Welcome to the Friday Feature, a special column that will hit the front page of Horror Cult Films every Friday where you can read one of the HCF 7 either having a rant, a moan, or even a bit of praise from every topic involving Films, Videogames, or anything we the critics want to get off our chest!…..
This week, Ross Hughes looks at what seems the first sign of bust for a wave of cinema that has dominated the big screen to the despair of all old fans of cinema…..
IS THIS THE FIRST SIGN OF FANS SICK OF THE RE-MAKE WAVE: By Ross Hughes
Hollywood is in a state of turmoil, the stunning failure of Fright Night and Conan has sent ripples through the film studios who were not expecting these films to cause such a stink and any hopes of a lucrative franchise from these have all but gone up in smoke! So why has this happened?, are the two films in question that bad or is it the fact that movie fans are sick of these re-makes coming out every week?
For a start it seems that I am singling out Fright Night and Conan but to be fair to them, they are just two of so many that have failed to light up the box office! Conan in particular has been stung, ravaged by a strong critical backlash and a stunning no show, the film as it stands has only taken £40m on its £90m budget. It would be a huge shock if this film will now make any of its money back and its safe to say that the character of Conan will not be seen on the big screen for many years to come. Why did this flop? Well I do not think its because of the original Conan film. Its been nearly thirty years since fans saw a man called Arnold make his first stride to Hollywood stardom and time was probably ripe for a new imagination of the much loved character and while my Friday Feature is asking the question “are Re-makes on its way out?”, I do not think you can put Conan into this argument. The simple truth is the film is just not that good and the genre, while strong on TV with the likes of Spartacus doing brilliantly, in the film world, the genre is not actually in fashion for moviegoers and probably any new Conan film should have been made when fans were still on high over Gladiator and its seems Conan was made at the wrong time. But again I am saying all this like I am defending the film, but Conan 2011 was its own downfall because of the quality on offer. Maybe the word of mouth after the first week killed the film before it could get going because lets face it, if you have not made a good film then why should you expect box office glory.
For me to look at the re-make lark more closely then Fright Night sums it all up even though its an oddity. I myself only gave it 2 stars like some other Horror Websites, but if you pick up any newspapers today and you see that those critics are raving about the film, some I have read claiming its the best re-make of horror for many of years. Now if that is the case then why did I and many other horror websites disagree and the fans who did not bother to show at the cinema. Its here that I can see the first cracks of the re-make wave beginning to slow down. Fright Night 1985 is a cherished and much loved film which still holds up really well today. After being critically burned by the Jason, Freddy and Michael re-makes then perhaps Fright Night is suffering from the “Once Bitten Twice Shy!” syndrome which is an ironic thing to say considering I am talking about a Vampire film. My guess is that fans of the horror genre are now beginning to tire of seeing films they love having a new design and they are simply not bothered or excited anymore and that is why the figures at the box office are falling.
Fright Night has only made $17m so far at the American Box Office, but with a budget of $30m, I do expect the horror to make its money back once its been released worldwide but I have to say that is still a very disappointing turn out. The film will do well enough to appease the studio especially when many fans read the many reviews that praise the film, but why are the tabloids ringing the praise and websites like ours not! Again I can only speculate and say we at HCF and many websites like ours love our horror. We watch so many a week and if you reading this feature piece then you the reader love the horror genre too. Which means that there is a good chance that you adore the original Fright Night and so you go in with different expectations that say a normal film fan has!
I read one review today that even had a bold statement to say that Fright Night 2011 was much better than the original, words that made me shake my head in disbelief. I have not met a Fright Night fan yet who like this 2011 version. I am not saying its an awful film because its worth a watch just for Colin Farrell and of course that spellbinding escape scene that led to an open mouth killer twist. Its just the changes and the shift of tone that makes it not feel like a Fright Night film. The humour and tease is long but gone and what we have is a more serious dark affair that follows in the path of all the other recent re-makes.
And I think this is where the problem is!
