The Horror Film and the Remake: Is There Any Originality Left
Part One
Over the years in the horror genre, there seems to be a more emphasis in remaking, or retelling, of certain horror films. The art of the remake can be traced back to the classic films of Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman. The more modern horror film remakes can be found in John Carpenter's The Thing and the three latest retelling of the sci-fi classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The two mentioned films were not just remade, but were updated for the changing times. Carpenter's film focused more on the concept of isolation and paranoia while Christian Nyby's The Thing from another World was more of the typical sci-fi film dealing with a group of men defeating an alien specie. In Carpenter's The Thing, another element that reflected much about the time it was shot and foreshadowed events to come was the AIDS epidemic. The scene with the blood test and everyone unsure of who was human and who was the alien life form reflected much how the country felt during the early to late eighties.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers continued to evolve from Don Siegel's telling of an alien species that is coming to take over the world and replace the human race with unfeeling clones bent on living in a perfect society. What was striking about his film was that the film was more of a commentary on McCarthyism. Like, The Thing, the film also dealt in the paranoia. Invasion was remade in 1978 by Philip Kaufman. Kaufman's film still held up to its predecessor in it's use of paranoia, but what is different is that instead of the parallels to McCarthy is that this film seems to be a contrast to the counter culture of San Francisco. What is even more frightening is that the film is set in the city which would make it seem more difficult to tell who is devoid of human emotion in an environment that seems to not notice what is going on around them.
The remake seemed to cool down until the late nineties to today when studios would turn their attention toward a cultural phenomena and that is the Asian horror film. Films like: Ringu, Ju-On, A Tale of Two Sisters, One Missed Call, and The Eye would be welcome by the horror fan as a new kind of horror experience that they never got with the likes of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street. These films focused more on the supernatural than a killer hunting down co-eds and townsfolk. The studios saw this trend and one of the first remakes was completed with Gore Verbinski's The Ring. The box office success of The Ring sparked studios to make other remakes of these types of film. The Grudge came next and the success would spawn more sequels that will be released in 2008 with A Tale of Two Sisters, One Missed Call, and the Eye. The only difference with The Grudge than with its original was that it was directed by the same person who directed Ju-On.
One of the horror icons that have directed some of horrors cult classics has the distinction of having his trilogy remade. George A. Romero has had his 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead remade by his longtime make up artist, Tom Savini. It wasn't until Zack Snyder decided to remake Romero's classic, Dawn of the Dead in 2004 which was a success, not only on the big screen, but on DVD. Coming out later in the year will be the third in Romero's dead trilogy with Day of the Dead
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In 2007, one of the horror genre's iconic horror figures is being dusted off and retooled with Rob Zombie's Halloween. In many interviews, Zombie has said that if the studios wanted to do a straight out remake then he would not do it. Zombie has gone on to say that this is not just a retelling, but has a built-in prequel. Zombie has it right, in the fact, that his film is more of a retooling than a straight out remake. All of the films that have come out recently is more of a retooling or update of the original.
What do I mean by this? A true remake would be Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998) Van Sant's version of the Hitchcock's classic is a frame by frame shot of the original. So in by that regard, it is a true remake. What was interesting about the Van Sant's version was whether or not Vince Vaughn could pull of the roll the was played flawlessly by Anthony Perkins. Although, Vaughn couldn't pull of the calming innocent that Perkins brought to the film, Vaughn brought a more above surface psychosis than Perkins. The most interesting aspect of Van Sant's film is that the blood seemed less violent than the original. Hitchcock's lack of nudity and violence seemed to make the film more horrifying than Van Sant's.
One of the films coming out in 2007, by most regards, a true remake is Mikael Haneke's Funny Games. Like The Grudge (2004), Funny Games (1997) is being directed by the same person who helmed the original. Haneke's retelling of a family being tortured by two men for their own amusement is being remade with an American cast consisting of Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, and Michael Pitt. It will be interesting to see if Pitt's character can be as dark and amusing as the same character portrayed by Arno Frisch. Will the updated Funny Games (2007) be more intimate than the 97 version? The scene where Arno Frisch is torturing the family, but looks back into the camera and says that he doesn't like where this is going is one of the more memorable scenes in the film This scene pulls in the audience and Haneke is basically asking whether or not the audience is more depraved than they are because they are watching this family tortured. Is Haneke going to go with that attitude with his audience in his updated version? If he does, it will be a success in the eyes of the critics and those who like the original. The film should be a success in the American film market because with the success of films like the Saw and Hostel franchises where depravity is embraced by its audience. Funny Games plays perfectly to those audiences.
