Rob Zombie remakes 'Halloween '

Rob Zombie is to direct a remake of

John Carpenter's classic 1978 slasher film Halloween. The former White Zombie singer will begin work on the film shortly, which is scheduled for release in October 2007.

Zombie has previously directed House Of 1000 Corpses in 2003 and The Devil's Rejects in 2005.

Speaking to Yahoo!, Zombie revealed that his version won't just be a retread of the original.

He said: "I basically went back and just came up with the idea of basically--not essentially a remake, but a very extended prequel, sort of combined with an update, say, of the first film.

"You're starting from scratch but in sort of a more detailed way. That's the way I thought it would be exciting for fans of the original, because it's not just the same old thing, and it would be exciting for people that never saw the original."

The original Halloween followed a masked murderer named Michael Myers who returns to his hometown to begin a new killing spree decades after being committed to an asylum.

Zombie said that other characters from the original, in addition to Myers, would appear in his script, which is in its early stages.

The singer is also set to contribute a story to the forthcoming graphic novel Spookshow International.