Every other day it seems Hollywood decides to remake another iconic horror film. First Texas Chainsaw Massacre, then a slew of highly stylized rehashes followed including Amytyville Horror, The Hills Have Eyes, and The Hitcher. Wait, there are more: Dawn of the Dead, When A Stranger Calls, Prom Night, House of Wax… What has happened in the last ten years that has convinced filmmakers to remake and rehash horror franchises of old?
The horror remake has become incredibly prominent mostly because of its simplicity, in both creative and financial contexts: pre-existing story, characters and fan base provide a template that, in the eyes of Hollywood studios, has proven a sound investment. Even if a remake does poorly in theaters, the subsequent DVD releases sell well. What does that mean for horror fans who both enjoyed the original films and want to see some new horror concepts? Welcome to what Pauline Kael has called “trash culture”; you could always pretend the Saw franchise is still new.
It’s agreed that horror remakes have been exploding on the silver screen recently and they mostly suck. There have been a handful of decent original horror flicks in the past few years like 28 Days Later, The Descent, Grindhouse, and Saw (though the never-ending franchise has surely tarnished its name). Taking a glance outside of the horror genre, it seems like the entire movie industry has been rolling the dice on unoriginal stories. Just look at the percentage of adaptations to original screenplays. The number of comic books being made to films. And of course, the dreaded remakes of classics. It’s outrageous, yet inevitable. But hey, I guess not all remakes are terrible, right? I sure thought The Departed was a notch up from Infernal Affairs.
The incessant stream of remakes coming out of Hollywood has been depressing, but it does seem like horror has had to bear the brunt of it. We’ve had the remake of Halloween, and with Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street remakes in the works, it’s obvious nothing is sacred.
[...] So, here we are, in the golden age of remakes, and things just keep getting more obfuscated. First we had remakes. If you want to see The Fog, you have to figure out whether you want the original 1980 version or the 2005 remake. That’s bad enough, but now we’ve got the insanity of remakes of sequels and sequels to remakes. You can watch 2004’s Dawn of the Dead, which is a remake of 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, which was a (quasi) sequel to 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, not 1990’s Night of the Living Dead. Let’s say you’re a fan of regular old not-undead mutated cannibals. You could watch The Hills Have Eyes, either the 1977 or 2006 version, followed by The Hills Have Eyes Part II (sequel to the 1977 original) or The Hills Have Eyes II (sequel to the 2006 remake), neither of which are related. I use horror movies as an example because they’ve really been getting the shaft with the remakes. [...]