vitriol - Horrorphile

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

vitriol - Horrorphile

THOU SHALT NOT PLUNDER ... (a post remake)

October 10th 2008 01:54

I’ll try to keep it brief; I don’t want to sound like a stuck record (although I am starting to sound like a stuck record if you check any of the posts in my vitriol category). Remakes: they give me the shits. As a rule that is, but of course there are exceptions to any rule.

Jessica Harper is disturbed by the prospect of Hollywood remaking Suspiria

Slowly and surely all the modern horror movies are being remade. It’s depressing. Especially when there is nothing wrong with the original, it does everything right, yet the Hollywood machine is programmed to run in circles forever plundering and re-cycling the past instead of invigorating cinema with fresh untapped blood.

John Hurt writhes in agony at the thought of a remake of Alien

I was dismayed when I first learned that George Romero’s seminal Dawn of the Dead (1978) was going to be given the re-envisioning treatment. However, in one of those rare examples Zack Synder’s new look turned out to be rather excellent. However I was utterly mortified when two of my very favourites were plundered: John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985). Rob Zombie completely fucked up as far as I’m concerned, and the less said of Day of the Dead (2008) the better.

The Tall Man does not like the idea of a remake of Phantasm at all

I was very upset when I found out a remake – ahem, re-envisioning – of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) is in pre-production. Ironically though Carpenter’s version is a remake of The Thing From Another World (1951), but it is one of the rare exceptions, where the remake is actually significantly better than the original (and actually stays closer to the literary source material).

An American Werewolf in London behind the scenes

If they can pull off a better werewolf transformation than this I'll eat my boots

I was just as upset when I recently read that Dario Argento’s Suspiria (1977) - the witches' brew to end all witches’ brews - is going to be remade with Natalie Portman in the lead role. John Doe then cries to me the other day that Alan Parker’s superb noir-horror Angel Heart (1987) is also scheduled to go under the Hollywood knife.

James Woods turns into a sadist when a remake of Videodrome is suggested

And the list goes on and on including several other cult classics I'm very fond of; The Omen (1976), My Bloody Valentine (1981), and The Evil Dead (1982) to name a few. This brings me to my Debate Battle! on the untouchable Alien (1979), and leads me to the point of this post: Five firm favourites that have yet to be plundered, but more than likely will. My heart is heavy with anxiety.

1. Alien (1979)
2. Phantasm (1978)
3. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
4. Videodrome (1982)
5. Deep Red (Profondo Rosso) (1975)

And of course The Exorcist (1973), which surprises me since that movie is twenty-five years old. I suppose there’s a few I won’t have to worry about for a while (if at all), simply because they are too way out, existential, weird and … well, I was going to say extreme, but apparently Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is being remade … I was actually referring to David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1976), Andrzej Zulawski’s Possession (1981) and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Santa Sangre (1989), but hey, you never know.

There'll be headaches and tears if anyone comes near Argento's Deep Red

What favourite horror movies do you hope will remain untouched by the dirty hands of producers wanting to remake, re-envision, re-boot and re-package so they can milk a new generation’s hunger for fresh meat by selling them yesterday’s congealed blood?

Vote

Comments (8)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

THE KILLING FLOOR (gore on the cutting room floor)

July 30th 2008 00:31

It’s time for another diatribe. With many, many horror titles being released straight to DVD these days there is a much touted plus factor the distributors try to lure the potential renter/purchaser with: the unrated tag. But just how accurate, or to be more precise, just how rewarding is it?

In America it is optional to submit your movie to the ratings board, the Motion Picture Association of America, which was created in 1968 after the dismantling of the rigid, tyrannical Hays Production Code. A few more changes happened over the years the most significant being in 1984 with the addition of the PG-13 and in 1990 with the changing of the X rating to NC-17 (the same restriction is in place – no one under 17 admitted – but the “porn” stigma was dampened).

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 was butchered

If you wish to have your movie given the official stamp of approval, whether it be a G, PG, PG-13, R or NC-17, then the MPAA logo and respective serial number has to appear at the very bottom of your end credits list. But there are pros and cons for movies which come with the MPAA rating.

