You know what I’m talking about. I’m 28! Young but older than the kids today. I remember a time back in the 80’s when I was coming home from kinder garden, seeing Nightmare on Elm Street on TV. The horror it carried. The scene where a girl is dragged on the wall by an invisible force and then dragged on the ceiling until her stomach splits open. Ahhhhhhhh. The gold ol’ days of quality horror. Friday the 13th was scary. Even as a kid, where I could tell that the sequels were more on the comedy side still had their scary moment. Yes. I’m even saying that my fav of the series, FT13th part 5, had some scary parts despite that it’s a laugh fest.
Remakes. Now remakes are whats ruining Hollywood today. No original ideas. Even back in the day, non-original ideas were put onto the screen but Still had good execution. "The Terminator", the classic scifi-horror which made Arnold a household name was not all too original but had original flavoring added to it. Let me explain. Skynet, the "TRUE" villain, is a computer who went ape shit and killed off most of humanity after it becomes self aware. That concept was in such films as "Colossus: The Forbin Project" or in 1969, Stanley Kubrick’s classic, "2001: A Space Odyssey" But The Terminator had an Original plot with a recycled back story if you will. NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. Inspiration never hurt anyone. Now back to the discussion of remakes. Remakes back in the day had not only purpose(making the film truer since they honestly could not do the things in the 1950’s as they could in 1970-80’s). Examples of this are "The Thing From Another World". Released in 1956 and is a classic. Based off fo the novel "Who Goes There?". Due to special effects and censorship, they could only make The Thing be an 8 foot tall humanoid. In 198, John Carpenter took helm, made a remake which was not only paying homage to the original, but this time, making it closer to the novel with the creature being a viral infection that could turn into anyone at anytime. And this one, did not have a happy ending because, even though the creature supposedly gets killed, the two surviving characters will inevitably freeze to death. The Fly is another example. Though this was not based on a novel, David Cronengberg did the remake and MADE IT BETTER. Instead of Vincent Price’s head being that of a fly, even though that one too is a classic in a more scifi/humorous sort of way, the 1986 version was the gross out experience I believe it was meant to be. I mean come on! Jeff Goldblum slowly turning into a human fly was nuts and gave me nightmares. THATS WHAT HORROR MOVIES ARE SUPPOSED TO DO! I miss those days of seeing true horror and being afraid to turn the lights out the way "The Exorcist" made me feel for about 10 years after my first viewing. lol.
The Exorcist was a film based off of a novel. They do that today but it feels like something is forced or generic. Back then, it was an experience. Not only was the film executed correctly, but the fact that the novel was based off of a real case sure helped matters. Go on youtube and watch people’s reaction to it back in 73. I would give my left nut to have been able to see that film for the first time in theaters after smoking a blunt, not knowing what I’m about to get myself into. HAHAHAHAHA>:).
Gore/special effect is the last thing I’ll talk about. Back then, they had no CGI. I am a fan of stop motion animation, make-up effects and puppet. CGI is not bad when it is used for touch ups and what not. Today, they rely solely on it which is sad. No Tom Savini type effort. I miss that. Who agrees?
