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  #71  
Old 17th October 2009, 08:24 PM
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Originally Posted by Make Them Die Slowly View Post
"Ed Wood" is one of the best films I've seen about film making and the only Burton film that has any real warmth and depth to it.
Completely agree. It's Burton's best by a mile, and up there among my favourites. Martin Landau as Bela Logosi is superb.

Of the remakes on the list, the only ones I can really tolerate are Night and Dawn, and neither of them are especially good. Dawn 04 is way too contrived for my liking, and I'm no fan of the MTV style (or running dead folk). Savini's Night does have some neat variations from Romero's original.

Actually, The Hills Have Eyes remake isn't too bad - has some pretty intense moments.

Other than Cronenberg's The Fly, has there ever been a truly worthy remake of a horror flick?
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  #72  
Old 18th October 2009, 12:02 AM
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Originally Posted by Rob Strange View Post
Other than Cronenberg's The Fly, has there ever been a truly worthy remake of a horror flick?
The 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was excellent and in some ways an improvement on the original for me. I also enjoyed the remakes of The Thing and The Blob. Cat People had its moments as well, though too many of them.

Tobe Hooper's remake of Invaders From Mars was abysmal.
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  #73  
Old 18th October 2009, 12:43 AM
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"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" as it brought something new to the story and the advanced technical side helped in the FX they were able to pull off.


"The Fly". Cronenberg's film is perhaps the best arguement on why some remakes are valid.
The original was an anonymous Studio B picture with primitive FX and no real personality.
The remake had a very distinct Director's stamp, vastly spread the story's canvas and was able to achieve so much more due to the stronger censorship rules and technical FX advances.


"The Thing" - Again see above for most of the reasoning.
And importantly it was not strictly a remake anyway. It was simply a much more faithful adaptation of the original story, as it used the main idea (replicas) from it.
Hell it does not even have the same title.

And for certain the massive advancement in FX capabilities and what could be shown (as with "The Fly") made it something very different from the original that, VITALLY offered something more.



And that doing something very different and offering something more is why most remakes are utterly pointless.
The love ends here!

i mean for ****'s sake! The remake of "Dawn of the Dead" (from what i have read...I will never see it and support it) went out as an 'R' and actually lacked the graphic flesh eating, chunk ripping FX of the original.
So the point is?
Christ going by that alone, the film offered less than the original...not more. Validity is lost.
Despite the budget Romero's film also had huge scope and scale as well, so that was in no need of expanding either.

Also the original "Dawn" (or the others) is not a lost and obscure film that no one can see.
So even that one crumb of validity is lost.

What extra are we offered, what advances and unique style do we get from the putrid remake likes of "Dawn", "TCM", "Hills have Eyes"?
Just rent or buy the originals.

"Halloween" remake?
Again...it offered something less, something tired and overused.
It gave us a damn redneck 'my momma used to hit me' psychobabble Myers! **** me! Zombie had already done this kind of killer in HIS OWN first 2 (damn good) movies, let alone the dozens that had come years before.
Whereas Carpenter gave us a far more mysterious and unexplained killer. A seemingly normal child from a solid, upstanding urban environment of white picket fences and Girl Guide cookies.
'Daddy used to touch me' Cletus crud was not needed or welcome in it's killer's psychiatric make-up.

It upped the gore and violence...but the original never strived for to be that gory or violent in the first place. It could have been if it wanted to be. But it didn't want to be.
So in this case the extra censorship and FX freedoms that were valid for "The Thing" say...are not here. As they were not MISSING from the original...they were never meant to be part of it.

Also...whereas sequels are known as sequels (that '2' or '3' is a vital element to a film's title as far as identity goes) and as such exist side by side with the originals, or 'based around an original' film has a completely different title (say "House of 1000 Corpses") remakes tend to replace and usurp the original in the younger public's eye and, most shockingly, in history.
Do we want future generations to far more frequently know "Dawn of the Dead" as that film from 2004??!!
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  #74  
Old 18th October 2009, 10:26 PM
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Originally Posted by vincenzo View Post
The 1978 Invasion Of The Body Snatchers was excellent and in some ways an improvement on the original for me. I also enjoyed the remakes of The Thing and The Blob. Cat People had its moments as well, though too many of them.
Good calls on each of them. How could I have missed The Thing?

I agree that Cat People also has its charms.
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  #75  
Old 19th October 2009, 01:59 PM
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Out of the new batch of remakes The Hills Have Eyes and Dawn of the Dead are my favourites.My favourite ever remakes (that all improve on the originals imo) are the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing and The Fly.
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  #76  
Old 19th October 2009, 02:02 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Strange View Post
Other than Cronenberg's The Fly, has there ever been a truly worthy remake of a horror flick?
Herzog's Nosferatu The Vampyre is certainly worthy - quite excellent (but bewarned, I am a Herzog fanboy).

I also rated the remake of The Hills Have Eyes, which I was expecting to hate because a) I generally hate remakes and b) I love the original.

I would also add Carpenter's The Thing, Abel Ferrara's version of Body Snatchers, (and maybe the 1978 Kaufman one too, though I think folk over-rate it personally) and Scorsese's OK take on Cape Fear.

The only ones I think actually improve on the original though are The Fly and The Thing.
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  #77  
Old 19th October 2009, 02:12 PM
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OH, and I thought the US version of The Ring was very good indeed. Quite under-rated by most...apart from all that nonsense with the dead horses!

I have especially disliked the remakes of The Amityville Horror, The Grudge, The Haunting...and I completely despise the remake of Dawn Of The Dead which I found to be a witless, lazy, overly flashy, badly performed, predictable, poorly conceived waste of time. An all-time clunker.

I have never been able to watch the remakes of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Wicker Man or Assault On Precinct 13 - partly because of my experience with the Dawn... remake but mostly because they are utterly redundant and pointless - the originals having nothing lacking.
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  #78  
Old 19th October 2009, 04:15 PM
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I total despise any type of japanese horror remakes
Mainly because the remakes lack every thing the original doesnt
and americans just think that by chucking money special efffects and a famous actor that they can get away with it THEY CANT!
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  #79  
Old 19th October 2009, 04:22 PM
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The Blob remake is also worth checking out. Great fun.
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  #80  
Old 19th October 2009, 04:35 PM
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Originally Posted by Gojirosan View Post
OH, and I thought the US version of The Ring was very good indeed. Quite under-rated by most...apart from all that nonsense with the dead horses!
I agree in as much that taken on its own, the remake works fairly well. But compared to the atmospheric, taut original, I find it inferior in pretty much every way. Especially the misjudged CG 'enhancements'. And the Black Beauty nonsense on the ship.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gojirosan View Post
...and I completely despise the remake of Dawn Of The Dead which I found to be a witless, lazy, overly flashy, badly performed, predictable, poorly conceived waste of time. An all-time clunker.
Whilst I don't mind the Dawn remake, I do agree with your criticisms of the film. If I want a high-speed zombie flick with 'runners', I'll throw on 28 Weeks Later. Much better stuff.
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