From Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds to George A. Romero’s Living Dead Series. From Dario Argento’s Suspiria to Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. From Hideo Nakata’s Ringu to The Pang Brothers‘ Gin Gwai (the Eye), and everything in between. Since the early 2000’s, Big Hollywood Cinema has been barraging filmgoers with an onslaught of poorly written, big budgeted, CGI infused Horror remakes, and I for one, am fed up.
Does the term “Classic” mean nothing anymore to the money-grubbing big shots running Hollywood’s film industry these days?
Have today’s directors become so unimaginative and so blasé that they’ve decided rather than thrilling fans with new, creative plotlines, they’ll just take a Horror flick from the 70’s that no one’s probably heard of anyway, “update“ the look, throw in a few cheap jump scares, buckets of CGI blood and remarket is as a pretty, shiny new toy for the masses to play with?
The term “New and Improved” doesn’t really work when applied to classic cinema, folks.
Have we, the movie-going public, become so simple-minded when it comes to Horror that we allow them to get away with this? Have we really succumbed to the “cheap thrill” of the 10 second jump scare or the amount of blood available in any given shot provided to us through CGI? Where has the psychological, get-under-your-skin-and-make-you-sweat scare tactic gone? Where have the buckets full of Karo syrup and food-coloring gone? Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
Sadly though, Classic Horror cinema hasn’t been the only one affected by this disgusting new trend. An even NEVER trend now consists of Big name directors, casting terrible big name actors to play in new remakes of Asian Horror films, most of which are only a couple of years old themselves (the Asian horror flicks, not the terrible actors). Gin Gwai (the Eye), by the ever amazing Pang Brother’s had only been out for 6 years before it was remade by David Moreau and Xavier Palud. Nakata’s Ringu was only 4 years old when Gore Verbinski remade it into The Ring.
I don’t know about you, dear readers, but I prefer the original Asian films to their sloppy Americanized doppelgangers. You just can’t get better Psychological Horror than the way those original directors do it.
I’m not a fully biased Elitist though, folks, don’t get me wrong. I will give credit where credit is due, and in my mind there are two remakes that deserve some credit. Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly will always get respect with me (though the original DID have Vincent Price, and we get what, Jeff Goldblum for the remake?). And of course, a special place in my heart will always be held for a wonderful remake, by a wonderful director: John Carpenter’s The Thing.
These two amazing films aside though, I have no room in my heart, or my movie collection for Horror remakes. How is it possible that The Evil Dead is being remade? How can you redo the poster child of perfect cult-ish B-movie Horror?
Cannibal Holocaust is being remade?? The movie whose death scenes looked so real that Ruggero Deodato was actually called into court and subpoenaed to present each actor that had been killed off in his movie because some people thought it was a snuff film?? How can that possibly translate onto the big screen nowadays?
To use an already overused term, the straw that broke the camel’s back for me, darling friends, was hearing that my beloved Suspiria, by my beloved Dario Argento is presently being ripped apart, molested and raped, like Camille Keaton in I Spit on Your Grave, in order to Americanize it for the masses. This little tidbit of information has made me lose all faith in new cinema.
It’s time the directors went back to their drawing boards and for once, came up with a NEW idea to thrill us, scare us and make us scream for more! I’m tired of screaming for them to stop.
As the saying goes: IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT!
If you have time to pick up one movie this week, friends, here’s my pick for you.
Blayze’s Movie of the Week: Spider Baby Directed by Jack Hill and starring Lon Chaney Jr. and the ever amazing Sid Haig.
