31 Days of Horror 4: Originals vs. Remakes DAY 4

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) vs. A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

Original

“One, two, Freddy's coming for you.
Three, four, better lock your door.
Five, six, grab your crucifix.
Seven, eight, better stay awake.
Nine, ten, never sleep again.”

Yeah, the song is still creepy.

Another icon in the horror world, Freddy Krueger is a fan favorite. As, the years went on Krueger’s sequels declined in quality, except for New Nightmare, and the franchise hit a wall after Freddy vs. Jason.

Yet, let’s remember what made Freddy, well, Freddy and talk about why the original worked so well.

The movie is about a group of teenagers in the town of Springwood, who are being haunted by a burnt figure that invades their dreams and turns them into their worst nightmares.
This burnt figure is the ghost of Freddy Krueger (a.k.a The Springwood Slasher), a child murderer that was killed by the neighborhood parents.
He seeks revenge and finds he can take vengeance where the parents can’t save them, where they’re most vulnerable – in their dreams.
Now, one by one, as they fall asleep the teenagers are beginning to be picked off by the claw wielding maniac and even pills and coffee will not work and as they lay their head down they know that they are going to be battling Freddy for their lives.

The whole idea of a killer hunting you down in your dreams was and still is a terrifying concept.

The original A Nightmare on Elm Street was a film that targeted our most primal fears. It gave us a killer that not only inhabited the dream world but also had a voice.

Freddy would talk to his victims, something Jason and Michael didn’t do. He had a personality, which made him much more threatening.

Today the film still holds up, for the most part. Some might find parts of the movie cheesy, but for the most part this movie still works well.

Remake

The 2010 remake of the classic is not only disappointing but it’s also pointless.

They took the basic premise of the original and gave Freddy more of a back story. I don’t understand why they find it necessary to give these psychopaths a deeper back story. It didn’t work with Michael Myers and it didn’t work here.

This remake should have never been made. The original was perfect and then they try to mimic that but fall flat on their face. Characters go undeveloped and the script lacks creativity that the original had. Because of this mediocre script the film is just boring to watch, we know what is going to happen next and it’s chore to get through.

Jackie Earl Haley takes the reins from Robert Englund and he doesn’t try to be Robert’s Freddy but he tries to create a more sinister character. It would have worked better if the characters he was tormenting were more interesting. Yet, the teens in this movie were just cardboard cut outs getting ready to get killed by Freddy.

So, which is better?

The original by leaps and bounds, the 2010 film is a waste of time. The 1984 movie might be dated by today’s standards but it does everything right. The 2010 film only gets the visuals right but fails on script, characters and special effects.

Original Wins

31 Days of Horror 4: Originals vs. Remakes DAY 3

Friday the 13^th (1980) vs. Friday the 13^th (2009)

Original

Friday the 13^th is my favorite horror slasher franchise ever. Yeah the films sequels went on to be silly and dumb, but I love them all.

The original Friday the 13^th made way for ‘80’s slashers, it was  really the first slasher to be overly gory. The films that came before it such as Halloween and Psycho, weren’t really that gory. Yeah, in Psycho we get the chocolate syrup going down the drain but Halloween really had no gore. So, Friday the 13^th was starting something new that would cause other horror movies to follow.

The film centers around Camp Crystal Lake, which we all know now is the famous stomping grounds of the killer Jason Voorhees.
Steve Christy (Peter Brouwer) is the owner of the camp and is looking to reopen it, despite a series of strange and unexplained deaths that plagued the camp 20 years earlier.
He’s being helped by a new group of camp counselors that are “Babes in the Woods” as Christy puts it.
With the counselors settling in, someone lurks in the woods surrounding the camp. They are spying on the care free campers and plotting a revenge on those who have woken the camp from its years of slumber. 

I love the creepy theme, the setting, and how the story is setup as a who done it.

The film does have flaws, mainly its pace. Now-a-days people might become very frustrated with how slow it can go, they may also be frustrated that they’ve seen this type of film over and over again.

Yes, Friday the 13^th might not be as effective as it once was, because let’s face it this is the film those other films modeled themselves after. Yet, if you can see past all that then you’re in for a real treat.

Remake

I might be in the minority, because I actually enjoyed the remake. The reason for that is because I don’t look at the 2009 film as a remake I look at it as just another sequel. Let’s be honest with one another the remake was better than a lot of the sequels.