There are four films that are the epitomy of retooled films that seem to hold up well the second time around. The first film is Tom Savini's Night of the Living Dead (1990). In the updated version of Romero's 1968 classic. Night is a more gorier version of the Romero film with a couple changes that let's Savini's film stand on its own. The first version is the change in the character Barbara. In the original, Barbara, played by Judith O'Dea, is catatonic through most of the film. She played the damsel in distress where trauma has turned her into more of a liability to the rest of the cast where they argue about her safety. In Savini's version, Barbara, played by Patricia Tallman, is the complete opposite. Tallman is more in the mold of Ripley of the Alien franchise. The updated Barbara is a more take charge character than the original and where more female characters in horror films were leaning toward being more proactive instead of being the character that wouldn't put up a fight in the face of danger. Even the character of Judy Rose, played by Katie Finneran, is more forceful in stating her opinion than her predecessor played by Judith Ridley.
One of the more common ways to remake a film where it becomes a completely different film is to keep the basic outline of the original film and rework it where the updated film becomes a separate film. Night of the Living Dead did this, but two films: The Fog (2005) and House of Wax (2005) are two examples. In The Fog,, the story is basically the same where the town is celebrating the 100th year of its founding, but the way it was founded was kept the same. The only difference in the story is that with the updated film there is a love story involved. The characters are slightly different where in the original the characters: Elizabeth and Nick have just met where Elizabeth is hitchhiking, but in the updated film the two characters have a previous romance. In both films, the ghosts of the leper colony is seeking revenge on the descendents that did them wrong. The only difference in the updated film is that the main ghost is seeking out the Elizabeth character because she was his love. It is this change in the stories that makes The Fog a different film than those who enjoyed the original.
House of Wax, basically, are two different films where the only thread that each have in common is that the caretaker of the wax museum uses the bodies of passer-byes as the future wax sculptures. What I am going to talk about is a subconscious move of the updated film has to do with the actors/actresses that play the characters and how House is a interesting film to experience. In the updated film, all of the characters are basically your typical beautiful/model types aka Paris Hilton. It fits in well with the theme of the wax museum where people come in and just stare at the outside and not realizing what's on the inside. If ever there was a film where a metaphor is more blatent in its social commentary it is House of Wax. Even in the 2005 film, the caretaker of the film is a more attractive killer than the usual killer.
There are some retooled films that seem to hold up to this day than their preceding film. The (2007), and a rumored The Thing mini-series. Each film brings to the table a certain element that is more prevalent in today's society. The films remain fresh from this.
In the updated The Hills Have Eyes (2006) directed by Alexander Aja, who helmed High Tension (2003). On a side note, Aja is doing a retooled Piranha which is stated for a 2008 release. The two films deals with a family traveling through the desert that encounter a family of cannibals who spend a night in pure hell. The original was remembered for a scene involving the family protecting themselves from the cannibals. What makes the updated film more prevalent in a post 9/11 world is the motive behind the cannibals. The film starts off as a pseudo documentary of nuclear testing. The family traveling through the desert is portrayed as the typical American family which juxtaposes against the family that is clearly mutated from the nuclear testing. One scene in the film, expresses the horrors of nuclear testing is when the husband who is hunting down the mutants who has kidnapped his son and murdered his wife, finds a mutant and the back story of these people says, "You did this to us!" The husband moves through this ghost town which all the houses have mannequins posed in a Norman Rockwell style suggesting a time before nuclear weapons. THHE is a look into our use and potential use of nuclear power.
The original film did not have the obvious back story that the updated film does, but the film came out at a time where tension in the country was getting heated. The country was just getting out of Vietnam, the tension with the middle east, and with the continuing cold war made the 1977 THHE is as relevant film as the Aja version. The horror fan was not ready for the ultra violent style that Wes Craven put into his film.
George A. Romero's 1973 film, The Crazies, is a film that is being updated in 2008 and should be a film that should fit in well in the post 9/11 world. The film which tells the story of the military sent in to contain a man made virus in a small Pennsylvania town that turns its citizens into crazed killers should invoke images of a modern world where the threat of biological weapons being unleashed on the American people should be an interesting film to wait for. The 73' film's social commentary, which Romero is famous for, still holds up today. If the 08'film plays on the structure on Romero's film then it might turn into more than a horror film
In today's world, the thought of a man-made virus that causes death and insanity is more horrifying than most of the horror films that are being released. Romero's films, as I have mentioned, are famous for their commentary on how we live as a society. From Night, where it is a metaphor for a world thrown into chaos to Land, where it was set in a Bushian society, Romero's The Crazies comments on how our society is rooted in paranoia. Like THHE, the film was made when Vietname was ending. The paranoia could be construed as a country who was paranoid on what our identiy was. This would hold up perfectly in today's society where our paranoia wasn't concerning our national identity, but our paranoia on who our neighbor's are. In a post 9/11 world, this film plays perfectly.
