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Night of the Horror Remakes
Hollywood's obsession with remaking horror classics goes into overdrive
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The Last House on the Left, which Iliadis is prepping for a March release, is a purportedly faithful remake of Craven’s 1972 hippie-nightmare version of Hansel and Gretel, in which two comely teenage girls go out looking for pot and run straight into the arms of a Manson-style gang. But staying faithful to a movie that originally received an X rating means careful negotiations with the MPAA. Zwieg says the board has been “great to work with, but the sequence in the middle which fans of The Last House on the Left will remember has been a real challenge.” After Last House, Midnight will proceed with two more Craven remakes: Shocker and The People Under the Stairs.
For moviemakers with less control over their old projects—or less interest in revisiting the past—reactions to remakes of their work run the gamut from bemusement to sarcasm to a top-me-if-you-can spirit. Legendary director Joe Dante says he’s given “no input” to the team currently laboring to reimagine his 1978 horror-comedy Piranha, but wishes them well. “These guys are to be congratulated if they actually get the movie made, as it seems there’s been a Piranha remake announced every year or so for the past few decades,” Dante says. “I’ve read the script and except for the presence of piranha, bathers and (lots of) blood, it bears no resemblance to the 1978 version, its characters or plot. But I think it will always be perceived as a ‘remake’ because it has the same title. And let’s face it, without the title they wouldn’t be making it at all.”
Other Dante classics are also circling the remake vortex, each with its own complicating factors. “The Howling has a very tangled rights history which may never be sorted out,” he says, alluding to an issue Fuller also knows well. “Friday the 13th took two years to close up the rights,” Fuller says. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was about a year and a half. The Amityville Horror was a little cleaner, but it’s a huge, huge issue.”
Movies made with now-outdated technology also present hurdles. “Sooner or later there will be another Gremlins, but the technology is now so out of style that I can’t see what the approach would be, unless it’s a retro kind of CGI movie like that mash-up that guy from Belgium posted on the Internet. Maybe the Gremlins invade your computer?” Dante muses. “Also, I already remade Gremlins as Gremlins 2 and Small Soldiers!”
Jokes aside, Dante retains a certain nonchalance about the remake tidal wave. “I don’t care if they remake my stuff,” he says. “I’ve borrowed too many elements from other people’s movies over the years to look askance at taking an old story once more around the barn. Some of our favorite movies are remakes, but when I look at something like The Haunting remake, I wonder what the point is of revisiting something great only to prove you didn’t understand it in the first place? The best remakes reimagine the original source material or build on it in a way that acknowledges the original intent.”
The cold sweats that come with remaking an established classic haven’t deterred Platinum from what may be its biggest challenge yet: Its planned remake of The Birds, with Naomi Watts and Casino Royale director Martin Campbell both attached and awaiting a new script. “None of us are going to go try to remake a Hitchcock movie with a script that doesn’t feel perfect,” says Fuller. Reverent words, but they’d carry little weight with the original’s star, 78-year-old Tippi Hedren, who denounced the remake in September during an interview with a British paper. “Can’t they get any fresh ideas of their own?” she reportedly fumed. That’s a tough line that many inevitably take, but Hollywood’s self-cannibalization will continue unabated and accepting the good output with the bad may be the healthy choice. “For every Pan’s Labyrinth or The Others there will be five remade My Bloody Valentines or Friday the 13th Part 24s,” Dante says. “It’s just the way it is. Do you know how many Children of the Corn movies there are? Or Leprechauns? Answer: Too many to stop now.”
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by denver criminal lawyers on 6/03/09 at 4:11 pm
Making horror movies is a whole different ball game. First of all you have to create something that exists only in imagination and secondly, the fantasy should be able to frighten even the toughest of movie viewers. Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are experts at this when they work as a team, especially, when it comes to re-creating classics to add that extra favor of horror.
- Comment by negotiate your salary on 6/30/09 at 8:40 am
I actually liked the prom night story quite a bit. Although there are some great outfits in the other movies as well.
- Comment by drug rehab centers on 10/04/09 at 2:34 pm
Very nice post. i don’t really like horror but if i ever do i will see some of these movies.
- Comment by How to lose weight fast on 10/17/09 at 6:07 am
Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed and informative article. It has given me a lot of inspiration and I look forward to more like this in the future..
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- Comment by budapestevideos on 2/25/11 at 12:08 pm
The best horror-thiller is the Saw-series.
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This story was published in the Fall 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Night of the Horror Remakes / Hollywood's obsession with remaking horror classics goes into overdrive
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