My Stance on Remakes Part III

So this time I will jump right into the positive sides of remakes. Yes, positive sides, and it’s odd for me to start saying this especially after a two-post rant about how much I despise remakes. Remakes can be done right and as I stated before, my top 2 horror movies are remakes and the only reason why I love them so much, even more then the original, is because of my experience with them. No horror movie will ever make me feel the way The Thing or The Blob ’88 did when I first saw them and they led me into my horror obsession.

When you get a director and a writer that love, respect and cherish the original movies you get great remakes such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers ’78, Dawn of the Dead ’04, The Fly ’86, House on Haunted Hill ’99 and Night of the Living Dead ’90. Why are these movies so good? Because, the directors that made them respected the originals and they stuck to what made the originals so memorable but added their own vision to it. Body Snatchers tapped into the science of the aliens, The Fly made the story more captivating and more dramatic, Dawn of the Dead kept all the elements of the original but made it more modern. Good remakes can be done.

When it comes to The Thing, Carpenter kept the storyline, kept some of the famous scenes from the original and amped the special effects. The Blob still had a blob as the lead villain and they kept that amazing theater scene. When a writer and a director does not have any respect for what made the original so memorable you get a director that ‘reinvasions’ the entire movie and turns it into something of his own, which is normally crap and you get movies like Halloween, The Fog ’05 and The Wicker Man ’06.

Now, when you talk about remakes such as The Hills Have Eyes and My Bloody Valentine, they are good remakes but they end up raising the gore value throughout the entire film. The originals that they are based off didn’t really have that much gore, which is something that made the originals better in my opinion. But these movies were fun and enjoyable and they still respected the originals and they knew they couldn’t top them but they were still watchable. I even bought these movies because I was such a big fan of them when they came out.

I will say this: Because of all the shitty remakes coming out, as opposed to good remakes, I think I will always assume a new remake will be bad. I don’t entirely hate remakes but I do hate most of them, although I will acknowledge good remakes.

Bottom line is: Don’t remake every single fucking movie out there; they don’t need it. Remake a movie that needs an update, but if you do, get somebody that respects the original movie. An even honest opinion: stop remaking movies.

Don’t even get me started on sequels/prequels.

THE END?