The Friday the 13th series suffered horribly

The good side of the coin means, as long as the movie isn’t rated NC-17 it will have a healthy distribution (providing you have a good distribution company working for you) and cinemas will happily book your movie (providing it doesn’t run for three hours or more). With the exception of just a handful most commercial horror movies in America are rated either R (under 17 have to be accompanied by an adult/guardian) or PG-13. Horror fans will generally turn their nose up at a PG-13 rated movie though.

The MPAA has delivered many slaps in the face for gorehounds

Unfortunately if a movie gets slapped with an NC-17 cinema chains tend to baulk at booking the movie, as it still carries the ominous aura of something too sleazy and lurid for mass audience consumption. Horror fans have been crying out for years for an MPAA rating that reflects the horror genre staple elements and not simply a flesh flick for the dirty mac brigade.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning DVD cover art

Of course if you attempt to distribute your movie without an MPAA rating you may as well kiss your box office receipts goodbye. Virtually no cinema chain will book the movie and newspapers will run advertising for it, which brings me to the unrated DVD phenomena.

Video chains don’t have the same attitude of snobbery, although I heard that the Blockbuster chain in America doesn’t carry NC-17 rated titles. Horror movies can carry – and in many cases proudly display on the cover – the unrated tag. For horror fans this supposedly means that violent content, and to a lesser degree sexual content, has not been cut out in order to receive an R rating.

In Australia the rating system is different. It is compulsory to have a movie rated. Most horror movies are rated either M (general admission but recommended for mature audiences), MA (under 15 must be accompanied by adult/guardian) or R (no one under 18 admitted). There is an X rating too, but this is reserved only for sexually explicit hardcore adult movies and those titles are never shown theatrically, and can only be bought or exchanged in adult sex stores. The hypocrisy is that in recent years there have been several “mainstream” movies which have had actual sex in them, yet have carried an R rating, but that’s another kettle of smelly fish entirely.

More gore for the cutting room floor

In Britain the ratings board slap 12, 15 or 18 restrictions on movies. The UK was responsible for the notorious “video nasties” black list in the mid-80s when dozens of video titles, the majority of which were horror, were deemed reprehensible and were removed from video stores.

So, I’ve rambled enough about the censorship nuts and bolts, what about the guts and glory? If horror movies are managing to enjoy a renaissance of popularity and many are reaping the fans’ approval for their unbridled intensity, what about some of those classic titles that were butchered by the MPAA in the Scarlet Age of Modern Horror? There have been many movies during the 70s and 80s that were censored, but there’s one choice movie that I keep coming back to, one which was ruthlessly slashed in order to receive an R rating in the U.S. A Canadian stalk’n’slash flick by the name of My Blood Valentine (1981).

One of the many shots cut from My Bloody Valentine

Paramount Studios owns the rights to it, and apparently they still have all the excised footage; all those juicy seconds of graphic violence which were cut before the movie was released, yet images found their way into Fangoria magazine. According to imdb.com producer John Dunning claims to have footage of the cut scenes, as well as a complete negative with 8 to 9 minutes of extra footage. He is currently trying to find a way to release a complete uncut DVD, but rights issues with Paramount have so far prevented that. Supposedly Paramount has a rigid policy that they will not release any unrated or movies which were originally rated X for the home market. They see themselves as bastions for wholesome family viewing and will not sully their name to pander to the gorehounds and exploitation freaks.

This royally pisses me off. For more information concerning the blood-smeared campaign for releasing unrated original versions of classic slasher flicks go to the Longer, Gorier and Uncut page at Hysteria Lives here.

Some directors have been successful with releasing movies on the big screen with an X rating or unrated, but they are far and few between. A intriguing example of it going pear-shaped is George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985). Romero released Dawn with a self-imposed X rating and it did very well considering, however when he released Day unrated it bombed at the box office. Go figure.

Vote

Comments (12)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

The (DIS)ILLUSION of CGI effects

May 15th 2008 00:22

Now before I launch into my tirade, let me make it clear that CGI effects in movies frequently look incredibly impressive and justifiably need to be used because there would be no other way to realistically achieve the look the director desires. Movies such as Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993) and The Lost World (1997), and Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-03) and King Kong (2005) are perfect examples.

