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Nightmare on Elm Street Remake

Started by The Boston Crab, May 02, 2010, 10:27:52 AM

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The only thing slightly more predictable than a remake is some chump whining about remakes like the modern-day version has been suddenly pasted over the original, preventing you from ever watching it again whilst being forced to watch the sub-standard update on rotation every Friday night.

That said: WHAT THE FUCK.

I'm not even a big fan of Elm Street but having rewatched the first and third movies in the past year, they definitely have a malignant power borne not only of nostalgic terror. There's a certain otherworldly sleaze and darkness to them which still touches you. I wish I had something more interesting to say than 'It's pointless to remake this film' but...

It's pointless to remake this film.

I've never actually seen Freddy's Dead (the one with the school bus, right?), having first watched Dream Warriors at age 9 - I'd only just got over An American Werewolf In London's transition scene - and been put off horror movies for about ten years. Yeah, serious. Then I watched the first one which, as I said above, is touched by something intangibly dark. These aside, I watched the late 90s meta-New Nightmare, which was a bit crap. I heard the rest are all crap.

Special mention for the music in these films actually, just imagining those ice-hot synth tones is giving me chills.

MALCOLM

Nothing has scared me before or since as much as those Nightmare on Elm street films, and I fail to see any point at all in remaking this series

I think they were so good first time around probably because I was a youngster at the time and watching on a scratchy VHS with the curtains drawn during the daytime, but I don't think it's possible to be scared as much by a film anymore due to us all being desensitized to horrorific images through the internet and amazing special effects everywhere you turn

I think the future of horror films is something akin to the live action stuff that the theme parks put on where you actively take part in and walk through a "film"

lipsink

There's bound to be a scene where a teenager types 'Fred Krueger into Google. Or falls asleep while using Twitter and gets a Tweet saying "One, two, Freddy's coming for you..."

I've liked what I've seen of the trailers so far though. I reckon he'll make a good Freddy. But it might just be another rubbish horror remake.

Jemble Fred

I've never heard more scathing reviews on Ain't It Cool than the ones for this. It may be some kind of tipping point for the remake trade.

Part of me still fancies seeing a 'Freddy reimagining', but if it's as beyond awful as it's cracked up to be I probably won't get round to it.

Feralkid

Quote from: Jemble Fred on May 02, 2010, 10:59:07 AM
I've never heard more scathing reviews on Ain't It Cool than the ones for this. It may be some kind of tipping point for the remake trade.

Part of me still fancies seeing a 'Freddy reimagining', but if it's as beyond awful as it's cracked up to be I probably won't get round to it.

Well all the reviews I've read for this, save for Harry Knowle's typically fawning rave, have been scathing.  It is by all acounts a movie with no compelling reason to exist.   I'm hoping it under performs at the box office and stops this awful fucking tide of horror remakes.  Though by this stage I guess there really aren't many name horror classics left to remake.

lipsink

I'd love to have seen one directed by Alexandre Aja. Based on Switchblade Romance and The Hills Have Eyes he has the ability to make sick nasty little films.

Feralkid

Quote from: lipsink on May 02, 2010, 11:07:45 AM
I'd love to have seen one directed by Alexandre Aja. Based on Switchblade Romance and The Hills Have Eyes he has the ability to make sick nasty little films.

Sick?  Yep.  Nasty?  For sure.  But what a worthwhile Elm Street reboot really needs is an intelligent reinterpretation - and Aja doesn't seem to have an intelligent thought in his head.  I'd like to have seen someone with a great visual sense let loose on this, someone who'd really embrace the surreal head-fucking possibilities of a dreamscape stalking boogeyman.   Chris Cunningham perhaps.   Or maybe an interesting genre talent who's yet to have a bigger budget to play with.  JT Petty maybe.           

Jemble Fred

It is possible to absolutely adore a horror film and still be keen to see a remake. Theatre of Blood is one of my favourite films of any kind, but I still picture a 21st Century version and gurgle with delight. Maybe they could even use the same cast as the National Theatre version, with Broadbent and Rachael Stirling.

SavageHedgehog

For what it's worth both Freddy's Dead and Freddy's Revenge feature school buses.

I actually quite like Freddy's Dead, but as a surreal black-but-cartoonish comedy rather than a horror film. And I think New Nightmare is a genuinely great horror film. I guess I'm a bit of a sucker for Freddy so I would certainly go see this if persuaded, but every single one of these Platinum Dunes remakes has been absolutely terrible, and not terrible in any remotely interesting or creative way, so they don't pass for any kind of campy fun either. To be fair the Friday the 13th remake was a considerable improvement for them, about on par with a weak fifth entry in a regular horror franchise.

