The Naughty Noughties have unfortunately delivered copious horror-makers who didn't have the imagination to write a story of their own, and resorted to recycling the best of the stories. My general rule is to avoid remakes like the plague: they often horribly modernized, and have little grasp of the original story and its qualities. Of course, there are a few exceptions, as there are a few modern Tobe Hoopers, but usually they are god awful.
Last night, I caught Marcus Nispel's 2009 remake of Friday the 13th on TV, and several points caught my cynical attention. In the original story, young Jason Vorhees drowned at summer camp because the counsellors were too busy having sex to notice he was in trouble, motivating his mother to begin slaying the camp's occupants. It's a plot point, but there is no gratuitous nudity involved. In the remake, I had seen two of the three female characters' breasts by the 20-minute-mark. Why? One is having sex, so perhaps that's justified, but the other suddenly whips her top off to tease one guy...right in front of his buddy. That was certainly not necessary. I'm in no way against nudity in films- some of the best horror movies, like Carrie, Don't Look Now and The Wicker Man, have contained nudity- but I can see no other reason to display this kind of nudity than to keep the audience interested because the plot can't. This seems to be a trend in modern horror.
Another thing I rolled my eyes at was the young idiots stumbling upon a huge marijuana bush...supposedly just growing there naturally...in the middle of a summer camp. It seems that the youngsters are stoners enough to get excited by their discovery, but not stoners enough to realize that to be smokeable the stuff would need drying for a time that way exceeds the duration of their visit. The odd good stoner horror, like Idle Hands, can pull it off effectively, but why do all horror victims now have to be young, dumb, sexy AND potheads?
One of the worst remakes has got to be the 2006 version of The Wicker Man, starring Nicholas Cage and the wonderful Ellen Burstyn, whose talents were wasted on this terrible movie. Cage features in the Edward Woodward role, very cleverly named Edward, who is invited to the island in question by his ex-girlfriend, very cleverly named Willow Woodward. Most traces of the fantastic original by Robin Hardy, were gone, and the ones that remained were left to Edward to artlessly blurt out, such as, "Rose! Daisy! Violet! Another plant name!" This is a nice little touch anyone observant could have noticed in the original, but Hardy was not so crass as to shout it out in the dialogue. As Stephen King said, "Don't tell me if you can show me."
A re-working of the story isn't always a terrible thing, as the 2005 remake of House of Wax proved. The only thing both versions shared was real people being made into wax sculptures for the House of Wax museum. The 1953 version, which is a remake of the 1933 movie Mystery of the Wax Museum, features horror legend Vincent Price as the disfigured madman that folks piss off at their own risk. The remake, inevitably, features college students, a football game, and a girl in her underwear, but it's very creative, and cast a fantastic villain in Brian Van Holt, who is the most charismatic villain since Malcolm MacDowell in A Clockwork Orange. This one involves the college students, including a brother-sister team, camping overnight en route to a football game, and wake to a rank smell and a trashed car. Stranded, they follow the local Hick's directions to the nearest town, where they are picked off one by one and made into sculptures, until a stunning showdown between the villains and the brother-sister team in a melting House of Wax.
The cast is fun. Chad Michael Murray breaks his pretty boy image and becomes a very convincing ex-con hardman, and Paris Hilton finds herself penetrated by the largest pole she's come across! (Teehee, sorry, I couldn't resist!) Her appearance sparked promotion inviting us to "See Paris Die!" I would call her a good sport, but I don't think she even realizes that we mock her.
The only thing The Omen remake had on its side was an appearance by scream queen Mia Farrow in the nanny role originally played by British favourite Billie Whitelaw. The kid who played Damien had none of the haunting allure that little Harvey Stephens displayed in 1976, and Liev Schreiber gives a forgettable performance as Damien's father, the role which Gregory Peck dominated in the original.
Despite Rob Zombie's 2007 remake of Halloween sporting Malcolm MacDowell as supporting actor, it lacked a lot of the craft and structure that John Carpenter's original is still renowned for. Its opening sequence has been studied in Film Studies class at my old college for years.
I am glad rumours of an Exorcist remake never came to fruition, despite possession horrors booming in the last few years, and a string of appalling sequels.But earlier I mentioned Modern Tobe Hoopers, and two flourishing directors spring to mind (do share your thoughts if you know any.) My first is a guy I regard as something of a legend in the new generation of horror, and that's Adam Green. Further down on this blog you can find my review of Green's horror debut Hatchet (2006) which is a screaming sensation and uses craft that has not been displayed in the genre for a long time. I watched all the features on my Hatchet DVD, as I do with all my DVDs, and learned a lot about the devotion and skill involved in Green's direction. He came up with the story years before to scare other kids at summer camp, and eventually got funding and a bunch of cult horror actors to make his story a movie. He spent a month doing night shoots in the Louisiana swamp, and vowed not to use a single frame of CGI- an element I really admire, and believe pays off. His script is a fantastic work of original gore, creative characters with well-developed personalities and some pretty hilarious dark comedy. Green believes that horror comedies work as long as you don't let the horror be comical, and his finished product backs this theory up completely. Another of his works is the tense thriller Frozen, which sees three friends left behind on a ski lift in freezing conditions, and their desperate attempts to save themselves. Again, Green showed enormous dedication to film making by shooting on location, in the real snow and ice for hours at a time, day and night, where it could realistically been done in a studio. Adam Green's zero tolerance policy on 'faking it' is really admirable, and the extra craft that this necessitates really makes his movies what they are- innovative, colourful and extravagant.
The other great newcomer is Lucky McKee, who wrote and directed the 2002 cult horror sensation May, which stars Angela Bettis in the title role. May is a withdrawn young woman, whose lifelong lazy eye has prevented her from having any friends (or boyfriends.) Her only friend is a wide-glass-eyed doll named Suzy, who has never been out of her display box. May works in a veterinary hospital, and sews all her own clothes, and has a thing for seeing at least one beautiful asset in every person. She finds her perfect boyfriend, whose hands absolutely besot her, but when she becomes "too weird" for him, May goes to new lengths to get herself a friend. The movie is sterile of horror cliches, and even brings a few new ideas to the Horror table. Angela Bettis is reminiscent of Sissy Spacek in Carrie in being a totally pitiable, vulnerable 'villain,' and her performance is captivating.
The critics and fans loved it, but May is still a seriously under-seen movie, and not widely available in the UK, much to my dismay (I still kick myself for returning my friend's copy!) All created by Lucky McKee, he demonstrates great technique, originality and professionalism, and I really look forward to his future originals.
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