Welcome back to the Randomizer!
Horror fiction.
It has been a major genre in the world since time immemorial.
We cannot escape it. Or do we want to? Many aspects have become such a familiarity
in the public imagination that without them, we wouldn't have a proper gateway
into the horror world.
The genre has a variety of supernatural creatures and
characters that have been embossed on our brains since their creation and leave
quite an impression on us. Such characters include the staple literature of the
Dracula, Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, to the conventional horror villains
of film today with Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kruger and Michael Myers.
With the characters, we enter into many different worlds:
Some are complete gothic works from the 18th-19th
century, the world of the Gregorian and Victorian eras invaded by forces ethereal
to our known humanity. Others are set in modern day, where our sense of reality
is again threatened by demonic-like characters.
(Though of course it would be ignorant to not mention that
some horror characters are not really a threat. Really, some of them are pushed
too far like Stephen King's Carrie, or victims of their own selves like Eli in
'Let the Right One in').
But recently with Hollywood films at any rate, the Horror
genre has....suffered, shall we say? Not in all places but in some,
specifically the remakes of horror icons. These types of films have not been
very well received by critics. For example, the recent 2010 remake of A
Nightmare on Elm Street has a lowly rated 15% compared to the 1984 original,
which has 95% on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.
This is something that had bugged me for a while, more in
films than literature. Some elements of these horror films do not leave a mark
on us at all. Rather they just fly by, presenting girls and boys who get
offed/shot/axed/pegged rather bloodily by the monster of the week, but of
course the lone survivor just kicks the villains ass in some form or other.
Basically Scooby-Doo without the dog, and lots of gore.
But it could still be worth looking if the horror genre is
still scary, simply to find out if there's anything to be scared about from
recent 80s icon remakes to what could be considered to be horror in our own
eyes. So maybe the question is:
What is wrong with these horror remakes?
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In the 2000s as you may have noticed, there has been a trend
in Hollywood to remake horror films from the 70s and 80s. Those films, as some
of you may know, are coined as 'Slasher Films': films that essentially have a
body count thanks to the resident bad guy, who appears depending which camp or
town you go to. York doesn't really boast any of these problems so you'd be
quite safe. Same with Lincoln I'd imagine. But I digress. The old films gave
rise to the cult horror figures we know today in mainstream horror.
The new ones however, don't seem to hold up well in the eyes
of critics.
The first film I will look at is the Friday the 13th remake, directed by Marcus Nispel.
Kim Newman reviewed the remake for Empire
Magazine. He stated that:
This ditches the mild mystery of
the original by running through the business about Jason's mad mother in a
brief prologue then shuffles through plot elements from the first three sequels
- without addressing the bizarre logic whereby Mrs. Voorhees (Nana Visitor) kills
to avenge her son's death, only for Jason to turn out to be alive and killing
to avenge her decapitation....Jason is frankly a dull-thug of a character - a
knockoff goon besides Michael Myers, the Texas cannibal clan or Freddy Krueger
- and the film trudges without suspense, atmosphere, terror or wit from one unimaginative
kill to the next.
So what he means is that the film somehow manages to drop
any interesting plot devices in favour of referencing the old franchise, as
well as taking a shot at Jason being a boring character compared to the other
American horror icons.
This is true since Jason uses a cloth mask for a time, taken
from the sequel Friday the 13th
Part 2 and after that is forcibly removed, he finds and places the famous
hockey mask over his head, which has been synonymous with the character since Friday the 13th part III. And
of course they keep the focus on Jason since obviously he is the popular
character. But as Newman stated above, the odd thing is in the original film he
wasn't the main character, but a catalyst for his mother to kill the camp counsellors
whom she felt responsible for his death. He became the main star throughout the
sequels afterwards, and his mother became a side character.
Poor Pamela...