Dark Sky

This film seemed to have such buzz and promise about it and now it's come out it's being slaughtered.

Such a shame.  Though it's odd that they seemed to be doing a retelling of the original story...  Why can't a remake take the original concept and then do something completely new with it?

Thinking of Silent Hill Shattered Memories, here.  Now that's how you do an amazing remake.

SavageHedgehog

It did have a pretty good trailer and a reasonably inspired choice for Freddy (though not as much fun as earlier choice Billy Bob Thornton might have been), but looking at the stats (e.g. Bay as producer, yet another anonymous music vid graduate in the directing chair, from the writer of Doom and some other writer who seemingly only wants to write horror sequels and remakes) it wasn't hard to figure out it wouldn't live up to that.

At any rate this is doing pretty nicely at the US Box Office and, as with most of these things, had a pretty modest budget, so you can expect Nightmare on Elm Street V2.0 2 or Rebooted Freddy vs. Rebooted Jason sometime soon.

lipsink

Quote from: Jemble Fred on May 02, 2010, 11:25:41 AM
It is possible to absolutely adore a horror film and still be keen to see a remake. Theatre of Blood is one of my favourite films of any kind, but I still picture a 21st Century version and gurgle with delight. Maybe they could even use the same cast as the National Theatre version, with Broadbent and Rachael Stirling.

How about Ian McKellen in Vincent Price's role?

Jemble Fred

Yes, he could be great. I also fancied seeing Branagh give it a go in 10 years or something. With Fry in the Robert Morley role (his death sequence would make so much more sense nowadays, what with 'Come Dine With Me' and such).

Dark Sky

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on May 02, 2010, 01:05:16 PM
It did have a pretty good trailer and a reasonably inspired choice for Freddy (though not as much fun as earlier choice Billy Bob Thornton might have been), but looking at the stats (e.g. Bay as producer, yet another anonymous music vid graduate in the directing chair, from the writer of Doom and some other writer who seemingly only wants to write horror sequels and remakes) it wasn't hard to figure out it wouldn't live up to that.

Platinum Dunes did so well with their remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though.  I mean, that is genuinely a brilliant film.  I prefer it to the original.

SavageHedgehog

Have to say I really hated that. In my bottom ten. I'm not a huge fan of the original (I even prefer the tongue-in cheek second film), I just found the remake a really shoddy piece of work.

Goldentony

I'm completely indifferent to the idea of a remake of this film because to me it just seemed like the most sensible thing they could do to the franchise if they wanted to continue it. Freddy Vs. Jason was an absolute turd of a film, and I really can't think of where they'd go with all of this within the original canon of the series. It might turn out to be utter shit as most suspect but to me it really can't be any worse than the absolute worst of the series. I appreciate the notion that they want to take the character back from a wise cracking top hat wearing cab driving nintendo playing cunt and back to an evil fucker and get away from the goofiness of what the entire series ended up becoming, eventually.

I had no problem with a newer and updated version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre because the entire series turned to complete shit after the second film, and knew something like a remake was the only way you'd ever get a new entry into the series and keep it interesting, great as it would have been to see Bill Mosely doing Chop Top again. Same with Friday the 13th - they actually ended up putting the cunt in space, so if you want to continue the series, what else could you possibly do besides a remake or reboot or whatever the fuck? it gives you a chance to start at ground zero again and start fresh (or as fresh as a remake could be).

Generally I think i'm looking forward to it. I'd prefer this to a new Englund fronted film, quite frankly. The first Nightmare film and New Nightmare are two of my favourite films, but the rest or series i'm not too arsed about, except perhaps the 2nd film and it's ridiculous OTT homoerotic comedy plot, so i've got no massive affection to most of the series.

biggytitbo

I'd like to see a remake of Halloween III: Season of the Witch but with Nigel Kneale's original script. I'll direct it myself.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteSame with Friday the 13th - they actually ended up putting the cunt in space

Hahaha.

El Unicornio, mang

I was horrified to discover the other day that they're remaking Short Circuit.


SavageHedgehog

I don't want to get too serious about this or anything but... there's nothing irredeemably wrong with the concept of remaking any of these films. It can be done well; if nothing else I do think the Rob Zombie Halloween films are at least more interesting than most of the sequels. But there is something wrong when they turn out to be half-hearted slick garbage, and I don't think the films should be excused just because they are remakes of films which spun awful sequels, and thus aren't tarnishing an un-tarnished legacy. Had the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series sunk low when they "rebooted" it? Yep? Was it impossible to sink any lower with a remake? As it turned out, not in my book. Was The Amityville Horror a remake of a film that was already pretty lame? Yep, but the film was still crap. Was the recent Friday The 13th better than some of the previous ones? Probably, as the whole series is various kinds of garbage, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have tried harder.