The third film that is just as relevant than the time it was made is the long rumored The Thing remake. Set for a release this or next year concerns a group of scientists that are learning that there might be an alien life form amongst them. First adapted from the short story, "Who Goes There?" by Don A. Stuart in the film, The Thing from Another Planet (1951), directed by Christian Nyby, was more of the classic sci-fi film than a horror film. In the film, the thing took on a more plantlike alien form played by James Arness. In Carpenter's retooled film, the thing was not as apparent than the Nyby film. What distinguished Carpenter's film from the Nyby's film was Carpenter's use of make-up special effects done brilliantly by Rob Bottin and Ennio Morricone's score.
The difference in the two films is night and day. The main difference in the two films is that in the Carpenter film the thing is not obvious which casts a sense of paranoia in the film. The audience does not get a handle on who is human and who is not.. Carpenter casts an overwhelming sense of tension in his cast which had surpassed even the tension in his most famous film Halloween (1978). Ennio Morricone's score is simple and mesmerizing which underscores the tension, paranoia in the film. The film starts off as we see a research base on Antarctica and we get a glimpse of the people there. Carpenter took a chance casting an all male cast which works because there are no women to protect and there is no holding back when the thing makes its appearance.
A sled dog is being pursued by a Swedish helicopter trying to shoot it. After all the commotion, the men learn that the Swedes have only been stationed on the continent for only a few months which discredit a cabin fever theory. A couple of men fly to the camp and learn that there was more going than that they do not understand. The men soon learn that the dog wasn't who it truly was and that the first signs of paranoia start to sink in by the men accusing the other men of not being human. The only solution that they come up with to figure out who is who is by a blood test.
The film also plays on the idea of identity. The audience is not given on a silver platter who is who until the thing surfaces. After the dog is revealed, who in that time, was infected. One of the characters says that the creature just wants to be left alone.
What makes this film even more horrifying than its previous film is that Carpenter made this film in a time where the country was dealing with a disease that was fueled by paranoia. AIDS was an unknown disease at the time where the country did not truly know who had the disease and who didn't. The country first thought it was only homosexuals who had the disease, but as time went on, we learned that everyone was not immune to this disease. The issue of identity was being blurred as the days, weeks, and years went by. It soon turned out that the only way to know was a blood test. There are many parallels of Carpenter's film to the disease. There were some in the country wanted to stay away from anyone who had the disease because they did not have a lot of information about the disease.
The film, also, dealt with relationships. Carpenter's film dealt with how each character interacted with one another. Whether it was in the beginning where most of the group was playing cards, the mechanics lighting up a joint while watching a blurry porn film, to MacReady keeping to himself drinking scotch and playing chess on a primitive computer, the characters interacted with a kind of fraternity that is soon disbanded where each one kept to themselves.
What does this all mean in the terms of the horror remake? Most of the films that are coming out these days are true remakes. With the exception of Gus Van Sant's Psycho and possible Mikael Haneke's Funny Games, there are not that many remakes out there. What these filmmakers should be marketing their film as a retooled version of the original. There is going to be a slew of horror films coming out in the next few years that we are going to have to pleasure of reliving the original before we see what the new director has in store for us.
Zack Snyder's retooled version of Dawn of the Dead was a wakeup call for all horror fans that no film is safe from being retooled. The commercial success of the film was also a wakeup call for studios that there is a market for rehashing old horror films. Films such as House on Haunted Hill, Thirteen Ghosts can also be thrown into films that were rehashed from the original. In the upcoming years, the horror fan are going to look forward to retooled versions of such films as: April Fool's Day, Prom Night, Terror Train, and Sleepaway Camp
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It will be interesting to see what other films might be repackaged for future projects. Will Bloody Birthday, Mother's Day, or even My Bloody Valentine. With the recent success of Rob Zombie's Halloween there is talk of doing a remake of Friday the 13th. Will that fly with the diehard horror fan or will there be an uprising where the diehard horror fan says that's enough? As long as there are horror films out there to be retooled then there will always be remakes.
