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"The Remake
Thing"
Looking at Hollywood's recent output, I find that one thought
immediately becomes apparent: this remake thing is really getting out of
hand.
Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Over the past
year there has been SOLARIS, INSOMNIA, RED DRAGON, THE TRUTH ABOUT
CHARLIE, THE RING, THE TIME MACHINE, SWEPT AWAY and MR. DEEDS...all, in
the event you don't already know, remakes of older (and mostly better)
movies. In 2003 we can expect new versions of STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S, THE 39 STEPS, THE
WARRIORS, WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, SUSPICION, CAN'T BUY ME
LOVE, FORBIDDEN PLANET and DR. ZHIVAGO. The conclusion? Remakes are an
integral component of modern-day filmmaking, and clearly they're here to
stay.
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Certainly, remakes have been a staple of Hollywood programming from
its earliest days. FRANKENSTEIN has been remade so many times it's
often forgotten that James Whale's "original" 1931 version was in fact a
remake of a 1910 one-reeler. Ditto the '31 DRACULA, which was already
adapted (albeit unofficially) in 1922's NOSFERATU. It's impossible to
count how many Shakespeare adaptations have graced American screens.
Alfred Hitchcock went so far as to remake one of his own films, 1934's
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH, in 1956.
Nevertheless, you'll have a difficult time finding another period
in history when such an astonishing plethora of remakes have cluttered
the movie marketplace. Why?
One reason is the perceived built-in audience awareness
factor, which in effect does a large part of the movie marketers' jobs
for them. In other words, it's far easier tapping into properties
moviegoers are already familiar with than it is trying to sell them
something new. The concept of "Synergy" is based is based on this idea:
movies, CD's, books, etc. are used to cross-promote themselves by
trading on one another's success.
Remember just a few years ago, when movie
versions of THE BRADY BUNCH, WAYNE'S WORLD, THE ADDAMS FAMILY, CHARLIE'S
ANGELS, THE AVENGERS, THE MOD SQUAD, etc. were the norm? That was
synergy in action, at least until Hollywood ran out of old TV programs
to adapt. We still get scattered TV adaptations nowadays, such as the
recent SCOOBY DOO and I SPY, but the well has pretty much run dry (we
should also take into account all those synergistic comic book movie
extravaganzas, like SPIDER MAN and DAREDEVIL, which have become so
prevalent that comic companies, Marvel in particular, make more money
nowadays selling off the movie rights to their properties than they do
selling comics).
I also
believe the Hollywood remake boom is directly tied to the industry's
current love of sequels.
Sequels have been an integral movie staple (and one
certainly not unique to Hollywood) since day one, and yet the sequel
quotient, like the remake craze, has exploded in recent years. Last
year alone saw the releases of ATTACK OF THE CLONES, THE TWO TOWERS,
ANALYZE THAT, STUART LITTLE 2, HALLOWEEN RESURRECTION, JASON X, THE
SANTA CLAUSE 2, AUSTIN POWERS 3, DIE ANOTHER DAY, HARRY POTTER AND THE
CHAMBER OF SECRETS, FRIDAY AFTER NEXT, BLADE 2...the list goes on, and
there are plenty more in the works.
More than ever before, movies are fast food products to
be churned out assembly line style. In such an atmosphere, it shouldn't
surprise anyone that corporate-controlled Hollywood finds sequels and
remakes such attractive propositions. They've got that crucial built-in
audience awareness factor, after all, and furthermore don't require much
effort on the part of the puppet directors, producers and committee of
screenwriters hired by the studios to crank 'em out. There's less
chance of things like originality or complexity creeping in; such things
are products of artistic rather than corporate sensibilities, and thus
strict no-no's.
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Of course, this is about horror movies, and it's horror movies that have
been most aversely impacted by the recent remake boom, just as they were
by the sequel craze.
