Don't Remakes Blow?

"In general, pride is at the bottom of all mistakes." - John Ruskin

I don't absolutely hate remakes of past films. Everybody loves Reservoir Dogs, which is widely considered to be a remake of Stanley Kubrick's The Killing. And the remake of Hitchcock's Rear Window, Disturbia, that wasn't such a bad film. Usually though, it's the remakes of horror movies. Some of the scariest movies of all time are being remade for some quick cash at the cost of good acting, writing, and sometimes directing.

The man behind most of these remakes is Hollywood staple Michael Bay, the director behind some of the most action packed, explosive, slow motioned movies in recent years. Michael Bay is a lot like Steven Speilberg when producing, the only difference being that Spielberg produces okay films while Bay produces really shit remakes. I think the first was a remake of the backwoods drive in movie The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Now I kind of liked this one because it had a spacier atmosphere, characters I cared more about, over the top sadistic villains, and R. Lee Ermey. This movie had a good director and a good writer to boot. It seemed to have everything the original didn't, though the original is better from a professional point of view. This was followed by a sequel that was less satisfying but passable nonetheless.

After TCM, there was the remake of an eerie haunted house film The Amityville Horror. This movie totally ignored the prospect of the film being based on an actual event and just made it a hollywood film. And sure it has a budget and stars who can act but all and all it is turned into a very cheesy and less than scary movie.

Next they remade a favorite horror thriller of mine, The Hitcher. Though good casting choices were made with Sean Bean replacing Rutger Hauer (they are both menacing but Rutger is just scarier) and the ever sexy Sophia Bush portraying the now female hero, I did not wish to see it because I just didn't want to see the same movie. Maybe it was scary. Doubtful.

Then there is what may possibly be the thirteenth Friday the 13th movie, though this one is a remake. I was pretty pissed to find Jason as the killer in this movie instead of his mother Pamela, you know back when the plot made sense. Under these terms and the fact that I had grown weary of another Jason movie not involving Freddy, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Pinhead, or Ash Williams I did not see the movie. What would I have seen anyway: horny teenagers go down to Camp Crystal Lake to smoke pot, get drunk and have sex and Jason comes out and slaughters them? Now there's something new! Is he gonna get outsmarted and 'killed' by the last guy and girl? Is he gonna show some sign that he's alive at the exact moment the movie ends? Nah, maybe after a 25 year series of nothing but that they've learned their lesson.

And if Michael Bay still hasn't gotten it through his head that these films are ruining modern day horror fans' senses of classic fear, he's currently remaking A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Birds. Fuck you, hollywood!

Oh but there have been other remakes in the past like Psycho, an almost shot for shot remake of the 60s classic thriller. I've unfortunately only seen the ending of the original Pyscho so I can't really compare but I suppose the remake is good. Vince Vaughn plays a great creep. And this movie was directed by Academy Award nominated director Gus Van Sant. If you want to see it go ahead but still you should probably see the original first.

Then the movie largely inspired by Psycho, Halloween, was remade by musician and horror director Rob Zombie. I was excited when I found that it was going to be a prequel as well as a remake and I was also impressed with Zombie's previous film The Devil's Rejects so I gave the Halloween remake a shot. That shot was wasted unfortunately. While well directed and at times well written, the movie supplied me with nothing more. I think the problem was Zombie trying to put his stamp on the prequel story, which didn't seem like the Michael Myers story I was wanting to see. On top of that most of the acting sucked and the remake half of the movie was a bit bland and stupid. Now Zombie is making the sequel, but I'm again intrigued: partly because Zombie has said he is free to create his own world and do what he wants with the story (though he pretty much did this to the other one) and also because he always sounds like he knows exacly what he's doing, like he won't let us down. I just hope the charismatic bastard doesn't sucker me into to watching this one too.

But I think my favorite remake of all time, would be one of a movie I have not seen, The Thing From Another World. John Carpenter, the original Halloween director, remade this film in his vision as The Thing. And a fine film it is. Remake artists can learn a valuable lesson from this movie: if you are going to remake something, add something new to the material. Give it more interesting characters, add amazing special effects instead of a tin foil man, or blow shit up. Give it something that wasn't there before to make us feel like we aren't watching the same movie. That's what Carpenter did and his movie is great.

I think my main problem with remakes though is that they lead people, who have not seen the originals, into thinking something that is less scary is actually more terrifying. The remakes of Halloween, Amityville Horror, and probably even Friday the 13th are not as scary as the originals, they are jam packed with everything that would've ruined those good movies in the first place. I think if a remake is to be shown in theatres the original movie should also be shown before it. I don't know. I just pray that these remakes will end very soon and we can get back to original ideas. Seriously, all Hollywood is doing is stalling so they can get new ideas. And I for one find that to be bullshit. Just swallow your pride and say you need help!

This has been a poorly structered complaint from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.