Why does all these re-makes have a belief that to better the original they have to remove the laughs and replace it with deep dark scenes. Everything now needs to be serious and its this I believe is making the bubble of re-makes all set to burst. Fright Night 2011 change from comedy to scares did not work for me because it did not fit the structure I associate the franchise with. It was like the awful Freddy re-make, I mean the makers had the cheek to say that they were making Freddy scary again, not seen since the original even though every Elm Street fan worth their weight in gold will tell you they already had that in the underrated Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Freddy 2010 was a box office disaster because the heavy dark shit that surrounded the plot was way too much for die hard fans. They wanted the killer one-liners, they wanted to laugh but most of all they wanted Robert.
Jason suffered from this with his franchise killer re-make in which the makers forget they were making a Camp Crystal Lake Film. Jason was all about the fun in seeing this masked ski mask freak hacking to death young virgins. Look at Jason X, a perfect example of box office gold that went for all out fun and was lavished with praise from fans and critics alike. Of course by making it all dark and even removing the camp site and everything else we all love about Jason, the film sank without trace with many fans thinking they were watching a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film with Jason instead of Leather Face.
I suppose the biggest example I can use in all this is Halloween. Looking back, the Rob Zombie re-do is one of the better of the remake larks but that is only because it does not step away too far from the path that John Carpenter set! Of Course H2 is the sequel that killed this new franchise, a film that only Rob Zombie fans like and every single Halloween fan hates. Just look at all the Halloween sites and see the venom that the awful sequel created but if you look past the anger you will see the common complaint by many- It was too dark and heavy- but yet they still do not learn from these mistakes. H2 was so bad that the third currently being written is moving away from the world of Zombie and back into the realms of Carpenter, which begs the question ” Why re-make it in the first place?”
Can you imagine what any new horror fan has to face when asking what film they should see?
“What do you want to watch”
“What have you got?”
“Well we have Halloween that is an all time classic, and then the second which follows straight after its like one long film, or we have the new Halloween that rips of the old Halloween and then the second to that film, that does not carry on from the first one but a year later, but does rip off the hospital scene from the original second one, but then it doesn’t and it goes into a complete different direction. Or we could watch Friday 13th…?”
“Well I am slightly confused with what you said about Halloween, so what is this Friday the what about?”
“Well the first is a classic, but Jason is not in it..he’s the killer, so we could watch pts 2,3 and 4…but he dies in the fourth but comes back as a Zombie in pt6, we also have him dying in the Final Friday, but he comes back and has a makeover in space in Jason X, its really cool his new look, but sadly they forget all about that and he has a duel with Freddy in his last film……………..but we could watch Friday 13th”
“You just mention that or am I wrong?”
“Yes I did, but this is the re-make of the original, and Jason is in this one, even though he wasn’t in the old version, which might confuse many fans but not you as you have never seen them…so what do you want to watch…”
A LONG PAUSE…….”Lets go out instead!”….
I honestly feel the horror fan is now sick of these horror re-makes and are crying out for new freshness at the box office. What they want is a new bogyman to scare them again, a new horror that sets off a whole new franchise, there a reason why such a small made film like Paranormal Activity made so much money because it offered something new and different. It was not a film in which we were familiar with the concept and character, it was fresh and exciting, a reason why a film like Troll Hunter has become such a massive smash.
They have been re-making horrors for years though, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolf man were all the rage when Hammer was around but times have changed and while the odd re-make would have been fine, no one could imagine the door that Gus Van Sant opened when he sat down for his Psycho re-make. Not only did that make every film studio sit up and realise that any horror can be re-made but its also set a trend that most re-makes suck because lets face it, what did the new Psycho add to the already winning formula? Norman Bates masturbating? Who really needed to see that!
Too many old films re-made in such a short space of type has created a monster itself in the shape of the modern horror fan! We are now souless with the prospect of a new re-do, why? because deep down we know they probably suck and now its getting to the stage where we do not even bother to show up on opening night at the box office. Fright Night proves this case, a film that could be good, but if you like me and just sick of seeing our old classics given the dreaded modern treatment then no matter what, you go in already with a negative feeling and one that no matter what the film tries to do, you can not and maybe refuse to shake.
Which is a sure sign that the re-make bubble has all but burst!……………………..
You are right, Ross. These remakes bring nothing to the table. They are empty and devoid of plot and are just sponging off the fanbase of the original – who then actually hate the remake.