Once Old, Now New Again

Remakes. Yes, the most contested movies in all of moviedom. A lot of people online just love to hate them. They whine, moan, complain, harass people who are excited for them, and frankly can't resist speaking up every single time one or even the thought of one is mentioned. Except for the fanatic insistences and blind hatred I say good on them for sticking to their guns. As we looked at last time out people complain if a movie is similar to a previous one and isn't a remake so there's really no winning. Except... there is one remake that almost no one complains about. That would be John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). Whether you like it--and its distasteful subject matter--or not Wes Craven's acclaimed first outing The Last House on the Left (1972) is pretty much a remake of The Virgin Spring (1960)--apparently the Virgin Spring's scriptwriter based it off of a ballad of all things. Craven himself cites the Virgin Spring, though some debate if that truly makes a remake.

Within remakes there is another subdivision called the reboot. All reboots are remakes, but not all remakes are reboots. To start, a reboot denotes a franchise, meaning a movie with sequels. While there are close remakes and loose remakes--The Thing and Last House on the Left are varying degrees of loose--reboots tend to change something within the story. Again the significance of the change varies. A prime example of a reboot is the remake of Friday the 13th (2009). Its first significant change is that it revolves around Jason, whereas the original first Friday the 13th movie did not. Other than Jason there are next to no other characters from the original film. There aren't even camp councillors. In contrast the remake of Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) while different in several aspects does not feel like a reboot despite the different additional characters. It added elements to the original, but not in a way that changed anything.

The adding of elements and expanding upon the ideas in the original is what makes for a great remake. A perfect example is the remake of The Hills Have Eyes (2006). It takes most of the original and then adds to it immensely, and in a way that feels natural. It also modernises the story without actually changing the timeframe (at least as far as I noticed). What it did was make more sense in the story's end, and as a good remake does it removed traits from the film that didn't age well and would make it dated. On the other hand it seemed like some of the addition was very close to a different unrelated horror movie, which itself borrowed from something else altogether. Another great remake that adds to the original is the remake of The Amityville Horror (2005). What it added to the film was in some parts new and in others elements present in the original novel that did not make it into the first film. I think this Amityville is the best remake of the new millennium yet.

Mood: stoic.
Music: Big Man With A Gun by Nine Inch Nails and (Ghost) Riders In The Sky by Me First And The Gimme Gimmes.

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13 Nights of Hallowe'en 2010: Night #3 The Fog (2005)

It's Thursday and our movie is the 2005 remake of The Fog. The first question you must be asking is why the remake? Don’t get mewrong, the original is classic John Carpenter, but it was so random overall. As far as storyline goes I prefer this remake with its solid back-story to explain the ghosts. It has a little bit of randomness and of course a modern aesthetic, but Carpenter himself seemed congenial to the film in the extras, so what the hey. The remake stars Tom Welling from Smallville and his love interest is Maggie Grace from Lost. The iconic radio host played by Adrienne Barbeau in the original is now played by Selma Blair from Hellboy and seems much more peripheral to the story. The director, Rupert Wainwright, also directed Stigmata and the episode "Echoes" of the TV horror series Fear Itself.

Remakes are a touchy subject, but I'm always of the mind that a movie should be watched on its own merits. Not on the original version, not on previous movies in a franchise, not even in comparison to other work by the same director. When it comes to discussing them it's okay to compare, but I don't think a strict comparison is fair either, something softer is required. Reviews on the other hand fit in with watching. The best remakes don't either try to outdo the original or just copy it; they go their own direction. That's why I like this The Fog too and why it's here. Now about the actual fog. It looks great here, but it doesn't exactly get the same importance. I don't know if it has more screen time or not, but it wasn't as powerful a point of tension. It's kind of like the radio host, there, has its place, but isn't the show runner it could have been.

Mood: obscure.

Music: Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden. MP3s