Remakes Are the New Original

Part One - Introduction

Since it's birth cinema has used other art forms that by in large were incorporated to serve the film's needs. Whether it was the Director of Photography adopting a painter's use of light or a screenplay adapted from a published novel, filmmakers poach like crows feeding on recent road-kill.

Obviously this doesn't qualify filmmakers as un-authentic lot since through translation art must change permanently, adopting new characteristics of the hand that guides. No-one accuses for instance Hitchcock of plagiarism if "North By North-West" was adapted from a short story. I've read Stephen King's "The Shining," and I'm quite sure Stanley Kubrick's film based on said book should be considered separate works.

Yet there are times when I'm at a loss for words as things become mashed-up in such a manner that it becomes difficult to find any inspiration in the work. Such as the example of a string of re-makes coming out of Hollywood poaching from the now classic era of American horror movies (1935 - 1965). Coming soon to a post-house for final edit are the following films "Creature From the Black Lagoon," "The Wolfman," not to mention the on-going "Twilight" series that has re-discovered the Count Dracula. Tod Browning is rolling in his grave but he and Lon Chaney Jr. deserve somehow a more appropriate tribute than another run through the product cycle.

Which brings me to the part where I begin to sound like a crotchity old man complaining that my ice cubes aren't cold enough: where the hell are the new barn-burning, ice-pick to your third eye, ideas? What new un-discovered Freudian psycho-sexual foilible have I overlooked and will undoubtedly cause me great suffering mid-way through Act 2? Where is the zeitgeist that gets everyone spooked and into a theater? I'll be happy to buy my ticket onto the roller-coaster, just so long as I don't have to endure another hack job delivered by Burbank and it's awful progeny. Also, why are so many of these "new" horror films are produced / directed by the soggy brained offspring of their well-connected parents? That seems to speak volumes right there.

For Part Two of this rant, which I'll post soon, focuses on a few of the films already mentioned, plus some new-er ones that are filling this category like an hourglass spilling away. Approaching these topics with a strong lean towards critical analysis should help illuminate the expanding works of history from the reductive junk set for the garbage heap. I might step on some toes and hope that can be forgiven. In fact, I hope to step on toes come to think of it, since that would mean there are a few brains at least on the low-end of the dimmer switch.

But at least their turned on.