With Rob Zombie's remake of HALLOWEEN hitting theaters this weekend, I felt a proper theme for This Weekend's Film Festival, in light of the many horror remakes in the past few years, would be to look at the originals that we good the first time around. In doing so, I'm not making a judgment on Mr. Zombie's film, because I have not seen it. However, it's hard for me to see how you can improve on John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, which is one of the all time best horror films. I tried to pick films that cover a wide breath of what kinds of horror is being remade and address how it's being remade. I thought about doing a compare and contrast lineup, but rethought that idea wanting to save viewers from wanting to gouge their eyes out or wanting to gouge my eyes out for recommending them watch such gruesome and horribly remade films. Here is a weekend of chills for you that for some may require three days of watching the TV through the spaces between fingers.
I decided to start and end This Weekend's Film Festival with a slasher film. But don't get turned off yet. They are the two best slasher films of all time. In my original review of BLACK CHRISTMAS I said, "Here’s the plot — a lunatic killer stalks a sorority house. You’re probably moving onto the next review right about now. If not, then you might learn more about one of the most underrated horror films of all time." The remake of this film came out with a whimper last holiday season, seemingly having only been seen by hardcore horror freaks and sadomasochistic movie critics. I have not seen the remake yet and judging from the trailer, I don't really want to. With the addition of the killer making cookies out of his victim's flesh, I highly doubt it retains the feminist theme of the original. That's right, the original had a pro-independent woman story that was key to the plot. The late director Bob Clark, who also made another holiday-themed classic, A CHRISTMAS STORY, taps into many common chills, building tension by keeping the killer hidden for most of the film. It's the uncertainty that is frightening. Having arrived in theaters in 1974, it predates HALLOWEEN, which shares many similarities. It's a tragedy that the remake will most likely return this film back to obscurity due to modern horror's need to up the ante. It's sad because the original BLACK CHRISTMAS directly influenced the horror genre for more than a decade.
Hollywood has been obsessively remaking Asian ghost tales ever since the remake of RINGU became a monster hit. In representing this trend, I thought it was a good choice to pick one of the JU-ON films, which where remade into THE GRUDGE series in the U.S. The first GRUDGE film represents everything wrong with American horror remakes; instead of fixing the weaknesses of the original Japanese series, it only exaggerated them. Though there are four films in the Japanese series, the films can stand on their own for the most part. For the lineup this week, I chose JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2, which is the final and best installment in the original series. The main problem with all the films, Japanese or American, is the lack of a strong central character. JU-ON: THE GRUDGE 2 makes efforts to alleviate this problem by giving us at least one character to follow through the course of the film. What really defines the series though, is it's creepy visuals and deliberate pacing. As I said in my original review, director Takashi Shimizu "understands exactly what makes a great fireside horror tale scary and incorporates that into the film." I believe this film is a good place to start for anyone first entering Asian horror or wants to see a decent representative of common themes.
For the closing film of Saturday, I picked Wes Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES. The remake of HILLS also represents what's wrong with horror remakes today. Torture porn is an en vogue term for recent horror films that seem far more interested in copious amounts of gore over making something scary. Like hardcore porn they are interest more in the act than the foreplay. The original and remake put a family in the middle of the desert and has them stalked by genetically altered freaks. The reason the two films diverge on quality so much is implicit in my definition of torture porn. In the original HILLS, we knew the freaks were lurking out in the desert and Craven took time to flesh them out and make them intriguing. In the remake, the freaks are hacking and slashing in no time and are developed less than Jason in the FRIDAY THE 13TH series. Additionally, the filmmakers are more interested in making the freaks gross than they are in making them scary. As I've said over and over again, gross or horrible things are not as scary as the threat of gross and horrible things. In my original review of Craven's version, I said, "In too many horror films, the good guys are merely the next potential victims with the most unlikely of the group forced to stand as the unlikely hero." The remake falls into the category of "too many horror films." In watching Craven's THE HILLS HAVE EYES, you'll understand why the tradition of pitting opposite character against each other is such a proven convention. Understanding a character's motivations and caring about the heroes is far more thrilling, and, in the case of horror films, chilling than seeing a crazed victim bash in the head of a superhuman monster
Now the Sunday duo of films represent two classic horror films, which were remade and release this year. The first is INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. With the Rotten Tomatoes critics' rating at a paltry 21% and less than stellar box office receipts, it seems Nicole Kidman's THE INVASION isn't a surefire classic. So why remake a classic movie that was remade two times before? The answer that the filmmakers give is that they have a relevant twist on the material that mirrors current cultural issues. It worked surprisingly well with THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, so why not? The real reason to remake it is probably closer to the desire to try and cash in on an already established franchise. It's probably the main reason why any film gets remade. Though some have a love for the 1970s remake of BODY SNATCHERS, I feel the first is still the best. It's mainly do to era and the cultural attitude of the time. The metaphor of an alien invasion that replaces humans with emotionless duplicates fits the Communist threat and the Red Scare so well that it seems emptier in another context. I said in the original review, "In some ways, the idealistic/uncomfortable conformity that this film presents is what some people feel embodies the 1950s. It’s in this quality that INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS stands as a true classic." The 1956 take on this story seems to get better with age and that's part of why it has never been bettered.
Well what a better way to close This Weekend's Film Festival than the film that inspired the theme — HALLOWEEN. I pretty much said it all in my original review. The slasher subgenre of horror has very dicey reputation. (Pun intended.) Along with BLACK CHRISTMAS, this 1970s horror classic completely transformed the '80s horror scene. Jason and Freddy wouldn't be household names if it weren't for Michael Myers blazing the trail first. So am I curious what Mr. Zombie has done with this holy grail of the horror genre? Sure I am. But I'm very leery as well. How can you improve on the simple perfection of the original? From the trailer, the intensity seems to have been amped up. So that doesn't bode well. The original had a deliberate pace that took its time and created sometimes unbearable tension. The first few sentences of VARIETY's review confirm my fears, "The best that can be said about Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN remake is that he makes it his own, though the considerable alterations only flatter John Carpenter's 1978 slasher-pic template. In contrast to that spare, suggestive genre classic, this bloodier, higher-body-count version leaves nothing to the imagination: Michael Myers is always right there in plain sight, committing mayhem sans suspenseful buildup or mystique." So instead of sneaking up on the viewer and whispering something spooky in your ear like Carpenter did, Zombie decided to scream boo in your face. So outside of trying to make money for the studios, why remake great horror films when they were good the first time around?
So there you go a wonderful collection of great to good horror films that didn't need to be remade to make them any better. (Or in the case of JU-ON weren't made better by being remade.) Come October I'll be revisiting one of favorite genres again. So if you enjoyed this lineup definitely check back October 31st for some more bloody good fun. Now it's time to update your Netflix, head out to the local indie video store or surf Zap2It.com. And if you call yourself a horror fan than at least two of these films should be already in your DVD library.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
