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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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