Horror remakes are becoming as common as the sight of Britney Spears in the tabloids or the over-the-top hype that surrounds every goddamn reality TV show these days. Everyone slates them, most people don’t want them but why do the studios keep getting them made and why do they keep making money? So it begs the real question. Is there a genuine problem with horror rehashes?
Im the past few years we’ve seen an incredible increase in the amount of horror movies that have been remade. We’ve seen remakes of existing non-english speaking international horror’s such as The Ring and The Grudge. We’ve seen remakes hiding behind descriptions such as ‘re-imagining’ like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And hell, we’ve even seen remakes of remakes!!! So clearly we’re swamped, we’re spoilt for choice. Is Hollywood completely out of ideas, has it dried up that quick that no-one can be bothered anymore.
It’s not just horror of course, most genres in the past decade have been victim to the dreaded remake status. Yet horror seems the most popular choice. But the truth is they don’t exactly get rave reviews but they make a pretty penny. So as long as money outweighs the artistic flair and creativeness of writers and filmmakers out there we’re gonna be stuck with them for a very long time to come.
Everyone has their opinion when it comes to a whether or not you think a movie works, or even if it’s good or not. I admit I appreciate tripe sometimes and love mindless dreg. But not always. But in all cases I would ALWAYS suggest trying the original first. It’s easy to be sucked into the campaigns these days that ‘big up’ the latest horror fest, especially if you’re young and more willing to pay your bucks to see a fresh and vividly coloured gore-fest as opposed to old grainy black and white horror flick that wouldn’t these days look out of place on afternoon tv. But I would ask you to reconsider and always expericence the original, for what it is, before taking on the modern retelling.
And in case you were really interested. Here’s a little shortlist of what I consider to be the best of the remakes in the past 10 years.
Dawn of the Dead (great retelling and the original is actually my fave zombie movie)
Halloween (brave and brutally shocking, extremly well executed)
House on Haunted Hill (my guilty pleasure, well hammed up by Geoffrey Rush)
The Ring (not as genuinely terrifying as the original but a damn good effort)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (gory and nasty and pretty well done really)
The Hills Have Eyes (shocking and sick – loved it!)
And here are the ones to avoid – but keep in mind, it might not all be down to it being a bad remake. But I think it would be better to check out the original first
Dark Water (absolutely terrible)
The Grudge (better than Dark Water but still disappointing)
The Omen (absolutely pointless project)
The Haunting (best bit was seeing Owen Wilson decapitated)
Psycho (ideal for modern audiences, but probably a pointless shot by shot retelling)
Black Christmas (made me almost lose faith in horror and life)
The Wicker Man (tried to forget about this. god damn you Cage!)
And finally…..
When A Stranger Calls (f’cking pointless and equally awful. nuff said)
And finally how about the remakes that scare the hell of me just thinking that people would even consider redoing…
The Evil Dead (why even try. still feel Evil Dead 2 was good enough to be a remake)
The Fly (will have to pretty special to beat Cronenbourg’s 1986 effort)
Last House on the Left (gonna have to be pretty shocking)
Prom Night (going out on a limb and saying this will be hugely disappointing)
Piranha (oh go on then)
The Thing (why oh why again!!!!?)
Friday the 13th (will have to do something special!)
There you have it. Agree or disagree but unless we can get out of this creative rut in the genre we’re gonna be bogged down with rehash after rehash until we don’t have a creative bone or brain cell left.
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