The Horror of Remakes

Everyone hates remakes. If you spend anytime looking at movie sites or talking on movie forums, you will see the nonstop vitriol people direct towards the very concept of the remake. Now as a writer I can understand why people like me would hate remakes. Hollywood is so busy betting on a proven property that it is not willing to take a chance on a new idea (of which I have many, sitting in a pile on my desk). But while the average movie goer likes to talk trash about remakes, the box office numbers seem to indicate differently. Looking at the box office, people love remakes. And the type of remakes people like the most are Horror films.

As I type this it is just a few days until the remake of Evil Dead comes out in theatres (though it is probably many days after that I post it, and I saw and loved it). Evil Dead is one of those horror franchises that holds a special place in the hearts of horror fans. While Friday The 13^th, Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween (all three franchises who have had remakes done already) post up the numbers for sequels, Evil Dead composed just a simple trilogy. But those three films are more innovative than the majority of horror films out there, launching the careers of director Sam Raimi (Oz: The Great and Powerful, Spider-Man trilogy, The Quick and The Dead, Darkman etc.) and actor Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice and any number of cult films).

With the love so many fans hold for the original Evil Dead you would think that news of a remake would elicit feelings of fury and anger from fans. Their sacred film is being reinterpreted. As if there was something wrong with the original? But in truth, most fans of the original are singing nothing but praise for a new film (to which I add my voice). Although a new director and writer have been brought onto the project, Sam Raimi is still producing so the property is still in the caring hands of the original creator. This leaves the promise that this new vision of Evil Dead will still hold some flavor of the original.

And that is the key to a good remake. Capturing the spirit of the original film. Straying from the original storyline and changing characters, that is all fine if you can still keep the tone and feel of the original film. This is why horror remakes seem to succeed so much more than other film genres. Horror films need to terrify. They can make you laugh, cry and think at the same time but above all they need to inspire feelings of dread. No other emotion matters. A remake of a comedy needs to be as witty and clever as the original in order to capture the same feeling of watching it. Being clever is hard when you’re trying to reproduce something that has already existed. Clever implies originality, and by definition remakes are not original.

Another problem with remakes is that some people cannot differentiate between a remake and an adaptation. There have been films that have been made that all come from the same source material, but these films are not remakes. They are adaptations of a single source. Each new filmmaker is giving a new interpretation of the book or TV show that is independent of any previous film adaptation. This is the category most comic book films fit in. They’re not remaking the previous films, merely readapting the same source material.

As someone who is desperate to get his original ideas made by the Hollywood establishment, I should be anti-remake. But I cannot deny the excellence of these films. Horror movie remakes have been pretty damn good (with a few exceptions). While I want my movies to be made, more than that I just want good movies to be made. Above all I want to be entertained and as long as remakes continue to do so, I will gladly watch them.