Remakes - Has the horror genre reached a dead end?

[Evil Bread]

With the amount of classic horror remakes being released this year I was wondering if the horror genre has reached a dead end?

I am a big fan of the classic horror films and feel the latest selection of 'shock' horror like Hostel is just tainting a great genre with its purpose more aimed towards shocking the audience than actually trying to scare them.

With the likes of The Fog, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes as well as a number of great Asian horrors already remade and the Wicker Man, When a Stranger Calls and Night of the Living Dead 3D on the horizon has the genre reached a lull even though there is a vast amount of horror films out?

How do you guys feel about the amount of classic remakes on their way? Will the remakes taint your love for the originals?

[DarkenedWorld]

Remakes suck....

[Evil Bread]

Now, now. :D Not all remakes suck.

The Thing is a good remake. :)

[DarkenedWorld]

Originally posted by Evil Bread
Now, now. :D Not all remakes suck.

The Thing is a good remake. :)

I didn't like the original or the new one, so I can't really say that it was good or bad.

All of the remakes I've seen, sucked.

[filmmaker2]

this is not a hard and fast rule, but it's how I generally feel about remakes--there are exceptions, in other words--

If a movie is good in the first place, don't remake it. If you do, it's generally not for any good reason ( hey! let's make it in color, add cell phones to it so younger audiences will watch it, update the effects, etc.). King Kong, Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Cape Fear, Psycho, and other good movies fall into this category. Remakes were unnecessary I feel.

If a movie is bad to start out with (GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE), then hells yes, remake it, and do a good job at it. Make it everything the original film wasn't.

[PR3SSUR3]

I wouldn't say it has reached a dead end, there is just more shit to wade through.

You could say there has always been dross in this genre (in every genre), but the remakes are particularly offensive to purists and if you add the post-modernist movement on top of that...

:eek:

Do your research and dig deep, and there's still plenty of great shockers to be found from all corners of the globe.

:cool:

[Yeti.13]

Remakes do appear to serve a purpose for quite a few people. With me being over 30 I generally like the originals of Texas Chainsaw, Dawn of the Dead and Hills Have Eyes but several people I know who are teenagers or in their early 20's think these films are a bit dated and naff and really like the remakes.
I can see their point in a way but personally disagree. When I first watched most of these films it was on a tenth genearation copy, bad sound and sometimes nearly impossible to see. Nowadays this seems riduculous with advances with such things as DVD, but at the time it was the only way to see a lot of these films as they were banned over here in the UK, but apart from knowing you were watching something that wasn't generally available you could tell there was something damn good about the films. Now you can pick them up in the high street and have surround sound, audio comentries and all the other extras they feel are necessary to put on any old film nowadays. ( I feel I am slightly straying away from the point here and rambling:confused: , so I'll try to get back to my point.)
Yes some of the old films do not have the best special effects or any actors that made it big but that have a unique quality to them. Most of the classic old films were made on a shoestring budget(compared to their mainsteam counterparts) but were made by people who were passinate about what they were doing and I feel this comes across in the final film.
There is also a genration of people now who have not seen the original film and with the remakes coming out it does get some of them to find the original andf watch them too.
So I feel remakes do have a place but at the moment it does appear that is the only thing major films companies are interested in at the moment and don't what to make something new. I'm sure the trend will pass, horror will step back from the mainstream again and hopefully some good films will start to appear again.

[Evil Bread]

Oh no doubt about that, there is indeed future classics to be found away from the obvious cinema releases, it's just a shame they don't get seen by mainstream audiences as they may not find an audience. I am waiting for FEAST to hit the cinemas, by far the best thing to come out of Project Greenlight.

Do the crap remakes just make the originals better? Or taint them? The Jaws sequels have not tainted the original, yet the likes of Halloween seem to have. Obviously remakes and sequels are different but you take my meaning hopefully.

[Yellow Jacket]

I am getting sick and tired of remakes, but I can't complain too much becasue there have been some extremely good remakes. Examples: Hills Have Eyes, The Thing, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, NOTLD, Dawn of the Dead, and House on Hounted Hill were very good remakes and exceeded my expectations. I would still like to see some original ideas shortly though. And yes, I know that Slither is an original idea. Well, for this year, that is.

[The STE]

there's a movie coming out, coming out this year in fact, that will no doubt save the horror genre. It will carry this genre on its back, kicking and screaming, from slump of mediocrity that it's found its self in for the past few years (few notable exceptions notwithstanding). That movie?



Snakes on a Plane

[Yeti.13]

Originally posted by Evil Bread

Do the crap remakes just make the originals better? Or taint them? The Jaws sequels have not tainted the original, yet the likes of Halloween seem to have. Obviously remakes and sequels are different but you take my meaning hopefully.

I think crap remakes do taint original films for mainstream movie watchers. Most people into horror either like or dislike the original and so a crap or good remake would not alter their opinion on the original, where as a someone who hasn't seen the original and watches some crappy remake isn't going to go out of their way to watch what it was based on, as they would presume it to be crap also.

Sequals do appear to more dilute the the original than taint it in a way. For example Nightmare on Elmstreet, when it first came out it was scarey and was about some sick child molester who got burnt alive and then managed to come back to take it out kids in a pretty nasty way. If you talk to people nowadays Freddy is no longer a monster but a pretty cool killer who always comes out with some witty remark before offing some loser kid that no-one would really like anyway, not really the stuff of nightmares.
Also if you go back and watch Nightmare on Elmstreet it can not watch in the same way as when it was realeased. By todays standards it is pretty tame with very little graphic gore, which as you stated earlier, the shock value seems to be the thing that counts. Don't get me wrong I like gorefests but a good film is more important than how much gore you can fit in 90 minutes.

