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Post by GL on May 27, 2007 10:29:33 GMT -5
Granted it was well enough produced, but it offered m nothing new at all... didn't you sit there thinking why the hell did they bother? Not really. I don't go into a movie with any baggage whatsoever and see what the movie, in general, has to offer. "Why was this made?" is a BS argument for dismissing a film outright, as even though I hate that idea of doing so many remakes, I still want to see what they offer. I've actually enjoyed, to a postive extent, the universally reveiled remakes recently (Gus Van Sant's Psycho, The Fog, The Omen, and there's another one I saw recently, but the name escapes me now) because I saw them on their own without any preconcieved notions of "I'm supposed to hate this because of the film being remade" at all. That's the same with this: I hate the idea of it, but am interested in seeing it. It'll be a year, though, as I'm not going to see it in theaters. I just think it sucks that he's given me something to bitch about before it's even come out. Who knows: that may be my only gripe, but so far, I have one. Will it affect how I view the movie? Not really.
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Canetoad
The Prodigal Toad
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Post by Canetoad on May 27, 2007 17:07:12 GMT -5
I agree with approaching a film without too many preconceptions, and I'd like to think Zombie will make a reasonable fist of this (the awful Sherri Moon aside). But at the same time I'm expecting him to bring some new ideas to the franchise, not just carbon copy John Carpenter. For mine that is why the Hills Have Eyes remake worked, and the likes of the Omen and Amityville failed.
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Post by GL on May 28, 2007 10:03:52 GMT -5
Amityville, that was the one I was missing. Can't believe I missed that one, as I liked it more than the original. Thanks.
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HNT
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Post by HNT on May 29, 2007 7:36:48 GMT -5
I dunno, I agree with Toad in principal but with GL in practice on Amityville. The first one's reputation was built almost entirely on the ad campaign that had people believing it was a true story. THe films itself was a boring shambles that was certainly not scary, and barely had any action whatsoever. The remake at least injecte the proceedings with a bit more payoff and jump scares and such.
As for Hills Hae Eyes, a bit better makeup effects and more gore doesn't really constitute a majo change in plot. If it did I'd have loved the TCM remake too. Where Hills does succeed somewhat, however, is in the scenes in the nuclear test site ghost town. There are some legit jumps there, and the dialog does manage to flesh out the anti-nuke ploitical message that Craven obviously intended but didn't articulate clearly
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Post by 7 on May 29, 2007 8:26:18 GMT -5
To jump on the remake discussion here:
When judging whether or not I will even go a see a remake I ask myself one question: "Why"?
"Why was this remade? What there something wrong with the original?"
Amityville horror was brought up. That was a film that could have used (and got) a remake. I mean, the first one was complete sh*t. The only place it could have gone is up, why not?
The Hills Have Eyes, for example, was one that did not need a remake. Sure, the remake was not a bad film, but there was no point for it to even exist.
I guess there are really two things that bother me about this whole remake craze. The first one is that the younger generation is going to have no original classic horror films. They've been brought up on horror rehashes their entire life.
The second is that... I hate, hate, hate, when I am talking about a film like, oh, we'll say The Wickerman, and someone with an MTV shirt and painted fingernails goes "oh man, that movie with Nick Cage! sh*t was tight!"
What gets me in this respect is that I've spent hours (quite possibly days) doing research on line looking for that buried treasure in the genre... only to have Universal Studios give a director 40 million dollars to piss all over the original AND bring it to everyones attention.
I know most of you are in that same boat with me.
Oh, and when you recommend a film to someone brought up on remakes, you inevitably hear, "I don't watch old films"...
The slogan: Leave obscure cinema obscure. We like it here.
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Post by GL on May 29, 2007 10:36:29 GMT -5
I hate this craze as much as everybody. To see these great films reduced to MTV crowds is hard to justify. I wish they'd all fu ck off and die. But, if this is what we must endure, then I can think of far worse things to do. Some of them, if approached in the right mindset and an open mind, with no baggage whatsoever, can be entertaining. Are they better? Some are, and that's fine. I'm not looking at these to change the world or the genre the way the originals did. I just want to be entertained when I watch a movie, and that's what they provide. If you need another point of reference, I think of these as the bastard step-child of the genre, similar to those cousins at family reunions you don't like all that much. They take up the time you want to spend with the ones you want, but you just suck it up, go say high and then leave, leaving before you get pulled in when you don't want to be there and move on to the ones you want to.
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HNT
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Post by HNT on May 29, 2007 14:07:27 GMT -5
I suppose my question is when does a remake get to be considered a classic in its own right? There was nothing wrong with Todd Browning's Dracula. Bela Lugosi was fantastic.
