Tuesday, March 19, 2013

The Problem with Remakes Today

It's the sheer number of them. Sure, there have always been remakes, and of course, supporters are quick to point to John Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly. Yes, those are amazing films, and if every remake was like them, no one would complain, but then you get heartless eyeball-crushing disasters like the 2005 version of The Fog. Even the poster is about to vomit on you. A few misfires would be acceptable, but when you look at how many have been pumped out every year since The Ring remake, it's astounding. In 2004, you had three horror reboots. In 2005, two. In 2006, five: The Omen, When A Stranger Calls, Night of the Living Dead 3D, Black Christmas, and Pulse. In 2007, three. In 2008, SIX! Mirrors, The Eye, One Missed Call, Prom Night, Day of the Dead, and Shutter... not even one of those was close to being good. And these are just horror remakes. 2009 had five as well. 2010 had four. Every year now, we are getting flooded with piles of their rotting corpses. This wasn't the case before when we got Carpenter's or Cronenberg's masterpieces, and it's pretty obvious why they're doing it: dollar signs. Maybe 1 out of 20 is actually good. I was really impressed by The Crazies remake, but still, that doesn't justify all the other face-sucking abominations. It's like they think horror fans are idiots, and they can keep feeding us the same recycled shit over and over. No thanks. I've had enough. I don't see these things in theaters. I don't support them. Yes, it seems like the Evil Dead remake may be another rare exception, but I'm still not rushing off to see it. The genre needs new ideas, not our classics regurgitated in puke form.

5 comments:

  1. So.. i am a fan of the Texas Chainsaw [remake-Jessica Biel] and Dawn of the Dead... those held a certain level of scare and maintained it... though crap nuggets like Friday 13th and Elm Street... left a bad sour taste. i am also ashamed to say, i enjoyed Fright Night... yes, i know... stand in the corner. Evil Dead has a chance, but that is the behind the scenes producers... but money greases the wheel, so money takes and cool ideas walk... thank you Burton for Dark Shadows...

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    1. I also liked the Dawn of the Dead remake and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre... they were surprisingly great. But yeah, ANOES was awful and Friday the 13th was just ok. I didn't see the Fright Night remake... the CG vampire mouths in the trailer were enough for me although I'll probably see it one day. I hate how so many of these remakes include awful CGI too. I just want to see more original horror. Enough with the remakes.

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    2. As a life-time fan of Dark Shadows and Barnabas .... I too thank Mr. Tim Burton for such an enjoyable film....

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  2. "Trick-r-Treat was a great Original story ( Something that we need much more of these days) I seldom care for "re-makes"... Psycho was very well done and followed the original scene by scene .... But why remake it then...???They still have Not attempted the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" tha Universal Studios announced back in the late 70's... Fangoria even published their newly designed creature ...
    In general ... they should leave "well Enough Alone"...

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    1. Yeah, I loved Trick-r-Treat. That's really what we need more of. It had all practical FX too. The Psycho remake was just pointless. But I couldn't agree more. Just stop with the remakes... they won't though, but you can dream...

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