Yet, I will admit the movie really has nothing new to offer and we’ve seen it all before and it will not reinvent slasher films. It’s just a Friday the 13th movie and that’s not a bad thing, it has plenty of gore and other things that we expect.
The movie does effectively merge elements from the first four Friday films and weaves them into a new entertaining story, I mean it doesn’t have a great plot and the characters are cardboard cut outs of stero-types but it’s entertaining to say the least.
The plot is basically this; Clay (Jared Padalecki) is searching the area around Crystal Lake for his sister who went missing. He meets up with a group of kids that have come up to the “rich kids'” parent’s cabin for the weekend to party and of course in Friday the 13th fashion they all start to get killed off one by one – if it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it.

As a remake to the original film, well it’s hard to compare. You see Jason Voorhees has become this icon in the horror world and if you put out a Friday the 13^th remake people expect him to be the killer, hockey mask and all.

But if Hollywood wanted to truly remake Friday the 13^th, Jason Voorhees wouldn’t be the killer at all, it would be Pamela Voorhees, Jason’s mother. Pamela was the original killer and in the 2009 film her story gets shoved into the opening of the film. So, we can’t call the remake really a remake, it’s more like a reboot. It takes what fans loved from the original Friday the 13^th films and tries to mesh them all together to come up with a story that would spawn more films in that specific continuum.

Yet, I have to say that the remake was good for what it was. I wouldn’t have minded to see a sequel to it. I thought that they did some creative things with Jason and the story sticks to the basic Friday formula.

So, which is better?

The original comes away with the win. Yeah, it’s dated by today’s standards but it’s still a creepier film. The remake just tried to duplicate what the original and other Friday the 13^th movies did, but the original set the standard and formula for these films.

Original Wins

31 Days of Horror 4: Originals vs. Remakes DAY 2

The Hill Have Eyes (1977) vs. The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

Original

Now, here is an ultra violent horror movie from the ’77. A movie I don’t recommend for everyone.

The film is about a family heading out to California that meets their fate when they decide to take a detour off the main road, in hopes to find the silver mine that Big Bob Carter (Russ Grieve) and Brenda Carter (Susan Lanier) received as an anniversary present.

Soon after they leave the main road their camper breaks down and the family is now not only stranded in the desert but is also being stalked by a group of people that have a taste for human flesh.

This film was directed by Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and it is genuinely creepy but also extremely disturbing and twisted. The movie isn’t for everybody, I really want to stress that.

Behind all the gore and the twisted story, the film had a lot of tension. This is one for those movies that you are actually afraid for the characters.

The movie isn’t dull and it’s a ride that casual audiences wouldn’t like to take. Yet, if you are a horror fan or just want to learn more about the genre this is a must watch.

Remake

It’s very hard to talk about the remake, because it’s just very extreme.

When watching this movie it’s more like an endurance test than an actual ride like the original. There are some very sick, twisted, and brutal things in this film and it’s not a movie for a casual audience. I barely could stomach some of the things in it.

The story is very similar to the original but they take out the silver mine. Their trailer breaks down on their way to California, due to spikes in the road, and they are soon faced with the now mutated hill people. Yes, in this version the hill people are products of nuclear radiation due to nuke testing in the desert.

This remake is much faster paced than the original, which is the case with most horror remakes, and like I said is ups the gore and violence. Yet, is it any good?

Well, I have to be honest and say that this remake is well done by horror remake standards; but because the level of violence and a certain scene, that I won’t get into, it’s very hard to like this movie without feeling weird. Again, it’s not a film for casual audiences and it is truly made for the hardcore horror crowd.

So, which is better?

Both films are dark, twisted, and brutal and they both have their good points and bad points. If I had to pick between the two though, I would have to go with the original. The reason for this is because I feel like it had a lot more tension than the remake. The remake seemed interested in shocking you again and again and it did it well, but I rather have the tension the original gave us.

Original Wins

31 Days of Horror 4: Originals vs. Remakes

 Welcome to 31 Days of Horror 4. This year I am pitting originals against remakes to see which ones come out on top.

The Amityville Horror (1979) vs. The Amityville Horror (2005)

Original

The movie is based on the true events that happened to the Lutz family back in the year 1975.
The movie begins with George (James Brolin) and Kathleen Lutz (Margot Kidder) and their children moving into the Dutch Colonial at 112 Ocean Ave. in Amityville, N.Y.
Yet, 13 months before the Lutz moved in Ronald DeFeo Jr. had shot and killed all six of his family members in the house.
The real story goes that after 28 days of living in the house, the Lutz family fled in fear. They claimed they were being terrorized by paranormal activity.
The movie covers those 28 days and we slowly see George Lutz turning on his family and being tormented by the entity that drove Ronald DeFeo Jr. to kill.

