eyes," "Saw" — and the like — referred to as "torture porn," which is appropriate. Zombie's movie doesn't fall into this category because (a) the torture scenes are not the sole reason "Halloween" exists; they're appropriate within the story and actually serve to enhance the film's admittedly disturbing theme and (b) because there's much more to his film than those other sorry clumps of sell-out detritus.

Somehow, Myers can tape a disabled guy to a chair and slit his throat and it doesn't come across as gratuitous. We seen "Hostel" and "Final Destination" do these scenes over an over with varying (though alway high) degrees of stupidity, so doesn't it make sense that it's at least possible to do them well? "Halloween" ends the argument. I hope the suits behind those misfires see "Halloween" and feel stupid, but they've probably pulled too much green to feel anything.

Little Myers gets locked up and pulls one last kill, forking the neck of a nurse, before his mom — whom he spared because he's a little too in love with her — freaks out. She's front-row for the carnage, and her last scene is an ocean of personal refection and guilt. She watches home movies of her and Michael, looking like a normal mom and son. How, she seems to wonder, could I have created this monster? He's a devil on Earth, and I gave birth to him. (Zombie's wife, Sheri Moon, plays the stripper mama. She looks just as great here as in all her hubby's movies. No freaky "Baby" laugh this time, though.)

Act 2: The escape. Brilliant shrink Sam Loomis (played by Malcolm McDowell, whose icy voice suits the material) tells Myers he can't treat him after 15 years of one-sided therapy (Myers hasn't spoken since stabbing the nurse). The flash-forward gives us a new version of our unlovable Antichrist. Before, he was nuts but still just a child. Now, he's an actual monster.

He's 6-foot-8 (Jesus), and what horrible luck that the single most insane human being on the planet also happens to have the body of an in-his-prime NBA power forward. This is the shortest of the three acts, and consists mostly of crazy-violent guard killing, including a water-torture scene involving the only man who was ever nice to Myers. Zombie sets this man up to live, like Myers will slash the throats of all the surrounding security and then spare his "buddy" after years of kindness. The buddy gets it worse than anyone. ("Hello?!" Zombie's saying with this scene, "The guy's a vicious killer with no soul!")

Act 3: Halloween. Oh, yeah, this is a remake of an older movie... Until Act 3, "Halloween" is, story wise, very different than its inspiration. Myers was a killer kid for all of 10 one-take minutes at the start of Carpenter's original, and then he was suddenly escaping from prison and terrorizing Jamie Lee Curtis 15 years later. Halfway through Zombie's film, we've reached the scenes that actually mirror the old version. It's been a bloody ride to this point, but Zombie maximizes his killing machine's potential over the final hour.

He's after his 16-year-old younger sister, who survived his horrific family massacre when she was a baby. Now she's a hot high schooler, with hot high school friends. They're all obsessed with sex, though Laurie — his target — doesn't have any. Whether this matters I won't say. But all the high school sex is an intentional tool of Zombie's to put the viewer in a place he or she (well, he) would rather not be. Carpenter's film had Jamie Lee smoking pot in her car before getting attacked. All the mentions of Myers as "The Boogeyman" were like the worst manifestations of uptight parents' warnings. "Do drugs, have sex, and the Boogeyman will come get you." He's frequently referred to as a Boogeyman in the new version, too, and there's no drugs but many sex scenes.

The climax is a long, horrific ordeal. Myers is freakishly strong, like Barry Bonds, and smashes through every obstacle in his path, like Barry Bonds. He kills teenagers and adults in ways we've never seen before in film, yet no death scene goes over-the-top into eye rolling territory. They're just scary. Nasty.

The final minutes are truly classic, like Zombie floored the horror-movie accelerator before crashing into the credits. We should expect such quality work from the twisted, bearded one. He is the only director who can consistently produce good mainstream horror films, and he's found a perfect canvas for his psychotic brand of film magic in Michael Myers. The gore never gets to be too much, because the film is such a blazing entertainment.

Wait for Halloween or head to the theater this weekend. Whichever. "Halloween" screams to be seen. Great films are rarely soaked with the blood of baby-sitters.