RemakeoRama #1 The Films of John Carpenter

Hey everyone. Just go done reading a few things and I figured I'd do the first part in a "whenever the hell I want to write one" series called Remakeorama.

Hollywood does not trust new ideas. Always leery because the bottom line is money.

So in not wanting to trust new ideas, Hollywood is a fertile breeding ground for the remake. And right now one of the guys who get's remade a lot is filmmaker, John Carpenter.

Full disclosure: I love John Carpenter's flicks. The great, the good and the bad. In fact the only film of Carpenter's I'm not a particular fan of is Memoirs of an Invisible Man but that being said I will try and give the remakes a fair shake.

For instance, I didn't mind the remake of Assault on Precinct 13. Since the first one is essentially a remake of Rio Bravo it's kind of hard to poke holes. The Fog however sucked. The original isn't a masterpiece but it's decent, this thing with all it's bells and whistles of cg and other such technology missed what made the original half decent which was a heart of sorts.

There was life in the original Fog characters, like the priest. It was a character that had depth. The remake was filled with people from the WB.

So it scares me when my favorites Halloween, Escape from New York and The Thing are lined up next.

Halloween is the only one definitely in production at this moment in time (well probably done production. It currently has an August release date) and it is in the hand of Mr. Rob Zombie.

Now Zombie I'm willing to give a shot. House of 1000 Corpses is not great by any means (but in it's defence, how could it ever live up to like three years of hype of the "horror film studios were scared to release"). Devil's rejects however I thought was awesome. Great vengeance/horror film and it also showed Zombie's growth of a director.

Zombie is a huge fan of the original. Now that's a tricky line to tow. How do you remake a movie you love without doing a shot by shot remake (Psycho anyone?) and still make a movie that is yours and is good?

Here's even a very brief side by side compariosn for you to consider.

Halloween 78


Now Halloween 07