I think I'm starting to see a problem with remaking or
re-imagining a film series. If by using the popular plot elements from a number
of films and placing them all into one film, it doesn't give you much scope to
work with and too much limitation to include every single one of them in,
possibly making the film a bit of a cluttered mess. Imagine if the recent Star Trek movies had done this, to
include every possible reference made from the original TV series or films into
one singular film. There could be so many things happening at once, you couldn't
keep your attention on them.
Another point is the reasoning behind changing the cloth
mask for the hockey mask. Yes, it's a popular staple with Jason, but if you
just throw it in there because it's popular it's not exactly a good reason for
the character. If he had some liking for hockey or something, then it would
make a little more sense. But no, mindless story first, deciding what
characters are like later.
Though I admit, I might be a tad harsh or daft talking about
logic in a Friday the 13th movie because, well, logic doesn't
exactly need to be heard of. It's a brainless gore-fest and people probably do
enjoy the films for the creative death scenes and the character of Jason
itself. It does its job and leaves it at that.
Maybe I should consider being a film critic in future!
Maybe better than this person
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The second film I will look at is A Nightmare on Elm Street, the 2010 remake directed by Samuel Barber.
For the same magazine, Simon Crook reviewed the Nightmare on Elm Street a year later,
stating that:
When a remake relies on restaging
so much source material, as this does here, you can't help but rewind the
original in your head. Wes Craven's film plays a bit cheesy/nasty nowadays, but
it's littered with unforgettable scenes - Johnny Depp's blood-geyser bed, the
marshmallow stairs, the wall-climbing sequence...There's not one memorable
moment here, not one kill that sticks, just various shades of the same grey
nightmares. Freddie's back, but the blades are blunt.
What is meant here is that compared to the original
Nightmare on Elm Street film, there is nothing worthy for you to take notice
of. Nothing to grab your attention or challenging you to have a vested interest
in this remake of Wes Craven's classic horror film.
Comparing the trailers for the movie too, you can see a
great many differences. The original trailer simply showed the different kids
being killed, quick glimpses of Freddy Krueger so that you don't get a
full-view of his face, and some of the special effects used by him to torture
the kids.
In the first trailer for the remake, we're introduced to
Freddy immediately being chased by the parents of Springwood immediately and he
gets torched, taking off his jacket to reveal the classic striped red/black
jumper. In addition is a view of the street name (which might have been
pointless since we already had the name Krueger spoken out and the jumper), and
a recreation of the glove in the bath shot. Finally, we get shots of Freddy in silhouette,
adorned in the full clothes and the last shot of the trailer is on his face, in
all its burned majesty.
Watching some more clips from the remake, I do feel as if there's
nothing to it, not much that's visually spectacular. Obviously blood is there,
but there are some deaths that feel easy and lazy. Stabbing someone through the
chest, that's easy. Freddy's meant to be a killer in people's dreams, at least
he should try and kill them in creative ways.
But the interesting thing is how they changed Krueger's
character physically and mentally. I had read that they tried to make Krueger's
face more in line with how real burn victims look like and make him look
realistic. Though from what I've seen, his face doesn't scare me. Compared to
what other burned victims looked like (which is horrible of course), it didn't
make me feel scared of him, more 'you have a rats face. Am I supposed to be
afraid of you or give you a treat?'. The make-up on Robert Englund was more
convincing for me because it might not have been real, but it was quite
stylised to make him more terrifying and less human, matching the character
more so perhaps.
Intentionally, Krueger's back-story changed to its original
intention of being a paedophile then as the classic child-killer. And what's
more villainous? The paedophile way is disturbing yes, and it makes for
uncomfortable viewing, making Freddy more creepy and up-to-date with today's
world. And of course parents would be beyond pissed off to find out their child
has been abused. But here's my point: after the parents found out, they just
upped straight and tried to kill him. In the original, he was arrested for his
killing of children, but apparently let off on a technicality and THAT led to
the parents killing him to make sure he got what he deserved.
