If my friends are to be believed I helped to enhance the movie going experience.
Also I don't mean that this movie isn't scary in that it won't make you jump in your seat. I mean that it's not scary because it's just not still creeping me out after seeing the movie. That's how I judge whether or not a movie is scary, if I'm still freaking out about it after the credits roll.
It's honestly been a while since I was left feeling like my skin was crawling after a horror movie or TV show. Much as I like The Haunting of Hill House, Jaws, or The VVICH, I don't often find them all that scary.
I do think they are all really good movies and TV shows. Just like I think Child's Play (the original and this remake) are good movies, just not very scary ones.
In fact, and this might be an unpopular opinion, I think this new version of Child's Play is slightly better than the original.
I'm not sure if it's the updates that were made to the story, the changes that were made, or if I just need to go back and review the original again to compare the dialogue, but the remake was a lot more engaging for me. Also Mark Hamill is amazing. Like I could tell it was him, but it wasn't his Joker or his Luke Skywalker voice. Spot on casting right there. (And he liked my tweet!)
Reasons I liked the movie aside (because I swear this isn't a review), it's very rare for me to enjoy a remade movie. It's an extremely fine art that Child's Play did well and most other remakes do not.
Much as I love Disney and enjoyed the remake of Beauty and the Beast, I still felt the original animated 1991 version was better. I even went how right after seeing it in theaters and rewatched the original. Carrie? 1976 film all the way. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory versus Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willy Wonka wins hands down. There's just something a little more heart warming to that movie.
And the less said about the Psycho remake the better.
That isn't to say that remakes can't work. I freaking loved It: Chapter 1. Again, did I find it scary...no. It was entertaining as all get out though (especially that random dancing scene, I was hysterically laughing). I also like the 1953 version of House of Wax, which is in fact a remake of an earlier version from 1933 and was also remade (terribly) in 2005.
I even occasionally like gender-bent remakes (where they switch a main character or characters' gender) such as His Girl Friday which is a remake and adaptation of The Front Page. These types of remakes are even rarer to work and designate with audiences or just be good in general.
Also a remake is different from a reboot. Batman and Superman are rebooted fairly often, each with varying degrees of success. I like both the Dark Knight and the 1989 Batman, however there is very little connecting the two. Reboots are giving a franchise a face lift without actually being the original. A remake is just trying to be the original.
(I know that reboots and remakes are very similar in concept, but I think of them as two different types of movies.)
So why do so few remakes work?
Honestly - it's because most of the time the studios are hoping you'll see the movie on name recognition alone. They hardly ever try to do anything new or refreshing in the story. Often times, the remake is just the old movie with modern tropes thrown in for fun.
A good remake pays homage to the original and makes itself something new.
The original Suspiria is a technicolor trip. It's entertaining and at times scary (though not much), but the story isn't really there. The new Suspiria that came out last autumn is also a trip, but it's much more focused on the story (maybe a little too much) and political climate of 1970s Berlin. One is a fairy tail and one is a beautiful, yet twisted period piece. I like both movies for very different reasons and because they are so different, I couldn't even begin to tell you which is better.
For the record there are movies I am not opposed being remade. There are some stories I feel can be expanded upon in visual media (*cough* Harry Potter *cough*). I do have a select few movies that are so very much part of the time that they came out, I would hate it if they were remade (rebooting is not impossible - Star Trek was fine, but definitely not remade). Movies like:
- Indiana Jones (all three originals)
- The Crow
- Star Wars
- Labyrinth - with the possible exception of Tom Hiddleston as Jareth
- Back to the Future
- Lord of the Rings
- Princess Mononoke
- Akira (no live action remakes Hollywood please)
- Jaws
- Metropolis
This isn't a comprehensive list, just the movies I can think of off the top of my head. The reasons I don't want them remade have more to do with how well I think the story works. There isn't as much I want to see explored anymore from the above listed. Now, inspired by movies and spin-offs are okay...if done well (only the first Hobbit movie was to my liking), but those stories are done. If I want a new Indiana Jones, I want a new character, not a new actor playing a beloved character.
And some animated movies really don't need live action remakes. Occasionally they work. I was very happy with Detective Pikachu (that's not a remake, but it was a medium transfer from animated to live). I was not impressed with Death Note and I'm still pretending Ghost in the Shell never happened. Beauty and the Beast wasn't bad, but the new things didn't work and the ones they tried to "fix" didn't really need fixing to begin with.
Okay maybe that whole cursing an 11 year old kid nonsense needed to be explained, but that's neither here nor there.
Do you guys have any movies you would never want to see remade? Let me know.
Until next week.
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