[Despare]

Remakes can be good and even at times bring something new to the table although more than often they don't. It seems like more movies are getting made by fanboys who want to express their love for their favorite movie by remaking it. A lot of it can be attributed to the amount of movies released.

Movies released in 1960 - 13
Movies released in 1970 - 30
Movies released in 1980 - 133
Movies released in 1990 - 190
Movies released in 2000 - 502
Movies released in 2005 - 579

[Angelakillsluts]

Originally posted by The STE
there's a movie coming out, coming out this year in fact, that will no doubt save the horror genre. It will carry this genre on its back, kicking and screaming, from slump of mediocrity that it's found its self in for the past few years (few notable exceptions notwithstanding). That movie?



Snakes on a Plane

I hope they continue the sequels like

Snakes on a Train and Snakes in Seaworld etc.

[Despare]

Originally posted by Angelakillsluts
I hope they continue the sequels like

Snakes on a Train and Snakes in Seaworld etc.

But there are snakes in Seaworld...

[Angelakillsluts]

Originally posted by Despare
But there are snakes in Seaworld...

lmao did I say seaworld?

I meant Snakes in Outer Space. Yeah, that's what I meant... :D

[The Flayed One]

Originally posted by Angelakillsluts
lmao did I say seaworld?

I meant Snakes in Outer Space. Yeah, that's what I meant... :D


You know, once you do Snakes in Outer Space, there's only one road left to travel down...



Can you say Snakes in Da Hood? Oh Yeah!

[Nana_baby]

wtf???

[filmmaker2]

"Snakes on a Plane" was just the beginning. Don't forget "Snakebabies: Snakegeniuses 2" and "Snakes Reloaded" and "SnakePlanet" also. When you get into snakes, there's a lot of territory to explore, we felt there were other stories we could tell, and we felt that the audiences had a lot of questions that they wanted to see answered, and that means a looooot of popcorn if you snake my meaning.

[Angelakillsluts]

Snakegeniuses 2?!? I can't wait!

[The STE]

Don't forget Snakes on Other Snakes.

[Angelakillsluts]

Bwahahahahahahahhaha

[Haunted]

Snake males have two penises.

Anyway...

Yeti, I sorta know where you're coming from in your long post.;) My mam's friend has a 13 yr old son who really likes horror, but his favorite movie is Freddy V. Jason. It's not because he's a 'tard, but because of the HUGE generation gap in horror movies. I'm trying to be a good horror buff influence. Before he saw the remake of Dawn of the Dead, I made him watch all three of the originals.

I explained the Exorcist to him. I said, "Look Garret, I know it didn't scare you. However, at the time it was released in the theatres, people were terrified and left the movie." Also, he's a little young and not really well versed in Catholicism to really understand that movie at all.

What I want to do is sit down with him and make him watch the real classics. I'd start with Nosferatu and move up through Dracula, The Mummy, Frankenstein, etc. They'd bore the shit out of him, but at least he'd gain a deeper appreciation of the genre that he loves. For instance, he went to see The Hills Have Eyes remake. I have promised him that he is going to sit down with me and watch the original. I've also promised that he is going to sit down with me and watch the original TCM.

I don't think our beloved genre is dead, but we do need something fresh... a new twist on a long buried theme... a new type of phantom. Shit, pull out the mythology books from around the world. There's entities in the nightmares of bygone days that could really be implemented into a great horror film(s).

[The STE]

I'm doing a similar thing w/ my g/f, partially because she doesn't get to see many movies due to her little sister, partially so I don't feel like an old man when I make any sort of movie references (btw, feeling like an old man while dating an underage girl isn't good)

[cobaltbluesteel]

Originally posted by Haunted

I don't think our beloved genre is dead, but we do need something fresh... a new twist on a long buried theme... a new type of phantom. Shit, pull out the mythology books from around the world. There's entities in the nightmares of bygone days that could really be implemented into a great horror film(s). [/B]


I agree with you there Haunted. I don't think the genre is dead, but the current springing up of remakes of horror films is discrediting the originals for those who haven't discovered them before. On one hand a remake is a way of alerting someone to a text that has been lost in the sands of text and so the original could gain a new appreciation. However this could also work the other way and people might not bother with the classic in favour of the more modern offering. Classic horror films that have stood the test time have often been films that pushed boundaries of the time, not just technologically but socially and this is what is needed to keep things fresh and test the boundaries of the genre.

[zomb5150]

Originally posted by The STE
Don't forget Snakes on Other Snakes.

Snakes vs. Turtles

[Haunted]

Originally posted by The STE
I'm doing a similar thing w/ my g/f, partially because she doesn't get to see many movies due to her little sister, partially so I don't feel like an old man when I make any sort of movie references (btw, feeling like an old man while dating an underage girl isn't good)

I don't get you.

[The STE]

Originally posted by Haunted
I don't get you.

nobody does, although I'm not sure where the statement came from in the context of the conversation

[Haunted]

Are you trying to mind fuck me, my good man?

[The STE]

Originally posted by Haunted
Are you trying to mind fuck me, my good man?

MIND fuck you? No. I just didn't see where "I don't get you" came from

[Yellow Jacket]

Originally posted by Angelakillsluts
I hope they continue the sequels like

Snakes on a Train and Snakes in Seaworld etc.

Snakes on Trains, Planes, and Automobiles.

[Haunted]

Originally posted by The STE
MIND fuck you? No. I just didn't see where "I don't get you" came from

Oh great one! Do forgive me, thy humble slave.

Actually, I read your post and for some reason, probably because I had a really bad sinus headache, I didn't understand what you meant. However, after going back and rereading my post then yours, I figured it out. Now I feel like a retarded kid.