Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Are remakes destroying the classics?
When was the last time you saw a horror movie that you can honestly see becoming a classic? It’s fair to say the output of late has been fairly slow in terms of quality with Hollywood taking most of the blame with its endless re-makes. Just how many more retreads of Japanese movies are we going to have to endure before we get a truly original horror movie? Even the new films that aren’t remakes leave you thinking you’ve seen it all before.
The trend began as early as the 1930’s when “Dracula” came out, technically a remake of the classic German Expressionist movie “Nosferatu”. You can forgive the makers for this one, as the German movie was silent, done in a completely different style and featured different characters, if in name only. The 40’s saw a boom time for original horror movies, particularly from Val Lewton who came up with a novel way of selling his movies. Using public research to see what titles people would go to see, he handed these to low budget film-makers to do with what they wished. Hence such quirky and sensational titles as “I Walked with a Zombie” and “Cat People” actually contained no monsters as such and more by way of suggestion.
The question of when a remake becomes sequal must have been raised when Hammer started producing a host of vampire, werewolf and Dracula movies that carried the characters names with little of the old plot, bringing them up to date and putting them in new situations. Hence you had Dracula and his vampires battling Samurai swordsmen in “Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires” and countless Transylvanian re-treads, some good, some bad.
A second boom period of horror films brought us such classics as “The Exorcist”, “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “The Omen”, Rosemary’s Baby” and “Night of the Living Dead” as the genre took a giant leap forwards, creating new monsters to fear. It could be argued the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, including “Blood Feast” and “2,000 Maniacs” paved the way for these movies by smashing down the boundaries of taste and creating a feeling of ‘anything goes’. Who could have envisaged the crucifix masturbation scene or flesh eating zombies in 50’s or early 60’s horror without Gordon’s gore movie revolution? Suddenly there was so much to explore with the new found freedom that a return to the old school monsters of vampires, werewolves and mummies had to take a back seat.
Horror was becoming more global as well, with the Italian’s introducing the horror element into thrillers by way of increasingly elaborate gore set pieces. Maestros of the Giallo such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava created another genre of horror movie that didn’t even include a monster but a serial killer, paving the way for the Americans to take the horror element back out of the thriller with the less subtle slasher movie. Once again there was a blurring of remake and sequel, after all the only difference between “Friday the 13th”, “The Burning” and “The Slayer” was the cast.
This didn’t stop John Carpenter and David Carpenter inventing body horror, as discussed in an earlier post, a truly original form of horror that had its gory roots planted in werewolf and vampire mythology, thrust into a contemporary setting and evoking current fears of penetration and invasion. Ironically both would tread the remake path with “The Fly” and “The Thing” but with enough originality and style to make them very different movies.
It’s difficult to identify a current horror classic. There have been plenty of good ones including “Saw”, “The Sixth Sense”, “The Others” and “Dog Solders” but they all have their roots elsewhere. “Saw” has Argento’s bloody fingerprints all over it, “Sense” and “Others” hark back to the Val Lewton days of showing nothing but suggesting everything whilst “Dog” is a superior updating of the old Lycanthrope story. It begs the question where’s the originality?
Certainly not Hollywood! Look at their recent output…”Amityville”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “Texas Chainsaw”, “Ring”, “Grudge”, “Dark Water” and “Freddy Vs Jason”. A touch of Déjà vu perhaps? It’s really rather pathetic that, though some of these movies are good in their own right, surely the creativity can be channelled into a new movie. Just look at “Donnie Darko”, excellent movie and very original, why isn’t Hollywood putting its countless millions into thought provoking movies that have something else to say instead of “I refer the honourable gentlemen to my original movie”. The answer…MONEY!!! There’s already an audience for “Texas Chainsaw”, those curious to see what the re-make’s like and those who’ve heard of the original and want to see what the fuss is about. It also gives the studios the chance to re-release the original on a double disc, special edition DVD and squeeze more cash out of a gullible public, me included!
