Top Five Horror Remakes
It's true. Today, the horror remake is usually just an excuse to rehash old ideas (with a built in fan base) with new teenagers in the lead roles for studios to grab a quick buck. And they usually suck. Hard. But, let us not forget that there have been some true gems. And, even one or two cases where the remake suprpasses the original *gasp*!
5. Night of the Living Dead (1990) - Effects guru Tom Savini remakes his old friend George's seminal masterpiece. Sounds like it would be a really cool undertaking, and, for the most part, it is. Gone are the socio-political underpinnings of the original, replaced with tons of grue (in color!). No, it's not anyway near what the original was, but it still manages to be a fun picture to watch.
4. Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Dawn of the Dead (1978) is one of my favorite films, so it is no small feat for Zack Snyder to have made a remake that I would actually put on this list. While paling in comparisson to the orignal, Snyder's take manages to be quite different and still pretty scary. I recommend watching it, but don't expect it to live up to Romero.
3. The Blob (1988) - Released 30 years after the original, The Blob manages to be a lot of fun. Chuck Russell doesn't skimp on the gore, and the sheer b-movieosity of it all keeps you glued to the screen. You can't beat a classic, but this remake manages to actually be more entertaining than the Steve McQueen driven orginal.
2. The Fly (1986) - David Cronenberg's version actually suprass the 1958 Vincent Price film. Of course, the grue is amazing, but he also gets a solid performance out of Jeff Goldblum, no easy task!
1. The Thing (1982) - John Carpenter's absolute masterpiece of cold fear and paranoia tops off the list as the single best horror remake of all time. Taking Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World, and making it completely his own, Carpenter's movie bombed at the box office, but it is still one of the best films of the eighties. I rank it right under Raging Bull.
2 comments:
Every time I go into Movie Trading Company I want to buy The Thing. One day it will be mine, one day!
You should definitely get it. I have it in both standard and in hi-def. I have yet to watch it in HD, but I am sure it is pretty rad.
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