Rob Zombie's remake of the 1978 classic "Halloween" is a scant four days away so I began to ask myself, when is a remake really worth it?
Lately, Hollywood seems to have run out of ideas, remaking perfect good movies with reckless abandon, and hoping that nobody notices. I'm not talking about "Americanized" movies, that's an entirely different discussion (see: The Ring, 12 Monkeys, Vanilla Sky, True Lies), I'm talking about movies that are already in English. It sometimes seems as though if things are recycled every thirty years, nobody notices. I'm talking about The Longest Yard, The Haunting, The Stepford Wives, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Vanishing, Psycho... on and on and on. All of these remade from classics! When there is nothing at all wrong with an original, does the desire for cold, hard cash outweigh common sense? Well, in short, yes.
There are a few remakes that are decent, they aren't terrible but they aren't exactly groundbreaking. The remake of Gone in Sixty Seconds comes to mind... it put in Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage... but it completely got rid of the campy 70's feel! Some remakes lose sight of what made the originals really worth it: campy feeling. Tobe Hooper's original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a prime example of this. There was a tight budget, nobody actors and a bucket of cow guts. That was the movie. It was so campy, so surreal that it was instantly a masterpiece of the horror world. The remake has Gunnery Sergeant Hartman and the one chick from 7th Heaven that's really hot. I know it's Jessica Biel, but that's the problem... I know who she is. I even read today that they're remaking The Day the Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves. Why, why, why?
Back to the original question of "why remakes?" There are two reasons I can think of to make a remake from something considered a classic: bigger budget and "better' special effects. A remake, if you think about it, has a built in audience. There are a certain amount of people out there that have this particular movie as their favorite movie. They're going to come see your remake no matter what... and probably hate it. The remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre cost $10 million (US) to make... the original? $82,000 (US). Twelve times the budget, one twelfth the fun. Sure, the special effects were nifty, I love R. Lee Emory and all, but it just didn't quite fit together (yes I'm aware it made a crapload of money). It lacked schlock! And don't even get me started on the remake of Psycho. And that new take on Dune. Bleah.
So we know what makes a remake fail... but what makes a remake work? Different interpretation of the source material. Look at the remake of Dawn of the Dead. The original is one of my favorite movies... a critique on consumerism, materialism and the hive mentality of America. Oh yeah, and freakin' zombies eating people's faces off. More so the zombies, but the other stuff is there. Zack Snyder took a classic threat, the slow, shambling zombie and spiced them up: they ran. So now something that wanted to bite your face off could give Carl Lewis a run for his money (pun intended). He also switched the story around a bit, added some characters, strengthened up the female lead, added some nudity, the bus from hell and a bimbo with a dog. Very nice. It was different enough from the original to stand on its own, it didn't insult the original fanbase and was an enjoyable film.
Moving back in the direction of this entry's title, let's take a look first at Rob Zombie's previous films, starting with House of 1000 Corpses. The film immediately reminded me of most of the 70's B horror films. Kind of campy, kind of weird, lots of fun. It is quite apparent that it was a sort of remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre... but... different. It has the "fish out of water" foursome, the creepy house and a cracked out family that perpetrates the whole mess. Pepper in a sheriff on a mission (Dennis Hopper from Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 come to mind), a dad looking for his daughter and a whole mess of Captain Spaulding and you have one hodge-podge of insanity. Even so: it works. It may have reminiscent elements of those movies but it stands very strongly on its own. Rob Zombie has stated his love for the 70's horror films and it shows in this film. It had everything I wanted to see in it... though I would have liked some more Dr. Satan scenes... what a twisted concept. A remake in a way, but more so an homage... and it worked by putting his own demented twists on the genre conventions. The Devil's Rejects was also awesome, but let's get moving towards Halloween.
This time as opposed to an homage, Rob Zombie is making a remake. The original Halloween was a horror masterpiece, combining elements of suspense, terror and jumpy scares. Overall a very fun movie with nothing wrong with it (aside from the trees being awfully green of Halloween). Zombie has some big shoes to fill for this film. So rather than trying to rehash the same material and end of disappointing fans, what does he do? He reinvents the material.
A good move on his part. From what I've gathered from interviews, this film will be a re-imaging of the Michael Myers character. It will fill in the gaps of what was missing in the fifteen years that Myers was in the institution, the story will be its own. Rob Zombie even went so far as to contact John Carpenter to ask if it was okay for him to remake the film, and Carpenter's reply was for him to "make it his own," and thankfully it sounds as if Zombie has done just that.
If this were a straight remake it would have no reason to exist aside from the conventions that modern movie making methods would convey... aside from that it would be another forgotten remake, echoing questions of "why" in posts such as this. But to see a different aspect of things... to have things answered that the previous film left open... that will draw in even the diehards such as myself. This is all speculation of course being that I haven't seen the film yet, but I have a good feeling about it. Rob Zombie cares about the material and isn't in it to make a buck but rather for the artistic merit of it all. Kind of cliche sounding, I know, but I'm just hoping for the best for Friday. See you at the movies!
-Michael
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