While horror remakes are inevitable, its rare that international filmmakers are hired to helm American remakes of their originals. Even fewer filmmakers get to make not one, but TWO movies about sentient killer elevators (Killovators? Murdervators?). Lucky for us, Dick Maas laughs in the face of convention. His feature debut, The Lift, is a zany […]
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Before you dart toward the comments to argue that George Huang’s How to Make a Monster isn’t a remake, let me explain why it’s my focus this month. In 2001, legendary special effects artist Stan Winston co-produced a series of made-for-cable “remakes” alongside Colleen Camp and Lou Arkoff based on AIP horror flicks of the […]
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We’re zapping into science fiction territory and back into “re-adaptation” conversations this month for Revenge of the Remakes. Don Siegel and Philip Kaufman bring vastly different approaches to their Invasion of the Body Snatchers films, uniformly citing Jack Finney’s 1954 novel “The Body Snatchers” as their source. Kaufman isn’t directly remaking Siegel’s film but acknowledges […]
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John Carpenter’s illustrious catalog of horror and non-horror classics has already seen three remakes (Halloween, Assault on Precinct 13, and this column’s focus), with at least one more kinda-sorta confirmed on the way (Escape from New York). If you consider 2011’s The Thing enough of a remake, notch another on the bedpost. It makes sense; […]
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In life, spewing hate comes easy; finding the good takes effort. That’s my mantra for “Revenge of the Remakes.” Get dirty and identify value where others hastily — maybe unfairly — laid harsh criticisms. Any remake, in any genre, faces biased outrage from peanut galleries who refuse to remove their nostalgia goggles. It’s easy to […]
The post ‘Rollerball’ Turned a 1970s Cult Classic into an Early 2000s Studio Disaster [Revenge of the Remakes] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
I’m thirty-plus entries into Revenge of the Remakes and have finally reached an original/remake pair where neither is American. Vincenzo Natali’s Cube (1997) is a maple-scented product of Canada’s independent filmmaking scene, while Yasuhiko Shimizu’s 2021 remake hails from Japan. You’re free of rants about stale Americanizations and Hollywood’s sometimes shortsighted approach to horror remakes. […]
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There’s a solid chance this month’s edition of “Revenge of the Remakes” ends up as one of my favorite column entries. George A. Romero’s The Crazies and Breck Eisner’s The Crazies inspire an exceptional case study about the peaceful coexistence between remakes and originals. Both filmmakers choose unique perspectives when dooming small-town America, even though […]
The post How ‘The Crazies’ Reinterprets a Romero Classic for a New Generation [Revenge of the Remakes] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Gore Verbinski’s The Ring led the first wave of early 2000s horror remakes that partially defined the era’s landscape alongside Saw torture-porners and other reactionary post-9/11 subgenres. Granted, remakes have always been a foundational pillar that keeps horror reinventing itself decade after decade — but the 2000s were different. Production companies like Platinum Dunes and […]
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No Troma remake should attempt to match Troma at its revolting, boundary-demolishing, trigger-happy game. Take 1980’s Mother’s Day, for example. Troma Entertainment ringleader Lloyd Kaufman let his brother Charles Kaufman shoot a rape-revenge exploitation sleazefest no mamma would applaud. Darren Lynn Bousman’s 2010 remake abandons Tromaville signatures almost entirely for a mean-mugging reinterpretation rooted in […]
The post How the ‘Mother’s Day’ Remake Properly Updates a Low-Budget Troma Film from the 1980s appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Watching two Michael Haneke features back-to-back doesn’t sound all that outrageous, right? What if they’re Funny Games (1997) and Funny Games (2007)? You start with one of the more disturbing flicks in Criterion’s closet, then immediately follow it with an American shot-for-shot remake that relives the same nightmare. My inner masochist couldn’t skip on tackling […]
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To credit Fede Álvarez’s Evil Dead as the motivating force behind “Revenge of the Remakes” wouldn’t be an audacious claim. By golden template standards for reanimating beloved horror franchises, it remains a remarkable exemplification alongside titans like Maniac or The Blob. As an underworldly standalone feature, it’s one of the fiercest, scare-you-senseless releases since its […]
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To say Herschell Gordon Lewis‘ and Jeremy Kasten‘s respective The Wizard of Gore releases pushed me to my limits is correct for all the wrong reasons. My choice to stack the 1970 original and 2007 remake back-to-back stands as one of my least favorite Revenge of the Remakes double-bills thus far. I’ve no objection to […]
The post ‘The Wizard of Gore’ – Only Crispin Glover Shines in 2007’s Herschell Gordon Lewis Update [Revenge of the Remakes] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
The producers of 2003’s Willard chose to nix “remake” from the film’s marketing vocabulary, but 2003’s Willard adaptation is irrefutably a remake of 1971’s furry social outcast chiller. At the forefront of 2000s remake trends, Glen Morgan‘s Willard features altered themes and a deeper thirst for suspense, going the “darker and grittier” route displayed by […]
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In discussions about slasher infamy, all roads lead to Haddonfield. The Halloween franchise has amassed a convoluted franchise canon since the late 1970s, filled with retcons and redos as recently as Halloween Ends — including Rob Zombie‘s universally divisive 2007 remake. Countless horror screenwriters, including Josh Stolberg (no stranger to “Revenge of the Remakes”), attempted […]
The post ‘Halloween’ – How Rob Zombie Made a Horror Classic Entirely His Own [Revenge of the Remakes] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.
Anyone who’s kept pace with “Revenge of the Remakes” here on Bloody Disgusting knows I’m a rather outspoken advocate for horror remakes. They’re inevitable, serve multiple purposes, and aren’t the poison to filmmaking culture some claim. That said? Matt Sobel’s American remake of Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s Goodnight Mommy exemplifies everything you hate to […]
The post ‘Goodnight Mommy’ – The Kind of Remake That Gives Remakes a Bad Name [Revenge of the Remakes] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.