The Miracle of REMAKES

I for one am not the first to declare his dislike of most of the remakes assaulting our screen now and in the past few years but there is some legitimacy to remaking beloved films of the past for a new generation.

This year has seen the release of a multitude of remakes both big and small from FRIDAY THE 13th, SORORITY ROW, MY BLOODY VALENTINE 3D, IT’S ALIVE, CHILDREN OF THE CORN, THE UNINVITED, and HALLOWEEN II, among many others. Next year will see the release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS, PIRANHA 3D, THE WOLFMAN, THE CRAZIES, MOTHER’S DAY, and STRAW DOGS, among others. Remakes are here to stay but that doesn’t mean that they will all be bad.

There have been many excellent examples of great remakes that are treasured by horror film enthusiasts such as John Carpenter’s THE THING, David Cronenberg’s THE FLY, Alexandra Aja’s THE HILLS HAVE EYES, and Zack Snider’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, among others, and then there are those remakes which are a travesty to the genre (i.e. PSYCHO, PROM NIGHT, DAY OF THE DEAD, THE HAUNTING, THE INVASION).

When a remake strives to take the theme and spirit of the film that it is remaking and re-imagine it for a modern audience then the film will become a success as long as it doesn’t bastardize what both new and old audiences want from the film itself. Two films that do this to perfection are the remakes of THE FLY and DAWN OF THE DEAD. Cronenberg and Snider took the themes and ideas of the original film and modernized them and made them more relevant to today’s audiences. Cronenberg made a film that was (in the eyes of the audience) a scientific possibility of teleportation but never took the heart of the film away. It always returned to the relationship between its two main characters which is what due in both horror film fans and regular audiences as well. In the case of Snider’s DAWN OF THE DEAD remake it had a harsher road to travel as trying to remake what is considered the best zombie film ever crafted was not an easy task. Snider’s film kept the spirit and theme of the original film while updating the zombies and making it fiercer and more suspenseful. Many thought that making running and fast zombies would be a bad idea but Snider proved that in many ways it was more terrifying. DAWN OF THE DEAD was the highest grossing zombie film until ZOMBIELAND was released.

Two films that got the remake wrong are Gus Van Sant’s PSYCHO and Jan de Bont’s THE HAUNTING. Van Sant wanted to do a shot-for-shot remake of the original Alfred Hitchcock classic but he soon realized upon his film’s release that what was the point? Audiences didn’t want a shot-for-shot remake if they could just go rent Hitchcock’s original. Van Sant would have been better off returning to the original novel for inspiration (ala Carpenter’s THE THING) or gone in a different direction altogether which would have at least been an inspiration. The opposite can be said of de Bont’s debacle THE HAUNTING which took the basic plot and premise of the original film and completely through away the spirit and theme that has made the original THE HAUNTING one of the best haunted house films ever made. Every film has a plot, but not every film has a spirit and something to say which is why both of these films failed.

Remakes continue to go both ways, those that strive to honor and homage the original film (i.e. THE RING and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) and those that go in a completely different direction (i.e. THE STEPFORD WIVES and MIRRORS) and some are successful (i.e. THE GRUDGE and HALLOWEEN) while some are completely ignored (i.e. SORORITY ROW and FUNNY GAMES) and there is no end to the cycle (as the many films that I named earlier will attest).

Remakes are something we love and we love to hate and they will never go away. They may disappear for a few years but they will never be gone. Think for a moment about the accomplishments that the remake sub-genre has had. There are countless remakes of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA not to mention Gaston Lereaux’s THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, and Mary Shelly’s FRANKENSTEIN and they are always being addressed for the current generation both good and bad. Let’s all think about this when watching the next remake that Hollywood assaults us with.