Thread: New Horror Movies-Venting

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Greetings,
I just saw on TV a trailer for House of Wax...the 2005 remake of the Vincent Price classic under the same title. Now not only am I a pro-haunter (or a dark entertainment specialist is the term I like to use) I am a huge horror movie fan new and old. Now those that know me to them it's no secret that I am a great classic horror movie buff and in most cases perfer the classics over new horror, but I am not closed minded. I give each and every new horror movie a chance and most of what Hollywood produces in horror nowadays I can find things that are actually good about them even if the movie overall isn't good. However I shall get to the point. I'm sick and tired of Hollywood rehashing the classics and in a way ruining them and their legacy. There is nothing wrong to pay tribute, but it seems that it's much more than that. With all the artists in Hollywood why can't they uncover something new instead of sinking millions of dollar in cheap remakes. Hollywood in the past decade has attempted to remake such classics like The Haunting, House on Haunted Hill, Ghost Ship, 13 Ghosts, The Ring, The Grudge, and now House of Wax. In my never ending search on the net for new horror movie news I came across an article that Sam Raimi's new Ghosthouse Productions want to spearhead a REMAKE of The Evil Dead! WHY WHY WHY!!!!!!!!!!! Why can't they do something new? Why do they have to literally steal from past classics? This does nothing but destroy them because those that havent' seen the originals and then when they find out that a movie is a remake and it sucks then they have already prejudged a classic and in most cases don't even bother to give it a chance. This has been a question that has bothered me for years. I don't know I just needed to vent at this moment after seeing that preview and write this post. Maybe others feel this way too...

I can totally agree with you there mr_maniacal. I too am an avid horror freak. I have been watching horror movies since I was a little kid. And I have been going to see almost every new horror movie out, becuase like you, I also believe in giving them a chance. What I am so sick of, are these movies that just make absolutely no sense whatsoever because they have been cut to hell and back to make it rated PG-13. I am so sick and tired of seeing every cool horror movie out with a PG-13 rating, becuase I can almost bet that I would end up really confused at the end of it. The Gruge was a complete trainwreck. So was White Noise. I was so confused at the ends of those movies I kept wondering how could they have released something like that that had so many parts cut out of it.. You had no idea what was going on by the end. Sadly becuase of that, I refuse to go see anymore horror movies that are rated PG-13 at the theater, I will just wait for them to come out on DVD.

Its all the Greedy movie companies faults. They want to appeal to a bigger audience by making the featuers rated PG-13, but they don't understand that they are completely sacraficing the movie in the process.

I also really think that Hollywood is running out of ideas. They seem to be taking the "safe route" in this situation. Which means wearing something out in order to make lots of money off of it. They don't want to risk new ideas because they may not be on the top five movie list for that week or that month. Its really making me sick.

If they EVER do a remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.. I WILL NOT be going to see it. I will have nothing to do with it. Its a movie that should never be remade. Besides they already have 9 of them. hehe.

Now with House of Wax Hollywood has done it again completely trashing a classic. You had a storyline that was creepier and more believable then what this new version seems to be. You had an obsessed artist who loses his House of Wax due to arson. He is caught in the fire trying to save his creations and gets scared physically and psychologically. He resurfaces opening a new darker house fo wax and goes on a killing spree taking out those that were part of the arson and those that look like his creations he lost incasing the evidence in wax and putting them on display. This new one, which I am guessing since I can't find a storyline anywhere, looks like Texas Chainsaw Massacre with a house of wax theme. The crazed killer, who resembles Leatherface with a wax mask instead of a flesh one, seems to have killed the entire town and turned them into wax displays. Plus at the start of the trailer it seems that Hollywood is cashing in on the infamous Paris Hilton sex tape since the opening seen has someone video taping Paris and her love interest in the movie making out. To me this is just a cash cow type movie for the studio giving no creative value to the industry. I hate to say it, but I think you are right CreepyKitty Hollywood is out of ideas. Where are the new Tobe Hoopers, Wes Cravens, and Sean Cunninghams. Or William Castle or Roger Corman...those guys took the B horror filick to the mainstream with awesome techniques....in this day and age I can't name one person that has taken any of those guys places. So sad....

Mr. Maniacal

Huh, and all this time I didn't think they were out of ideas, but just insulting us...

When I watched horror as an impressionable kid, it was the classics because my parents weren't gonna waste money for videos on most of the crap being put out in the 80's/90's. I dunno, maybe I'm the only person who's ever walked out of the theater reccently and though "I've seen scarier stuff than that movie on the evening news!" I dunno, short of special effects ideas, there hasn't really been that much good stuff coming from them for a long time.

Sometimes a remake can be a good thing which can actually improve on the original, but the list of movies that applied to is VERY short...

