Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
This post is a remake of a post on Urban Code well maybe it's more like a sequel or a re-imagining...
Quite sometime back I use to do a blog (of the same title as this one) in the online magazine Urban-code.My tech was second rate, I was one novel in and as the magazine was mostly about the underground and local art scene I stuck to subject matter and rarely got anything out in a timely fashion. We may in fact find that nothing will change here lol.
But, the point I was building to was a blog I posted on Urban-Code about 'Bringing back the midnight movies'. I bring this up now because of the rash of Hollywood Horror movies that are retelling classic horror flicks who have made their mark on the surface culture.
On average remakes are fine, if you allow for the public's diminished memory of the source material or do such an incredible job you completely override the original in the minds of your core audience. This is extremely rare, in fact so far I personally can only give the honor of overriding the original as well as allow the time for the power of the original to lose cultural steam to ONE film maker:. John Carpenter.
His remake of the 50's era Sci-Fi film 'The Thing' is 'The Best Remake Ever'... in my piss poor 'Comic-Book Guy' of the Simpson's impression. There is a reason for this being so rare... most horror and for the most part ALL sub-culture films don't come from the Hollywood machine to this day.
They are or have been independent and or genre movies later distributed or bought out by Hollywood. An action that worked out well for everyone involved. Hollywood got to make it's money on the franchising of a project, genre filmmakers, actors and sometimes writers gained a level of fame and notoriety. The target audience got films they felt was meant just for them. But something happened along the way.
Grind house, exp/blaxplotain, monster movies, horror flicks, tasteless comedies and over the top action/ kung-fu flicks to name a few started to be made in studio more and more and the genre artist in a generation was relegated to straight to DVD status. Right before this occurred the near extinction of single private owned theaters, single studio owned theaters and drive-in theaters was under way due mostly to the introduction of the multi-plex. In some cases we didn't noticed the difference Hollywood hires a primo comic and a comic writer and you got a Hollywood Comedy as high or low brow as you desire. You get a few guys and gals who can play crazy, tough and have nicely timed fight moves you have an action movie. This hasn't worked as well with horror. For years now studios have pooled money into continuing the mythology's of horror caricatures that hit via sequels. The new plan are the REMAKES.
Most will agree that this is a little bit of a bad idea. If any of these classic horror flicks are to be remade you should probably be sure the source material isn't constantly in the minds of your core audience. A Nightmare on Elm ST, Friday The 13th and Halloween are the biggest horror franchises since the Universal Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf-Man movies of yesteryear. They all have a series of sequels and have been passed down to new generations of horror fans much like Grimm's Fairy-tales. None of these three remakes aren't awful films they have just been released into the shadow of an entity that Hollywood barely understands. Many of the other remakes are just plan terrible or would have held it's own better as a NEW MOVIE without the title of a classic.
If the mid-night movies begin to make a come back we may very well get the next Freddy and or Jason. Even the Scream series gets it and points out the issue with the remake monster.... "Don't fuck with the original."
The other backlash of this movement is that genre filmmakers themselves are begin to remake the movies that influenced them so. Night of the Demons has been recreated for another generation... Night of the Living Dead is ALWAYS being remade, even if some don't call it by it's name and even the father of all cheap, bad backyard films Plan 9 from outer-space will be made a few times over. The first thing I can say about ALL of these movies is at least they will be made in the spirit and in the fashion of the originals. I can also add that Plan 9 despite it's clear influence on genre film as well as Night of the Demons is not at the top of most peoples pop culture punch card. Night of the Living Dead on the other hand has infected the whole of the horror world and if ten movies get release a year from the indie scene, eight will be a retake on Night of the Living Dead and it's crews re-imagining of the zombie.
The bottom-line is we love our so-called bad sub-culture movies and don't mind the glitches and missing scenes as much as we mind Hollywood trying to rehash and spoon-feed us what we know better than they do. You guys in the studios do a fair job of turning novels to movies... fair... and buying the rights and releasing the some what more cultural friendly horror movies done outside of your control. How about you go back to that as well as showing independent movies on T.V like you use too. Lloyd Kaufman would be less inclined to call you at home at ungodly hours if you do.
If Rob Zombie, Micheal Bay and Guillermo del Toro want to produce and direct remakes then hey, let them, without giving them a bunch interference and maybe we can stomach the remake machine a little. But for the most part, let's leave the grass-roots art to be produced by the grass-root artist. Ok?
P.S
The re-remake of the Thing will be hitting theaters soon. I hate to be a pessimist, but how do you remake the greatest remake in the history of horror?
