Friday, April 10, 2009

Make Them Stop!

Man, am I sick and tired of remakes.

The sheer amount they seem to be producing these days, is quite frankly disgusting.

I know I've written about it before, but it really gets my goat to read about them being churned out at the rate they are. Can't they let sleeping dogs lie? Is the modern movie-going audience seriously that fickle, that they can't bear to watch a movie older than, say, 20 years old?

Check out Upcoming Horror Films' list of remakes in progress. See how many of your favourites you can spot, dug up from their "graves", dusted off and regurgitated by Hollywood hacks.

To keep in tune with this blog's subject matter, here's a brief sample of vampire movies currently undergoing the remake treatment:
  • Isle of the Dead (1945)
  • The Monster Squad (1987)
  • Near Dark (1987)
  • Låt den rätte komma in [Let the Right One In] (2008)
I don't have a nostalgic view of cinematic history. Remakes are nothing new. I'm well aware of that. But, seriously, I feel like we're being bombarded with them at every turn.

I'd love to know if anyone has actually studied their output against those of previous generations. Surely we're making history here - of a more artistically-dubious kind.

3 comments:

Taliesin_ttlg said...

AV, from what I can make out the Near Dark one seems to have been canned again - it has been on again off again, so might reappear.

I dread the Isle of the dead remake as - well you can't top perfection and, as I have read about the resetting (afghanistan) it kind of undermines the entire vorvolaka aspect...

Anthony Hogg said...

Hi Taliesin

I certainly hope the Near Dark remake has been canned. I mean, seriously, is there a point to it all?

There's a gigantic amount of source material for filmmakers to access. You'd think there would be something out there, which would at least be commercially viable (from a filmmaker's perspective).

I did enjoy the original Isle of the Dead movie. I also note how favourably you reviewed it in your blog.

Updating its setting to Afghanistan is an obvious attempt to cater to a modern audience, re: current conflict in the Middle East.

But the other element to it is this: Isle was a psychological horror film. Could we say that today's audiences would be into such a thing?

It wouldn't surprise me if the nature of the vorvolaka is changed into something more...substantial (without giving away too much for those who haven't seen the film yet).

Taliesin_ttlg said...

I'm currently reading "Every Last Drop" the fourth Joe Pitt book - a series that started with Already Dead,

Now these strike me as a series of books that should be made into a film/films - probably won't happen. It is too easy to remake it seems...

btw, I think you are right when you say they will probably make the Vorvolaka more substantial and utterly undermine the very essence of what the original was about and what makes it great.

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