Okay, FYI, I’m posting this on the 31 Days of Halloween thread because this all started with my marathoning of the Friday the 13th series. But I may just copy/paste this whole thing into a whole new topic because I think this conversation could potentially go places other than horror flicks.
So, I just finished watching the remakes/reboots of Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween. Honestly, it got me thinking.
My little essay on the good and bad of Remakes
It Already Exists. A Remake Is Pointless!
These are words I've said myself many times. But now I may have to rethink it.
Those who were around the 31 Days of Halloween topic last year probably remember I went through the Universal Classic Monsters collection last year as well as silent film versions of Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame (not really a horror movie, but that's beside the point). I did make separate posts for each movie, but let me condense my overall judgement of each of them right here. As a cinephile I enjoyed these movies. They were black and white. The special effects were crude at best. The ideas of what was scary back then and what made me laugh my ass off today share remarkable similarities. But I enjoyed them for what they where. I enjoyed them as a time capsule of what cinema was like back in ye olden days.
But for them to be horror movies, was I sufficiently scared and on the edge of my seat? As indicated before, no, I was laughing my ass off.
Oh but that was the cinema of the 30's and 40's. What could a remake possibly add to what I watched when I was a kid/teen? What could it possibly add to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween.
Look, I'm a child of the 80's and teen of the 90's. But I have to admit, as much as I love the old movies I grew up with...we need to take off some of the nostalgia glasses.
When I was a kid, of course I was aware of the existence of Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. But I was never allowed to watch it. I was a kid. My parents (rightfully) didn't want me watching such things. I was out of college and living on my own (in the early 2000's) by the time I finally saw these films. Heck, Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre I hadn't seen until this year (2023). Want to know what I thought?
As a cinephile I enjoyed these movies. They were grainy SD. I could see the cuts from actual actors to viscera filled props getting mutilated and were very noticeable at best. The idea's of what was scary back then have been totally lampooned by the Scream series and I could tell who was going to die right away by who was having sex (almost every one). It was totally laughable at best, boring at worst. But I enjoyed them for what they were. I enjoyed them as a time capsule of what cinema was like back in ye olden days. It's just that now I have to admit that ye olden days are now my childhood!
So, are remakes pointless since the original already exists? Well here's the thing. Those of us who grew up with it may see the horror with our nostalgia goggles. Young cinephiles who never grew up with them could look at them like we look back on the old Universal Classic Monsters. But are they going to be scared by the horror movies that used to scare us? I doubt it.
So, if we want to keep these franchises going, one of two things are going to need to happen: sequels or remakes/reboots.
There's a problem with sequels though. Jamie Lee Curtis isn't as young as she was when she first played Laurie in Halloween. As iconic as Robert Englund made Freddy, he's not getting any younger. either. And if you followed my marathon of Friday the 13th, as well as my thoughts on Nightmare on Elm Street...quality kept going down the more sequels there were.
Now that's not to say there aren't problems with remakes/reboots either. Personally, I enjoyed the remakes of Friday the 13th and Halloween. But I'm in a minority on that. And when it comes to Nightmare on Elm Street, I personally think it had its good points and bad points.
There's a fine line that producers/writers/directors walk when remaking a classic that has a lot of fans. If you make it too different, it shouldn't even be called the same thing. How dare they take the name and plaster it on this dreck that has nothing to do with what the original was. They completely missed the point! But if you make it too similar, it didn't need to be made. It's exactly like the original. There's absolutely no originality with this.
I've been just as guilty of saying the above as anyone. But here's the thing. Here's the main point I want to make in defense of remakes.
Sooner rather than later, the horror shows we watched when we were younger are going to be just as outdated as the old black and white movies from the 30's and 40's...if they aren't already. Even their remakes are going to suffer the same fate. Even the movies of today will eventually be seen as outdated and laughable. Count on it.
If we truly love these franchises, then I think the general disgust with remakes needs to be looked at. Dracula is still going strong. But it's not the Bela Lugosi Dracula that scares people today. Bram Stoker got the ball rolling with the novel. Bela Lugosi kept the fire burning in 1931. There's been plenty of movies since then that have kept it going since then: 1958 Hammer Film, Francis Ford Coppola 1992, I absolutely want to see this 2023 Last Voyage of the Demeter when I get paid next. But if all there was was the Bela Lugosi film...great as it may be as a time capsule, Dracula probably would have fizzled into obscurity a while ago.
Some remakes may be better than others. I never saw Hammer Dracula (James Rolfe seems to swear by it). I actually liked Coppoloa's version faults and all (and yes, I'm not blind to its many faults. But each one keeps the franchise in the minds of people, bad or good. I'd rather see a meh Nightmare on Elm Street come out in 2010...but who knows what may come out in the next decade or so? Could be that the next person who decides to make an Elm Street movie will make us shit our pants!
Well, I've already written quite a wall of text. So I'm off to copy/paste this into a new topic. Discuss!