Anthony SAINT Thomas
Disclaimer:
If you find mistakes in this post or a magazine or even a novel you happen to pick up... writers use to have these things called EDITORS.. but that's another blog
for another time...
But, the point I was building to was a blog I posted on Urban-Code about 'Bringing back the midnight movies'. I bring this up now because of the rash of Hollywood Horror movies that are retelling classic horror flicks who have made their mark on the surface culture.
On average remakes are fine, if you allow for the public's diminished memory of the source material or do such an incredible job you completely override the original in the minds of your core audience. This is extremely rare, in fact so far I personally can only give the honor of overriding the original as well as allow the time for the power of the original to lose cultural steam to ONE film maker:. John Carpenter.
His remake of the 50's era Sci-Fi film 'The Thing' is 'The Best Remake Ever'... in my piss poor 'Comic-Book Guy' of the Simpson's impression. There is a reason for this being so rare... most horror and for the most part ALL sub-culture films don't come from the Hollywood machine to this day.
They are or have been independent and or genre movies later distributed or bought out by Hollywood. An action that worked out well for everyone involved. Hollywood got to make it's money on the franchising of a project, genre filmmakers, actors and sometimes writers gained a level of fame and notoriety. The target audience got films they felt was meant just for them. But something happened along the way.
Grind house, exp/blaxplotain, monster movies, horror flicks, tasteless comedies and over the top action/ kung-fu flicks to name a few started to be made in studio more and more and the genre artist in a generation was relegated to straight to DVD status. Right before this occurred the near extinction of single private owned theaters, single studio owned theaters and drive-in theaters was under way due mostly to the introduction of the multi-plex. In some cases we didn't noticed the difference Hollywood hires a primo comic and a comic writer and you got a Hollywood Comedy as high or low brow as you desire. You get a few guys and gals who can play crazy, tough and have nicely timed fight moves you have an action movie. This hasn't worked as well with horror. For years now studios have pooled money into continuing the mythology's of horror caricatures that hit via sequels. The new plan are the REMAKES.
Most will agree that this is a little bit of a bad idea. If any of these classic horror flicks are to be remade you should probably be sure the source material isn't constantly in the minds of your core audience. A Nightmare on Elm ST, Friday The 13th and Halloween are the biggest horror franchises since the Universal Dracula, Frankenstein and Wolf-Man movies of yesteryear. They all have a series of sequels and have been passed down to new generations of horror fans much like Grimm's Fairy-tales. None of these three remakes aren't awful films they have just been released into the shadow of an entity that Hollywood barely understands. Many of the other remakes are just plan terrible or would have held it's own better as a NEW MOVIE without the title of a classic.
If the mid-night movies begin to make a come back we may very well get the next Freddy and or Jason. Even the Scream series gets it and points out the issue with the remake monster.... "Don't fuck with the original."
The other backlash of this movement is that genre filmmakers themselves are begin to remake the movies that influenced them so. Night of the Demons has been recreated for another generation... Night of the Living Dead is ALWAYS being remade, even if some don't call it by it's name and even the father of all cheap, bad backyard films Plan 9 from outer-space will be made a few times over. The first thing I can say about ALL of these movies is at least they will be made in the spirit and in the fashion of the originals. I can also add that Plan 9 despite it's clear influence on genre film as well as Night of the Demons is not at the top of most peoples pop culture punch card. Night of the Living Dead on the other hand has infected the whole of the horror world and if ten movies get release a year from the indie scene, eight will be a retake on Night of the Living Dead and it's crews re-imagining of the zombie.
The bottom-line is we love our so-called bad sub-culture movies and don't mind the glitches and missing scenes as much as we mind Hollywood trying to rehash and spoon-feed us what we know better than they do. You guys in the studios do a fair job of turning novels to movies... fair... and buying the rights and releasing the some what more cultural friendly horror movies done outside of your control. How about you go back to that as well as showing independent movies on T.V like you use too. Lloyd Kaufman would be less inclined to call you at home at ungodly hours if you do.
If Rob Zombie, Micheal Bay and Guillermo del Toro want to produce and direct remakes then hey, let them, without giving them a bunch interference and maybe we can stomach the remake machine a little. But for the most part, let's leave the grass-roots art to be produced by the grass-root artist. Ok?
P.S
The re-remake of the Thing will be hitting theaters soon. I hate to be a pessimist, but how do you remake the greatest remake in the history of horror?
Anthony SAINT Thomas
Disclaimer:
If you find mistakes in this post or a magazine or even a novel you happen to pick up... writers use to have these things called EDITORS.. but that's another blog
for another time...
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