Peter Jackson's King Kong embraces CGI superbly

What frustrates and, ultimately, disappoints me is the use (and there seems to be more and more of it) of CGI effects being employed in horror movies in place of the “old school” prosthetic, mechanical and animatronic effects. Call me old fashioned but I just don’t buy it. They don’t have nearly the same visceral power or palpable impact as effects which are engineered and executed in front of the camera and filmed!

For a director who says he loves his old school, Rob Zombie used too much CGI for my liking

Take for example the “re-imagining” (Hmph! Re-imagine my arse!) of Day of the Dead (2008). It has some token prosthetic make-up on the zombie faces adding wounds and lacerations, but the camera never lingers long enough to appreciate the effects work (probably because the make-up wasn’t that good in the first place). But virtually all the gore and blood effects have been CGI-ed. It’s abysmal.

You never really feel that horrified, even though zombie heads are being lopped off left right and centre. And the actually colour and consistency of the blood is not realistic enough, it’s this weird hue and looks like kinda gloopy. Okay, okay, so there are dozens of horror movies that don’t get the blood the right colour and consistency and aren’t using CGI. But at least they’re mixing a batch up every day and preparing squibs!

Braindead Elizabeth Moody and Brenda Kendall

Nothin' like a zombie mum slidin' her fingers through a nurse's cheeks!

Damn, I could tell you a few things about fake blood. I worked on Peter Jackson's Braindead (1991) and there was more blood being pumped on set than any other horror movie up to that point, possibly still holds a record. The zombie massacre finale (which took around two weeks to film) left the interior house set stinking something chronic; a sickly sweet smell that if you were unlucky to be hungover on set (and crew frequently were) you were in for a rough day at work.

Braindead Brenda Kendall and Stuart Devenie

Nothin' like a zombie nurse chewin' the lips off a priest!

The blood was made up of a special formula that included corn syrup, starch, and red food colouring. It was quite brilliant actually. It looked damn realistic! But it was a nightmare to clean off anything it came into contact with, apart from skin. Sounds like real blood to me.

One day I was hanging around with the special effects boys and they were setting up one of the pressurised gallons of blood in preparation to pump blood on set. Several of us were close by when the technician fiddling with the gauge uttered a very ominous “Uh-oh!” quickly followed by a, “Everybody get back! Now!” Suddenly the top of the vessel burst and a gallon of blood jetted everywhere. Thankfully I avoided being doused in the red sauce, but boy, what a sight to behold that was; a huge geyser of fake blood exploding like a scarlet volcano!

The chestburster from Alien ... 'nuff said

Movies such as Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1982), George Romero’s Day of the Dead (1985), and Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985) could not be the brilliantly and viscerally powerful horror movies they are if their special effects make-up work had been digitally generated by a computer. It’s a simple fact. By having the effects work actually there with the actors in three dimensions being caught on film (or on digital video as will be the case more and more) the end result is so much more resonant.

The Thing ... You gotta be fucking kidding!

It should be that when an effect is simply too difficult to achieve convincingly through the use of prosthetics or mechanics, that’s when you employ the digital artists, and only then. But of course, it’s a cost cutting measure these days. It’s actually cheaper to have a couple of people sitting in front of a computer punching numbers and letters into a keyboard and fiddling with a mouse than it is to have a crew of technicians armed with an array of hardware and soft and hard materials, stanind by on-set. It’s software vs. hardware. And the soft option wins.

Hannibal Ray Liotta, Anthony Hopkins and Julianne Moore

It's what's under Ray Liotta's cap that really counts

I’ll finish with a fine example of when CGI effects are used intelligently: the dinner dénouement in Hannibal (2003). There was no way Ridley Scott could’ve shown in the same wide shot the real Ray Liotta talking and moving whilst Anthony Hopkins sliced slivers of Ray’s brain from his exposed cranium and popped them into a little sauté pan. Bon appetite!

Here's an example of old school effects and just how brilliant they are. They don't make 'em like this anymore:

141

Vote

Comments (23)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

Some horrors WILL, some horrors WON'T ...