By this rationale, all of the Terrence Fisher Hammer films starring Christopher Lee should never have existed because they are just remakes of a film that was already good. I disagree with that, and I enjoy them in there own right. At the time they came out, they were almost certainly seen as B-movie cheesefest remakes of superior Universal originals. Today they are genre-defining classics.
Only time will tell whether any f the remakes coming out now will be recieved similarly. While I'm certain that the really crappy one's wn't, some of the better quality ones just might
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Post by 7 on May 29, 2007 17:01:17 GMT -5
That's a good point, HNT. I never really thought of it like that.
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Canetoad
The Prodigal Toad
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Post by Canetoad on May 29, 2007 17:06:02 GMT -5
I'm with Seventhseal here in the ''why'' did something need to be remade in the first place department.
I'll concede the point on Amityville, and I'm with HNT that the second half of the Hills remake showed some flair and imagination.
But at risk of sounding pretentious and overstating the case, remaking genre classics like Halloween is akin to remaking Casablanca - just totally unneccessary.
There are, however, a swag of crap films which had good premises but failed to cut the mustard which could probably bnefit from a decent director and decent budget though. Stuff like Funhouse (which I think we may have discussed before) and Motel Hell come to mind.
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Post by GL on May 30, 2007 10:35:56 GMT -5
Last thing I'll say about it here before I hijack the thread back tore it should be: Out-right dismissing a film just because they can't answer the question "Why was it made?' to me, is just down-right bizarre. There's plenty of films that don't offer up a somewhat decent answer for that, but just because they happen to be remakes they get shunted off without fair chance. Psycho and The Omen come to mind. Psycho had a lot to like. There's still a great shower murder, there's more slices during the stair-top scene, the set-up is just as creepy and tense, and there's still an uneasy air about the motel and all that surrounds it. Pretty much the same reasons why I liked the original, even if I don't get the classic status. Good film? Yes. Classic? Ehh. In fact, the only thing I noticed wrong with it was in fact the question "Why was this made?" That meant that I had liked it enough to find some postive stuff in it. Did I eventually find some stuff with it? Yeah, I did, but I went in and viewed it with a clean state and couldn't much wrong with it beyond what everyone was already calling it out for. It didn't make sense. There wasn't a reasonable answer to that one eternal question and so it was dismissed out-of-hand without realizing that what the original had, this one had the exact same postives about it. It just couldn't answer the question and was dismissed. As for The Omen, that one also had an extra question in "What was different about it?" Yeah, there was no surprise in it, but that can be fun. I've seen tons of films that I know who the killer is within the first ten minutes, or know what the twist will be even before we see all the characters in the film (The Other for a great recent example of that one) but that doesn't mean the ride there can't be fun. Same was true of The Omen. Nothing felt new, but it was still fun. The priest's murder is just outstanding, the new decapitation feels like a brilliant cut-out of a Final Destination movie, and the cemetery chase is quite thrilling. Was I expecting them? To a degree (I knew there was a change in the decapitation, but didn't know what had happened) but for the most part, yes, it was like the original yet I still had some fun with it. The point of this is that, I put aside the reasons why I was supposed to hate these films (Why was this made?) and viewed them with an open chance before outright comdeming them. In fact, I never had a chance to because I saw that they had some good stuff to offer and made them entertaining. There. Now, sorry to do this, but all further talk about remakes, including responses to this post, should be redirected HERE from now on. To hijack it back, news on the film click here.
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HNT
Grizzled HMaM Vet
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Kiss my tuchis
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Post by HNT on May 30, 2007 18:13:44 GMT -5
Yes, Herr Gorelord. Back on topic. Arbeit Macht Frei you know, LMAO.
Anyway, thanks for the link. That was an interesting article
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Post by GL on May 31, 2007 10:10:31 GMT -5
No problem. That's what I"m here for.
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Conan
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Post by Conan on Jun 9, 2007 21:21:26 GMT -5
Poster!
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Post by CT on Jun 9, 2007 22:52:16 GMT -5
I like it!
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Post by GL on Jun 10, 2007 10:11:37 GMT -5
I do too. Looks great. Side-note: As the original purpose of this was based on pre-release hype (linking the trailer, showing off the poster, etc.) I'll leave this open until the release date and then lock it off. I'm making a sticky thread for the film in the board, but it'll remain locked until then and I'll unlock it that Friday. I'm only doing so now because, regardless of what the final poster is, I'm using Conan's one he just posted. Cool with everyone else?
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