Mind you, we're probably coming at this from completely different angles, as while I wouldn't particularly want to see either of them again, I did quite enjoy Freddy Vs. Jason and Jason X as they were at least obviously made by people who love horror films and the series they continued, not just a company who know they can have an easy profit in the first weekend when they use a recognised name. I didn't want either series to continue particularly, but a crap remake is still just a crap remake.

Mr Colossal

Why dont they ever remake any of the lesser known but slightly flawed films which could actually DO with fleshing out a bit?  I always thought Maniac Cop was a bad ass... I have the same approach to film remakes that I do with songs,  if you cant improve on or vastly alter the original,  why bother?   as it just comes across as some unimaginative hack hoping to steal some of the original's thunder, whilst shitting on it from a great height in the process.


I've liked some of the films like wrong turn which are blatantly inspired by things like texas chainsaw massacre and deliverance but were individual films in their own right.

Feralkid

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on May 02, 2010, 05:36:40 PMHad the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series sunk low when they "rebooted" it? Yep? Was it impossible to sink any lower with a remake?

Depends who you ask.  Chainsaw 2 is a wonderfully demented film full of nicely OTT splatter mayhem and boasting an imminently quotable script from Paris Texas scribe LM Kit Carson. 

Whilst the much maligned Texas Chainsaw: The Next Generation (or Return of the Texas CHainsaw massacre to give it it's original title) is a film which was hacked into incoherence when it was picked up for distribution.   The original cut actually drew rave notices from genre critics like Joe Bob Briggs and Alan Jones - and deservedly so, it's a nicely disturbing slice of fucked up rural bizarro horror.  Alas, the cut distributed by Sony lobbed ten minutes off its running time, remixed the sound and brightened its palatte.  That 94 minute version is well worth tracking down, even if its ending smacks of Alex Jones. Drooling Fangoria fanboys also seem to have been upset by the fact that Leatherface (already seen in Hausfrau gab in the original) dabbles with actual cross dressing in Return... 

Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III is utter tosh though.   

SavageHedgehog

Oh, I absolutely love Chainsaw 2. The other two I can kind of take or leave, but they didn't strike me as being as egregiously lazy as the remake, and the prequel-remake.

Repentia

The Freddy Gets Fingered tag thing is correct. If we're now locked in an never-ending recursion of remakes, we should at least demand they remake two films at the same time.

The Goonies On Elm Street would be worth the price of admission. No, think about it, it would be great.

T.M.N.T.: C.H.U.D. is a no-brainer, the set up is identical, almost.

The Godfather of The Bride ahh c'mon, that would be funny.

Feralkid

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on May 03, 2010, 09:28:22 AM
Oh, I absolutely love Chainsaw 2. The other two I can kind of take or leave, but they didn't strike me as being as egregiously lazy as the remake, and the prequel-remake.

Oh Chainsaw 2 is just wonderful, the dialogue alone is enough to earn it a place in my affections.  And whatever one thinks of the other sequels at least they're brimming with ideas and ambition.  Chainsaw 3 is a dog's dinner but the notion of a more technologically adept cannibal clan is pretty nifty and Chainsaw 4 has a great cast and lots of nutso cuckoo weirdness. 

Vitalstatistix

Quote from: SavageHedgehog on May 02, 2010, 05:36:40 PM
It can be done well; if nothing else I do think the Rob Zombie Halloween films are at least more interesting than most of the sequels.

Oh, I forgot about that. Zombie's first few films marked him out as someone doing interesting things, I was surprised he then did two remakes. Are they actually any good?

Vitalstatistix

Oh, does anyone else adore Jason X? What a wonderfully ridiculous, brilliantly funny film.

Feralkid

Quote from: Vitalstatistix on May 03, 2010, 07:36:56 PM
Oh, does anyone else adore Jason X? What a wonderfully ridiculous, brilliantly funny film.

I adore Jason X.  It's splendid, especially the liquid hydrogen head dunking kill and the awesome Jason on the Holodeck sequence with the smiluated 80's chicks.   

SavageHedgehog

Quote from: Vitalstatistix on May 03, 2010, 07:35:56 PM
Oh, I forgot about that. Zombie's first few films marked him out as someone doing interesting things, I was surprised he then did two remakes. Are they actually any good?

I think "good" would be going too far but I didn't regret seeing either of them, though I am in a considerable minority on that with the second one. They're more interesting and ambitious than most other horror remakes from the last ten years, although the first one goes a bit Gus Van Sant in the second half.