To Hell and back: In defence of remakes





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With the once loveable Leatherface revving up his chainsaw again last month, I got thinking about remakes and reboots; something that as a horror fan it can be somewhat difficult to avoid. It seems that all our heroes and villains have returned in some form or another – be them Jason, Freddy or the Amityville house – even a lot of the obscure ones; see Black Christmas or Maniac among others. Typically this trend leads to harsh complaints about Hollywood running out of ideas, treating audiences with contempt or putting profits over quality etc etc. Much the same complaints that go round once a franchise reaches entry number two (or three at a stretch). And I’m not saying I disagree with these points – often they are entirely correct. However, what I do aim to accomplish here is justify this remake-culture a little with four key arguments – going from the two weaker arguments to the two stronger ones.

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1. There are some awesome remakes.

Sure, there’s classic remakes. Admittedly not many – probably a fairly low ratio. But then what’s the ratio of good horror movies full stop? And how many of these horror movies being remade were even classics to begin with? Yeah, remakes like The Thing, The Fly and The Last House on the Left (the Craven version being a remake of The Virgin Springs – something I probably don’t need to tell this site’s target audience) are maybe few and far between. But they exist. And so do other decent ones like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, My Bloody Valentine, Hills Have Eyes, The Ring, Maniac, Nosferatu among others. Indeed we get some really bad remakes too, I wouldn’t contest that. But I don’t know that they are rarely remakes of movies that had any dignity to begin with (you mean the Prom Night remake sucks? Who’d have thought it!)

2. Remakes can introduce people to other (often better) movies.

Mayhaps this is the product of cynical marketing. But when a new remake or reboot comes out it would appear that the original movies find themselves getting something of a push too; fancy new packaging, advertising and promos via media suddenly taking a passing interest in them, or their series, again. Then you got remakes like Funny Games or Let Me In that push a US version of the same story will likely turn folks on to the original, but shall also ensure that people that wouldn’t otherwise see the same story will get it. Better to spread a version of it if the original isn’t commercially viable huh? How many people knew The Ring prior to the remake vs. after the remake? But in cases like these isn’t it all done for money? Oh, yeah – definitely. But isn’t horror a genre that has always been very much geared towards the money? Doesn’t mean good art can’t still be made. Furthermore, when a franchise already has 10 entries, what does it matter if someone adds another? After all, fans just want to see what they’re villains of choice are up to – at least it keeps them alive. And this brings me to the next point.

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3. Remakes are rarely the worst entry in to any franchise.

Maybe a controversial one here – but I remember some of my friends complaining when A Nightmare on Elm Street was hitting the big screen again. Now, having seen all 9 Elm Street movies (yep, I include Freddy vs. Jason in there) I would be very surprised if someone declared to remake to be the weakest entry (that’d be part 6). Likewise with Friday the 13th (part 9), Halloween (part 5), Texas Chainsaw Massacre (part 2 or 4), Amityville (take your pick), The Hills Have Eyes (the original part 2), Piranha (part 2 original), The Omen (The Awakening), The Ring (part 2), Prom Night (pick a sequel) …Of the Dead (Land or Survival) The Hitcher (part 2), Children of the Corn (any outside the first 3) Psycho (part 4), Hellraiser (treating Revelations as a remake, I think of it as being on par with half of the later ones). Sure, a lot of these aren’t classics – hell, a number of them are anything but. Though if someone is a franchise fan, who watches all entries, then I find it curious they would think a remake can possibly spoil that. Should you still love the characters – despite seeing them being severely twisted and hacked to bits from their original mode – then I’d be surprised if one can’t tolerate a remake. Now something I will give any sceptics some grounds on is that there are a number of remakes of individual movies, such as The Fog or Straw Dogs, wherein the remake is a massive turd sandwich of a movie. And indeed, there it’d be hard to use the franchise argument; they do tend to be worse than the original. You happy? Sure, there’s stuff like The Toolbox murders that reverses this trend – but rarely. But I do stand by the proposition that in the cases of franchises remakes are rarely (if ever) the weakest entry. Which brings me to my final point.

