Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Horror Movie Remakes

Copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman



Janet Leigh, Psycho (1960)

An old joke plays upon the sameness of the names of the Empire State and its most prominent city: “New York, New York: the city so nice they named it twice.”

The Hollywood equivalent to the double entendre is the movie remake. In the horror genre, quite a few previous films have been resurrected, or remade, as they say in the trade:

  • Amityville Horror, The (1979 and 2005)
  • Black Christmas (1974 and 2006)
  • Blob, The (1958 and coming soon to a theater near you)
  • Day of the Dead (1985 and coming soon to a theater near you)
  • Fly, The (1958 and 1986)
  • Fog, The (1980 and 2005)
  • Godzilla (1954 and 1998)
  • Halloween (1978 and 2007)
  • Hills Have Eyes, The (1977 and 2006)
  • Hitcher, The (1986 and 2007)
  • House of Wax, The (1953 and 2006)
  • Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978, 1993, and 2007)
  • Island of Dr. Moreau, The (1977 and 1996)
  • Night of the Living Dead (1968, 1990, 2006)
  • Omen, The (1976 and 2006)
  • Psycho (1960 and 1998)
  • Ring 2, The (2005)
  • Stepford Wives, The (1975 and 2004)
  • Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The (1974 and 2003)
  • Thing, The (1951 and 1982)
  • When a Stranger Calls (1979 and 2006)
  • Wicker Man, The (1973 and 2006).


Ann Heche, Psycho (1998)

But, wait! There’s more! According to Variety, RKO’s Roseblood Movie Co. plans to remake (or, in some cases, has already remade) Lady Scarface (1941 and 2006), While the City Sleeps (1928, 1956, and coming soon to a theater near you), The Monkey’s Paw (1948, 2003, and 2008), The Seventh Victim (1943 and coming soon to a theater near you), Bedlam (1946 and coming soon to a theater near you), Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Five Came Back (1939 and coming soon to a theater near you), and I Walked with a Zombie (1943 and scheduled for release [or is it re-release?] in 2009).

But wait! That’s not all! Other movies scheduled for makeovers include The Brood (1979), Scanners (1981), and Near Dark (1987 and 2008).

Confronted with such a list, one may wonder, Why?

The answer is simple, but multi-faceted. Making a remake allows producers, directors, writers, actors, and others to make a movie without reinventing the wheel, so it’s relatively economical. In plot, setting, characters, theme, and other narrative elements, moviemakers are treading familiar ground when they’re remaking a movie that’s already appeared, in slightly different form, upon the silver screen.

There’s a built-in appeal for such movies, too. Obviously, in remaking a movie, filmmakers aren’t going to rip off a box office dud; they’re going to go for the gold, so they’re going to revive a popular has-been.

Moviegoers also like to compare the performances of the actors in the older versions of the film with the those of the players in the remake to see how the respective teams of actors interpreted their parts and played their roles, evaluating, in many cases, who did what better than another.

There’s the nostalgia factor to consider, too. People like revisiting the past and recalling significant moments, especially in their youth or during a time that (in retrospect, at least) seems more innocent and fun than present hard or lackluster times.

Then, too, if moviemakers remake old movies instead of making new movies (maybe we should call them movieremakers?), Hollywood doesn’t need as many writers, so writers’ strikes don’t matter as much, if at all.

Rob Zombie, who produced the Halloween remake, talked about the appeal and challenges of making a remake. When all else fails (or when all else has been said and done), one exploits the characters: “You've got a movie that has seven sequels, so you figure they've exploited this thing every which way you can,” he says. “You start fresh, and you focus on the one thing that's always most compelling to me: the characters.” More specifically, according to The San Francisco Chronicle, he “delves into the psychology of the franchise's iconic monster, prepubescent murderer-turned-bogeyman Michael Myers.” However, a word of caution applies in psychoanalyzing the monster, producer Bad Fuller, who has used the same tactic in remaking other horror movies, warns: “You don't want to humanize your monster too much, or the audience will feel sorry for him.” God forbid!

Fuller shares the considerations that led him to produce the remakes of Hitcher, The Amityville Horror, and Texas Chainsaw Massacre: “"We thought ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ was great for a remake," he says. “There was a whole generation not familiar with it. So there was brand recognition, but the expectations from the youth audience couldn't be that strong.” He’s done so well at the box office with such remakes that he’s planning to release remakes of Friday the 13th, Near Dark, and The Birds as well. (Perhaps Alfred Hitchcock is spinning in his grave at the prospect of someone redoing one of his classics.)

The San Francisco Examiner article also identifies some of the ways in which originals and remakes differ. The latter typically have better special effects; the causes behind the supernatural or paranormal situation or monster are sometimes changed, the remakes tend to build up the characters’ or the monster’s back story, and themes are given new twists. Occasionally, the remake is better than the original, as in the case of When a Stranger Calls: “The first movie was essentially a 15-minute babysitter-harassing sequence followed by more than an hour of digressions that had little to do with a stranger calling. The remake was 97 fast-paced minutes of that 15-minute sequence.”

The biggest reasons, though, for remaking successful movies? They’re proven box office successes and they’re easy to exploit.

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Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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