January 22nd 2008 06:19

… Some horrors kick some bloody butt, and some horrors really don’t.

So what makes a horror a good horror, while so many are bad, in all the wrong ways? Many horror filmmakers think they can get away with a lot; mediocre to lousy acting, cheap special effects, shooting in available light, because they think as long as the movie is “nasty” and “violent” and “hip” and sports some gratuitous nudity then they’ll be able to sell it and have it distributed no probs

[ Click here to read more ]

109

Vote

Comments (6)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

The RE-IMAGINING of the SEQUEL to the REMAKE of the PREQUEL - THE FINAL GRIPE

October 19th 2007 00:09

I ain’t finished. Not yet. Just wait; no doubt in a couple of months I’ll be writing a post entitled Re-Envisionings: A New Beginning. And the vitriol will be laid on thick with a garden trowel, as savagely as the little girl in Night of the Living Dead (1968).

We are living in dark times, desperate measures, clutching at cinematic straws. Well, not us per se, but the insidious Hollywood machine. The 80s weren’t this bad, but we felt it. It had begun in earnest during the latter part of the 70s, but it went a little crazy during the 80s, then in the 90s it escalated a little more. Now, in the new millennium, sequel/prequel/remake mania has reached critical mass

[ Click here to read more ]

101

Vote

Comments (6)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

CULT CLASSICS being REMADE ... The situation is OUT OF CONTROL!

August 9th 2007 01:36

Day of the Dead (2007) teaser movie poster

The future looks grim. Hollywood is running out of ideas. They’ve been behind the 8-ball for a couple of decades but the situation is reaching critical mass. Now the rest of world is falling into the same filthy, muddy ditch. Europe and elsewhere are deciding remakes are the way to go.

Many of the following films are bona fide cult classics and should not be touched with a damn bargepole! Some are trashier and perhaps, perhaps, a remake might inject some blood’n’guts juice that the original lacked, although often that trashy element is what makes the movie so much fun in the first place

[ Click here to read more ]

115

Vote

Comments (9)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

SEQUEL or PREQUEL ... is that the question?

July 24th 2007 01:49

I come back to this dilemma time and time again. I’m not a stuck record, I’m a stuck pig! Squeeeeeaall!!!! There is no dilemma, there should not be sequels. Well, I guess I’ll admit that there are a handful of exceptions where there has been enough savvy and sophistication employed into a movie sequel, and the audience doesn’t feel like the original has been done a disservice.

There are some which have taken the sequel to utterly absurd lengths. We know the culprits. One dons an ice hockey mask, the other wears awkward gloves. And there have been sequels which, arguably, are at least as interesting as the original, and in some camps they are even preferred over the original. Two examples of the latter are a bunch of eight-feet-tall, dual-jawed, acid-for-blood ETs, and the other is a sociopath doctor hiding out in Italy who indulges his taste for human liver with a nice glass of Chianti

[ Click here to read more ]

110

Vote

Comments (17)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

HOSTILE at Hostel

June 27th 2007 00:29

I’ve got some flesh and bone to pick. Splinters digging into the palm of my hand that I need to pluck out. Those splinters are righteous social commentators and film critics who miss the point.

In last weekend’s The Sun-Herald columnist Miranda Devine had a short side-article headed up “Sick flick plumbs depths”. In it she blasted Hostel: Part II (2007) as being “the most disgusting, sadistic torture-porn movie ever to hit mainstream cinema”. Further on in the brief article Devine admits she hasn’t seen the movie, but then quotes Paul, an “aggrieved Sydney father” who expressed his disgust in an email saying; “What is Greater Union doing screening [the movie] daily now that the school holidays have started? Do [they] have no respect for suburban families? Am I supposed to be watching Shrek 3 with my kids knowing in the next room there are distressed women being ferociously beaten [on screen

[ Click here to read more ]

101

Vote

Comments (12)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Bryn - Category: vitriol

Email this Post to a Friend

[ Horrorphile Home ] [ Create A New Post ]

Moderated by Bryn

Orble

Orble Homepage

Start an Orble Blog

Subscribe to DailyOrble

Receive a daily e-mail of Orble's most popular posts