So why didn't the parents in the remake go to the police? According
to the Nightmare on Elm Street Wikipedia (yes, such a thing exists), someone
wrote down that the parents to trying to protect them from testifying against
him in court. Nowhere did I hear that while finding the right scene in the movie,
so that has to disregarded sadly. And even then, it would have been quite
extreme for any parent to do wouldn't it? Surely, going over to the police with
this information would've been helpful. So instead of helping the children,
they just screwed them over. Well done parents of the remake, well done indeed.
Or maybe that should be the makers that decided to go with that poor plot
point.
The original version still showed how parents went to the
extreme, except when they felt presumably they had no choice and set out to kill
him for what he did to them, because he did kill children. No questions asked.
This makes the original film a little bit more stronger than the remake,
because it shows how much more these parents actually know about Freddy's
character.
I think she's screaming because she just realized whose fault it was that Freddy's back
So for those reasons, despite the good acting and gore, the
original again trumps the remake.
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The third and final film I will look at is the Rob Zombie 2007 attempt to
remake John Carpenter's critical classic Halloween.
Zombie's film actually expanded Michael Myer's back-story significantly,
showing the idea how being abused by his family turns the young boy became the
psychopathic horror icon.
Kim Newman again reviewed this film, and stated:
In a way, Zombie's take on
Halloween is fan fiction. If you ever wanted 'origin scenes' for significant
props like Michael's overalls or Dr. Loomis's handgun, you'll find them here -
along with cameos from Ken Foree and Mickey Dolenz (!) as the persons
responsible for passing them on....Despite decent work from the younger cast
when they finally get a look in, Zombie has no interest in the imperilled kids,
which means the film falls flat when it comes to suspense, shock and shudders.
This take on Halloween is grim and nasty, but never remotely scary.
Again, references to the original franchise is made and
though the younger actresses attempt a good job, they are glossed over and due
to that, the film just doesn't work according to Newman.
Compared to Carpenter's film showing only the one killing at
the beginning, that of his older sister Judith; Zombie includes three: Judith, Judith's
boyfriend and Michael's step-father, Ronnie. And boy, there are gruesome. Ronnie
gets wrapped up in duck-tape without him noticing and has his throat slit, the
boyfriend is whacked and Judith herself is stabbed multiple times. The gore
doesn't actually bother me in the slightest.
What actually bothers me is the portrayal of abuse in this
movie that supposedly turns Michael. Personally from actually watching this
film, I do find the characters quite laughable in the set-up of treating
Michael like crap. Maybe it's because I've seen this kind of type of lazy ass
character many times before in films and TV. It doesn't really get me interested
at all. To me at this moment, if you are going to include abuse in a film, you
need to make it very believable and not go for the usual person who just throws
out random insults and just is an asshole, for the sake of being an asshole.
And what's up with that older sister? Why was she abusing
Michael like fuck? Reason please! I probably shouldn't have to make up reasons
myself, even though I find it quite fun to do so anyway.
I follow the religion known as Scriptology. I obey whatever is written and don't question the lord god Zombie. I like cats. Because it is written.
So far, the impression I got from these movies is that with
remaking these slasher films, they don't attempt to try and make something
original that would make it appealing to a new audience. Watching the deaths
from the recent Friday the 13th
remake shows some creativity being done with an arrow being shot and using a
bear trap, but other than that the kills aren't very memorable or catch the
attention very much. That distinction also goes for Nightmare on Elm Street, for the first death was interesting but it
lacked a good execution and fell flat.
There is also a question if the characters LOSE any of their
original mystery in these remakes. Kyle Retter says of the new Halloween film:
In complete opposition to the
original, Zombie's "re-imagination" of the film gives us all the
answers to the questions that made the original such an haunting experience,
while neglecting the deliberate construction of the mise-en-scene that made the
original so magical
This is certainly true in that particular film. All of who
is Michael Myers is revealed substantially (and perhaps poorly) in the first 10
minutes of the film. We have a broken environment with a broken family, so how
does that not create a possible serial killer in the future? In a way, this is
a poor assumption.