4. The golden eras weren’t so original anyway.

Honestly, this is probably the one I standby the most. Comparing the current studio system to that of the Universal or Hammer eras then I find it misguided to complain about the profit motive. Under these conveyer-belt approaches whole sets would be reused, franchises would be dragged through the inferior sequels mud  and villains would be regularly whored off like the last days of Rome (see the six Frankenstein sequels Hammer made between 1959 and 1974, or the eight Dracula sequels between 1960 and 1974). Horror hasn’t lost its class – it’s just when evaluating these eras we look for diamonds in the rough. Then we come to the other golden era – the slasher era; a whole movement of movies that all kind of ripped each other off anyway. Doesn’t matter whether we’re seeing Rosemary’s Killer, Prom Night, The House on Sorority Row, My Bloody Valentine, Pieces, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, Happy Birthday to Me, April Fools Day or Intruder. These are all pretty much variations on the same kind of horror movie. Then we got ones like The Burning, Christmas Evil or Sleepaway Camp, that while entertaining, are blatant rip offs. Chuck on sequel after sequel for some of the franchises and it is hard to look at The Golden Era as being a hotbed or creativity. In fact it seems that the movies that were aping the few originals out there are lining up to be remade. And Giallo too. Ultimately, when a genre is so easily taken apart into different subgenres, it seems counter productive to berate Hollywood for essentially doing the same thing again. Sure a lot of these films may be originals, but doesn’t mean they were ever original to begin with. You can say the movies are getting worse. And yeah, they probably are. But then that’s all a matter of how one subjectively likes the style, and it’s hard to be objective when both studio approaches essentially consist of finding new ways to brutalise teenagers. And honestly, I say that as a fan. I don’t really care if the recent Chainsaw movies have that crisp MichaelBay appearance about them – the 70s and 80s look as periodic as new ones do – just the styles have changed.

I guess what I’m really trying to say here is the horror genre has always been about whoring and selling; even during the supposed creative peaks. We’ve got endless reboots, and I reckon it won’t be long before Saw, Paranormal Activity, Hostel, Candyman and Scream get the same treatment (though Scream 4 maybe renders that last one impossible). But then these movies are ultimately about fun though, and typically the remakes will deliver as much as any franchise does. Besides, is because of us genre fans in the first place for letting ourselves be given countless movies with the same name (sometimes with numbers) or contents in the first place. As horror fans we will watch movies, not because they look good – but simply because they’re horrors. We’ll knowingly consume bad movies if we like the villain from them; Halloweens 5 and 6 anyone? Any Hellraiser past the second (save for Inferno)? Are we really an a position to get on a high-horse about studios keeping this rich tradition alive for new generations. We love horror, in sickness and in health – this is just a necesaary part of that commitment.

Oh – that and the biggest point of all.

That you don’t need to watch them.

@horrorinatweet

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About david.s.smith 450 Articles
Scottish horror fan who is simultaneously elitist and hates genre snobbery. Follow me on @horrorinatweet

1 Comment

  1. HUGHESY:

    ” First of all hats off for the mere mention of Hellraiser “Inferno”., for me one of the most underated horror sequels of all time!”….

    Anyhow, great article! Being such an anti-remake fan, I understand where you are coming from. I loathe the recent remake trend, only because I know a few of the younger generation who have only seen Rob Zombie’s Halloween and wont watch the JC version, because in their words “What is the point!”….. That is what frustrates me more than anything.

    I used to have huge hatred for RZ’s Halloween, simply because I couldnt see the point of remaking such a classic, even through over the year’s its grown on me and it is now one of the better remakes of recent time. I just feel some original films are just untouchable. One day they will re-make JAWS and that sheer thought fills me with anger and despair.

    The remakes that frustrate me the most are the ones that just dont do nothing new to the story itself. I mean what did the new Psycho bring to the table? A bit of colour and an added scene of Norman Bates having a wank!!!! Did we really need to see that?

    Yeah, by all means Remake if you have too, but please add something new to the table to get the old fans excited to see a new take of a story that they love.

    My main gripe with the recent Freddy redo is that they had a great chance to take the character back to its roots. This is a man who was an evil bastard before and after his death and I feel with so many films in, apart from the original, they have never got underneath a character that really could bring a dark story to the big screen. Yes, they made it more dark than the many sequels that followed, but you can just see that the film sold out to the date crowd and didnt have the guts to bring a trip back to Elm Street, scary again.

    The Jason redo just combined parts 1, 2 and 3 and made the masked serial killer move faster. The lack of charm and fun also put off the die hard fans who expect the Friday films to all be fun and cool death scenes, something that the wonderful Jason X had it spot on…..

    I could debate this for hours 🙂

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