The horror remakes continue

[rc]

Yes, the "point" of the remake was a big issue wasn't it?

I guess many still do not see it - from my own experience with the film I found the new faces in the familiar roles and the colour to be... well, just that I suppose.

I was watching a different version of essentially the same script and cinematography, but I never considered it as pointless as the other remakes we have talked about - where the motivation is often to re-angle the core of the story to please current trends.

I don't agree Van Sant's version looks hokey - the actors have a lot to live up to in that film and I think they pull off a fine job, particularly Anne Heche, though Vince Vaughn has a rather impossible task in topping Anthony Perkins.

[Last of the V8's]

Heard the The Thing was being remade as a mini-series for the Sci-Fi channel.

[Eric Plumrose]

To be honest, it has been a while since I saw the remake. But the scene that always springs to mind with regard to its hokiness is when we hear Marion's (Heche) inner thoughts as she ponders about the money she's stolen. It's more the fact the remake is directed as a 1950s/1960s melodrama rather than any hand-wringing on the actors' part.

Personally, classic that it is, I feel most critics take the original far too seriously. However, if the the producers of the remake had bothered returning to the source novel (that's assuming they knew of its existence) then they could well have saved themselves much of the critical mauling they surely expected.

I really should qualify this at some point but Bloch's novel, from what little I know of it, would seem to lend itself better to an '80s slasher flick than an all-time classic. Ditto the sequel he wrote which the makers of Psycho 2 chose wisely to ignore. Again, the belated sequel is far too reverent of the original but it's still great fun also.

[rc]

Ugh, I could well believe it.

Nothing is safe!

[paulvonscott]

"Heard the The Thing was being remade as a mini-series for the Sci-Fi channel."

Now I love The Thing, but I'd rather see something Thing-like than the Thing.

[rc]

The original PSYCHO certainly is given masterpiece status by "serious" critics.

It does have a lot going for it, especially as a piece of its time; the complex visuals, Perkins' schizophrenic performance, the shower scene, the unusual offing of the presumed heroine early on... all thrilling audiences back then like never before.

I was also well impressed with the sequel, arriving 23 years later - again, perhaps it was its reverence of the original that made it work?

[Eric Plumrose]

That's another thing about Hitchcock. So-called serious critics applaud his films for their dynamic visual style yet deride, say, Sam Raimi's early stuff for being too much like a comic book. Snobs, the lot of 'em!

[Richmond Clements]

Yeah, but twenty years after he dies, they'll be saying the same things about Sam, too.

[Jimbo San]

I saw the remake of "Night of the Living Dead" a couple of days ago.

I laughed so hard I nearly cried.

They seem to have tried to combine the original film with "Aliens", and the result is pure, unadulterated crap.

[rc]

Tom Savini's remake of N.L.D. crap?

I think that's way too harsh -

Sure, it had a lot to live up to - the original is a fantastic and seminal horror movie - but I think the 1990 film was a respectable re-telling of the story [scripted by Romero himself], and it didn't once resort to the cheap and predictable tactics often deemed necessary by remakers to ensure box-office success with teenagers.

Interestingly, the on-screen violence was surprisingly restrained [though trimmed by censors at the time] given Savini's record as a gory special-effects master.