I agree that a remake could be a good thing to a point. I mean look at the TCM remake. Now as a TCM fan I'd say that it didn't have the psychological impact as the original did, but you also have to look at the time it was released. A movie like that couldn't have that kind of impact today. So the remake sort of brought back to life a horror movie whose sequels went more down the campy road then anything else. So on occasion a remake isn't a bad thing. See I dont' know why Hollywood doesn't look at it like this. Someone took a chance and made Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Today they continue to make more because the villians are icons and they know that a new movie will just rake in dollars at the box office. So why don't they develop new characters as well instead of rehashing classics by turning them into wastes of time and money. And it's not like horror fans don't complain about this. I've been in similar conversations on other message boards and in horror chat rooms. To us the horror fans creating new quality horror is comon sense. It's just a matter of finding a good quality script...which I'm sure could be difficult...but hell instead of wasting the money making House of Wax they could have invested one tenth of that and launched a international new horror search....Just a thought.

Mr. Maniacal

Originally Posted by frizzen

Huh, and all this time I didn't think they were out of ideas, but just insulting us...

I agree with you on this. I think its insulting because apparently the movie companies think we are all stupid and want to see the same thing over and over again. Yes SOME remakes are okay, but when they start shelling them out by the dozens I begin thinking. "Jeez, they can't think of anything new?" Also what ARE they thinking besides greed when they decide to remake these? To me it sounds like the movie companies are the idiots and every other day some suit in a corporate office comes into work the next day after watching a classic horror movie and goes "Wow, that movie was really old and out of style. Hey, let's do a hideous remake of this with people who can't act with a ridiculously cheesy script that makes no sense so we can make millions of dollars on schmo's who think the movie is actually going to be like the original!" And then gets it done without even thinking anymore of it.

I am so tired of seeing this trend in Hollywood. Basically with the movie corporations acting this way the poor Indy filmakers don't even have a snowballs chance in hell of having a big release of thier original ideas to a mass audience. Now there are a select few who have made it through liek 28 Days and such, which personally I thought was a well done Indy film.

Also Frizzen about your comment on the 80's movies.. Yes they were cheesy and sometimes silly but that was the first time silly and cheesy slasher movies were done and they were fun because of that. I have to agree though they got WAAAY out there with 9 or 10 sequels. But I guess that was the decade of the major horror movie franchise and the studios had a good thing that was selling and they milked them for all they were worth. By the late 80's IMO, is when I think Hollywood started running out of ideas, because you can only milk something so long before everyone starts getting tired of it.

Just my rant + 2 cents.

I agree with both of you, but even my grandfather, from down on the farm, had a few things to say about change and common sense. He said of common sense.... if it was so common, then everyone would have it..... He also enjoyed many of the classic horror
films from the 30's and 40's and a few from the 50's. He was a big Universal fan. And of change he said....the people who hang on to the past, and the present, and refuse to change for the future, are like that glass of milk on the table. If you dont pick it up and drink it, it's gonna go sour.....

I watched House of Wax, and although I haven't seen the original, it's my understanding that it is not really a remake. The simply used the same name. It's nothing like the original from what I've read. And actually, it was a pretty decent horror movie. Much better than most of the recent crap, like White Noise and Cursed.

I am getting sick of all the remakes, but lately I have to admit they I've liked them. I thought the Amityville remake was good, even though I was very hesitent because the original is special to me.

I stay away from PG-13 movies, but for a different reason. I'm so sick of the annoying kids in them! Now that I went back to school, my schedule allows me to go to matinees during the week, where there are a lot less people and therefore not so many dumbies.

I'm a bit late coming to this thread, but I agree. Everything they're coming out with (for the most part) is remakes. When they remade 13 Ghosts I was SO disappointed because it didn't retain the feel of the original. In fact, I didn't buy the new version---I ordered the old one. Glad I did because I really hated the remake.

They really do need some new ideas. Heck, I've read some good horror books that would make awesome movies. But I guess it's easier to screw up a movie that's already been done.

Is Hollywood out of ideas? I don't know. Maybe. But perhaps they're just lazy. Or, in some rather sad and disgusting way, they're smart.
Look at it like this: The classics, (TCM, Night of the Living Dead, The Haunting, etc.) were all made back at least 20 years ago. Now, how many teenagers (the most common moviegoer) would have watched some old, low-tech movie? Fact is, kids these days don't want to watch old movies, they want new, digitally made, special effect fests. Hollywood is delivering that.
Unfortunately, what made the classics scary was just that lack of technology. It was more real, more believeable, and thus, more scary.

We can thank God, though, that Hollywood hasn't made a remake of The Exorcist yet... (maybe because of the spectacular failures of numbers 2 and 3, and the prequel)