Rant over…just bring back original scares please. In the meantime I’ll return to my DVD of the 60’s version of “The Haunting”…now that’s scary…
Coming up…posts on Dario Argento, slasher movies, a review of the original “Texas Chainsaw and the inspiration behind the slasher movie…”Black Christmas”, so come back and see me soon…
“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”
The trend began as early as the 1930’s when “Dracula” came out, technically a remake of the classic German Expressionist movie “Nosferatu”. You can forgive the makers for this one, as the German movie was silent, done in a completely different style and featured different characters, if in name only. The 40’s saw a boom time for original horror movies, particularly from Val Lewton who came up with a novel way of selling his movies. Using public research to see what titles people would go to see, he handed these to low budget film-makers to do with what they wished. Hence such quirky and sensational titles as “I Walked with a Zombie” and “Cat People” actually contained no monsters as such and more by way of suggestion.
The question of when a remake becomes sequal must have been raised when Hammer started producing a host of vampire, werewolf and Dracula movies that carried the characters names with little of the old plot, bringing them up to date and putting them in new situations. Hence you had Dracula and his vampires battling Samurai swordsmen in “Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires” and countless Transylvanian re-treads, some good, some bad.
A second boom period of horror films brought us such classics as “The Exorcist”, “Texas Chain Saw Massacre”, “The Omen”, Rosemary’s Baby” and “Night of the Living Dead” as the genre took a giant leap forwards, creating new monsters to fear. It could be argued the films of Herschell Gordon Lewis, including “Blood Feast” and “2,000 Maniacs” paved the way for these movies by smashing down the boundaries of taste and creating a feeling of ‘anything goes’. Who could have envisaged the crucifix masturbation scene or flesh eating zombies in 50’s or early 60’s horror without Gordon’s gore movie revolution? Suddenly there was so much to explore with the new found freedom that a return to the old school monsters of vampires, werewolves and mummies had to take a back seat.
Horror was becoming more global as well, with the Italian’s introducing the horror element into thrillers by way of increasingly elaborate gore set pieces. Maestros of the Giallo such as Dario Argento and Mario Bava created another genre of horror movie that didn’t even include a monster but a serial killer, paving the way for the Americans to take the horror element back out of the thriller with the less subtle slasher movie. Once again there was a blurring of remake and sequel, after all the only difference between “Friday the 13th”, “The Burning” and “The Slayer” was the cast.
This didn’t stop John Carpenter and David Carpenter inventing body horror, as discussed in an earlier post, a truly original form of horror that had its gory roots planted in werewolf and vampire mythology, thrust into a contemporary setting and evoking current fears of penetration and invasion. Ironically both would tread the remake path with “The Fly” and “The Thing” but with enough originality and style to make them very different movies.
It’s difficult to identify a current horror classic. There have been plenty of good ones including “Saw”, “The Sixth Sense”, “The Others” and “Dog Solders” but they all have their roots elsewhere. “Saw” has Argento’s bloody fingerprints all over it, “Sense” and “Others” hark back to the Val Lewton days of showing nothing but suggesting everything whilst “Dog” is a superior updating of the old Lycanthrope story. It begs the question where’s the originality?
Certainly not Hollywood! Look at their recent output…”Amityville”, “Dawn of the Dead”, “Texas Chainsaw”, “Ring”, “Grudge”, “Dark Water” and “Freddy Vs Jason”. A touch of Déjà vu perhaps? It’s really rather pathetic that, though some of these movies are good in their own right, surely the creativity can be channelled into a new movie. Just look at “Donnie Darko”, excellent movie and very original, why isn’t Hollywood putting its countless millions into thought provoking movies that have something else to say instead of “I refer the honourable gentlemen to my original movie”. The answer…MONEY!!! There’s already an audience for “Texas Chainsaw”, those curious to see what the re-make’s like and those who’ve heard of the original and want to see what the fuss is about. It also gives the studios the chance to re-release the original on a double disc, special edition DVD and squeeze more cash out of a gullible public, me included!
Rant over…just bring back original scares please. In the meantime I’ll return to my DVD of the 60’s version of “The Haunting”…now that’s scary…
Coming up…posts on Dario Argento, slasher movies, a review of the original “Texas Chainsaw and the inspiration behind the slasher movie…”Black Christmas”, so come back and see me soon…
“Beware the moon and stay on the path…”
