This just in: Hollywood to remake everything. Yes, everything. I came across this list, and even though it doesn't post a reference I was able to find most of the movies on it on IMDb. Of course, that doesn't mean anything. IMDb has been known to post erroneous information before, particularly I remember their casting posted for Spider-Man 3 a while back. Duane Johnson as Venom indeed! But I digress...
http://jamesentertainmentedge.blogspot.com/2009/01/horror-movie-remake-list.htmlSome of these movies I call bulls**t on, particularly Humongous. Humongous was such a genre exercise that you really don't need to remake it. I mean, it's practically like Anthropophagus, or The Prey, or The Cavern. It has a very similar concept, and remaking it wouldn't make much sense, especially since it seems doing so would be putting too much effort in a man-mistaken-for-monster body count film.
One movie I didn't see on this list that is also confirmed: The Host. You all probably know my stance on this remake, as I've given my heavy-handed speech against it more than once. Of course, this means I just won't watch it. Plain as that.
I also did some research on the Don't Be Afraid of the Dark remake, and I found that Guillermo del Toro is on board for this one. Not as a director, sadly, but as a producer, which is just as good for me. I love del Toro's movies, except Blade 2, and I think he would add just the right touch to a remake of this film. The only thing about it that makes me wonder, though, is why remake a made for TV movie?
I guess this is a sign of things to come. We can probably expect to see these movies and others that we've seen come in the last decade as remakes in the late 2020's and the 2030's. That's when we'll see remakes for Saw, Cloverfield, another Host remake, Godzilla 40-something, James Bond 40-something, and maybe Hollywood will begin a craze of Sci Fi Channel originals remakes. Attack of the Griffin, and Minotaur, and Mammoth. Hell, they'll even do a Kraken remake. Why not?
I'm not against remakes, really. I'm about 50/50 on them. If I see one I don't like, I just don't watch it. At the same time, though, I want to see something new. Sure, even the new stuff is just a re-adaptation of the older stuff, but really it's all in how you arrange your plot devices. I want to see some new arrangements. The other thing is that I don't want Hollywood to turn every old school horror movie from Dracula to Tourist Trap into some lame, hip, PG-13, diet horror crapfest. I know they've done some that were actually good, solid R-ratings, but remaking an R-rated movie with a PG-13 rating just seems silly. That's even with the realization that not all R-rated horror flicks are good. Just the same, many of the PG-13 ones just feel so badly nerfed that they had to pad them out with cliches.
Bah, I'll get off my soap box.