Even though that the actually story, which this is based, doesn’t add up, the movie is a great haunted house film.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this a masterpiece but for what it is it’s effective. The pacing and overall tone of the original film was more menacing than the 2005 remake. This was because the original explored the story without getting into too much depth and allowed our minds create the horrors that live in the house.

Remake

The 2005 remake follows the same story, but gets into more of the history of the house. This ultimately weighs down the film.

What made the original more effective was not seeing the ghosts and knowing less about the history of the home. In this film the ghosts are popping up left and right and then we get the story why the ghosts look like the way they do.

I appreciate the fact that the writer and director attempted to do something new with the material. I also appreciate the performances in this movie, but it’s really nothing new.

In the end the movie is mediocre at best.

So, which is better?

I find things I like about both films but in the end the win goes to the original. The 1979 film had that creepy main theme, Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), and much more of an atmosphere than the remake.

Original Wins

Hoping 'American Horror Story' season 3 is better

“American Horror Story” will return for a third season on FX in October but my hopes are low after a disappointing second year.
This year the popular television show will focus on witches, with themes of race, oppression and family. It sounds interesting enough but will it fall into the same traps the second season did?
In it’s first season the show had an engaging story with interesting characters and kept a clear direction throughout its run. That all changed when it came to Season 2, which went off the deep end.
In the second year there were too many ideas. It felt as if the writers wanted to include everything they thought of — and they did. There was a Dr. Frankenstein character, aliens, a serial killer, even the Angel of Death. If you can’t understand how these things fit together, don’t worry, because no one could. It was a jumbled mess with no clear direction. For me, season two was a huge disappointment.
Now, with season three right around the corner, we have to hope the writers have learned from their missteps and bring back the style of season one.
I want a story with characters I can identify with. I want to see them focus on one thing and make that one thing work. In season one they focused on ghosts, so why can’t they just focus on the witches and leave it that. Less is more.
I also would like them tone down the violence. “American Horror Story” doesn’t need the over-the-top gore, its stories should be strong and scary on their own. The crew and writers need to have more faith in their work.
Season three of “American Horror Story” will premiere October 9 on FX.

‘Star Wars: Episode VII’ going back to the basics

“Star Wars: Episode VII” producer, Kathleen Kennedy, indicates that the next chapter will resurrect some former story lines, characters and practical effects.
This news is exciting as those film-making elements were missing from the “Star Wars” prequels. Those movies overused CGI, had underdeveloped characters and wooden performances that ultimately destroyed two of the three films.
What George Lucas failed to realize with the prequels was that special effects were not what made the “Star Wars” brand. That is something that the team behind “Star Wars: Episode VII” seems to grasp.
The original “Star Wars” trilogy was great because it took advantage of filming on location and only used special effects to enhance the brand.
“Looking at all the Star Wars movies and getting a feel for what even some of the early films did, combining real locations and special effects, that’s something we’re looking very seriously at,” Kennedy says
The films also took risks with the storylines. There were character and plot twists in the original films that were noticably absent in the prequels.
“And if you don’t spend the time you need on developing characters, and finding stories — complicated stories — the audience gets tired because they think they’re seeing the same thing again and again,” Kennedy empasizes.
It seems like Kennedy has her head on straight and can return this franchise to the basics.
Now, the next news I would like to hear, like everyone else, is what story are they doing? Will they do a something from the expanded universe or are they creating an original story?
I hope that with anything they do, they remain true to the spirit of the original trilogy.

Christian Bale Confirms No More Batman

Christian Bale has confirmed that he will not be playing Batman in a "Justice League" movie or another "Batman" film.
This news came out during an interview with Entertainment Weekly.
"We were incredibly fortunate to get to make three [Batman films]. That's enough. Let's not get greedy," he says. "Chris [Nolan] always said he wanted to make it one film at a time. And we ended up sitting there looking at each other, saying 'We're about to make the third.' We never really knew if we were going to get to be there, but if that was how it was going to be, this was where it should end as well." 

Bale also revealed that he is looking forward to see what another actor does with the role.