Retter also points out that Zombie had the intention of
getting audiences to feel sorry for the monster, stating that:
It seems that Zombie is
encouraging us to sympathise with the killer, and how can we not?...We are left
to assume that Michael has an unhealthy view of the world. As a result, he
decides to hide behind a mask and kill rats and neighbourhood cats. All these
actions are justifiable based on his environment. During the first act, he is
bullied at school, and later, gets his revenge by beating the bully to death
with a tree branch on his way home from school. Given the evidence proceeding
this action it is obvious why the child is acting out the way he is.
(For some reason Basil Fawlty sprang to mind. I mean, he did
lay it on the line for the bully to stop time and time again. Well he decided
this was it, and went to give him a damn good thrashing).
Unfortunately, the car suffered worse.
Thinking about it now, I ask the question is it 'right' to
humanise a horror monster, someone we have to feel sorry for. On the one hand,
yes it gives us insight to how that person ticks and how they came to be in
that position. But on another level maybe it's not our place to humanise a
horror icon. Once we start doing that, they are not the 'other', they are one
of us. And that doesn't work in film, because who can we decide to hate when
the actual killer is a victim. Real-life issues seem to seep in too easily in
horror films, when really it's not needed to provide a backstory for someone
who is intended to be evil.
I think I've been watching too much Game of Thrones...Arya's my hero.
That case works for Michael Myers specifically. For Freddy
Krueger or Jason Voorhees, we're not given their point of view much, except for
certain scenes as to how they became the horror icons in the remakes. And even
then they are kind of illogical. Jason sees his mother killed and decides there
and then to kill anyone who comes across Camp Crystal Lake, and as I've pointed
out with Freddy, he gets burned because the parents were stupid fuck-wits
making things worse for their children.
But because we get such a poor attempt to try and make
Michael actually 'sympathetic' with audiences because of a lazy-ass character,
(or lazy-ass writing. Much as I like Rob Zombie for his music, he probably
should stay away from the Halloween franchise), it doesn't do to make
characters who are just assholes for the sake of story development.
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Going back to the original question: What is wrong with
these horror remakes?
And I think the blog speaks for itself. The characters are
written moronically, the plots are stupid and create more problems than they
need to, and the gore is the only brilliant thing in these films.
I now have a bit more understanding as to why these films
cannot hold much of a candle to their original predecessors, if they just use
popular elements, change the characters to original standings, or look into
their past. These cult icons have been done no favours in respect to their
franchises, and this is a major problem. These ideas might work in theory and
better on film if they are thought through properly, but as they are they don't
work on screen. Even though Friday the 13th
is mindless fun anyway, there are still a few references that feel forced through
because of their status in that franchise.
Very sadly, I didn't feel personally scared much by this
films half the time. I was laughing, angry, and quite annoyed at how...I won't
say pretentious, but how serious these films are trying to be. Halloween fails because it attempts to
look into the mind of a killer in a stereotypical fashion, Nightmare fails because it attempts to make things visually good,
when really the death scenes are not well done and obviously the parents are a
bunch of marons, and Friday the 13th
fails because it's deaths are not very creative and a traditional slasher film
treatment.
So if people are going to attempt re-making a film, they
need to be developing the story properly and not go for any modern day
Hollywood horror clichés. This does include gore, which personally I like, but
it doesn't make for good horror visuals all the time. Horror is something that
we, as an audience, want to feel scared and be frightened of. Something that
can leave a mark on us and make us keep a light on next to the bedside. I don't
do that. I have my plushy Knuckles toy to comfort me.
:)
So don't be afraid of these films guys. Watch horror films
like The Innocents, Carrie or Let the
Right One In. They are the ones to hopefully leave a mark on you. These
remakes will barely make a scratch.
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That's it for this week.
You may bum around and be lazy for the next fortnight :).
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