Speaking of sequels, I won't go into all the Part 2's, 3's, etc. we
horror fans have had to put up with over the years (any anyway, I've
long since stopped keeping track of all the Jason, Freddie and Pinhead
flicks), but they've definitely had a negative impact. For years a
horror movie's worth was based solely on the amount of sequels it
generated.
Nowadays,
though, it's the remakes that are doing their share of damage to the
integrity of the genre (integrity is a word that, like those other
suspect terms art and talent, doubtless makes Hollywood execs wrinkle
their noses). With the success (financially, of course, NOT
artistically!) of last year's RING remake, Hollywood redoes of foreign
flicks--the '02 Thai film THE EYE is currently being redone, as is the
'99 Japanese chiller PULSE--are more popular than ever.
That's NOT to say that foreign films are
the only ones affected, as nearly every 70's Hollywood horror movie you
can think of, from WILLARD to
THE HILLS HAVE EYES, is being remade.
To be fair, there have been many horror
movie remakes that I've liked...and, in some cases, actually preferred
over the original film. This would apply to Paul Schrader's 1982 CAT
PEOPLE, which gave the forties original an unforgettably perverse make
over. John Carpenter's THE THING remake is an all-time fave that for me
leaves the Howard Hawkes original in the dust, and I find David
Cronenberg's stunning 1986 version of THE FLY leagues ahead of the 1958
chortler.
But those are aberrations. The fact is, most
remakes tend to look like exactly what they are: shoddy, cynical and
vastly inferior imitations. Don't believe me? See NIGHT OF THE LIVING
DEAD (1990), LORD OF THE FLIES (1990), THE VANISHING (1993), BODY
SNATCHERS (1993), FRANKENSTEIN (1994), THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU (1996),
DIABOLIQUE (1997), PSYCHO (1997), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1998),
CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1998), GODZILLA (1998), HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1999),
THE HAUNTING (1999), THIRTEEN GHOSTS (2001) and CARRIE (2002). A pretty
sorry list to which I'd add, regardless of how many millions they made,
DRACULA (1992), THE MUMMY (1999), the aforementioned RING abomination
and ABC's equally abominable 1997 SHINING miniseries.
Clearly, remakes are dicey propositions, and yet
they continue to be churned out in record numbers. I'm sure you're
extremely anxious to see THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remade with TV
stars like SEVENTH HEAVEN'S Jessica Biel and 24'S Eric Balfour.
Likewise a WICKER MAN update from the creators of THE BLAIR WITCH
PROJECT (no, I'm not making this one up!). And do we really
need a new DAWN OF THE DEAD from James Gunn, a Troma veteran partially
responsible for last year's SCOOBY-DOO? Universal apparently thinks we
do, just as Warner Brothers seems to believe we're all hankering for a
new EXORCIST.
For those of us who appreciate the genre and its
potential, the "remake thing" is bad news. Films like DAWN OF THE DEAD
and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE were nearly perfect to begin with (not
to mention, in both concept and execution, very much products of their
time) meaning remakes can only result in inferior films.
The problem used to be (as detailed by
Chas. Balun in his unforgettably acerbic booklets BLED TO DEATH '94 and
RED INK '95) the innumerable sequels, and now it's too many damn
remakes. Both are symptomatic of the same things: a complete lack of
imagination on the part of filmmakers and a blatant contempt for their
audiences.
Yes, there are original and interesting
American made horror movies out there: FRAILTY ('02), ONE HOUR PHOTO
('02), PANIC ROOM ('02), TED BUNDY ('01), DONNIE DARKO ('01),
THE PLEDGE
('01), RAVENOUS ('99),
SUMMER OF SAM ('99),
APT PUPIL ('98) and a
handful of others, none of them remakes, sequels or what have you, and
all of them powerful, original, freaky films. It's these films we
should be patronizing...otherwise we can almost certainly expect
new--and definitely not improved--versions of FREAKS, THE WOLF
MAN, DEAD OF NIGHT, SUSPIRIA, THE HOWLING, VIDEODROME and God only knows
what else. |
