I mean, what's not to like? It had big bouncy boobies in it (although that first set looked really fakey. I've seen hubcaps with more give to them). Truckloads of people having so much sex that they were having sex at the same time that they were having sex. Massive fistfuls of substance abuse all up in your face. All of the stereotypes you could possibly want: the slut, the popped-collar douche, the black guy, the Asian guy, the stoner, the virginal brunette, the emo hero boy, the gimp, the goon, the shame filled brother, the hapless Geisha and the pull-apart voodoo Kenny.
And I ain't even gonna lie. That scene where Jason strings up Miss Torpedo Tits over a roaring campfire in her sleeping bag and lets her burn alive, screaming in agony all the while? That was fucked up. Really. Fucked. Up.
Y'know what? There's a lot of remakes I actually enjoyed. I'm not a purist by any means. I don't automatically hate remakes just because they're remakes...well, except for The Wicker Man, but come on. That wasn't even a remake, it was a cinematic ass rape. But that's a whole other article.
Anyway, I've decided to piss you all off and further alienate myself from the horror community by listing the remakes of horror "classics" that I enjoyed. I'm not saying I liked them better than the originals, just that I didn't hate them the way I was expected to by my colleagues. Oh wait, I don't have any colleagues.. I'm a curmudgeonly horror hermit. GET OFF MY LAWN!!!
Horror Remakes That I Liked So Fucking Sue Me:
The Hills Have Eyes (2006)
Things I Liked About the Remake: The carefully planned and executed car accident, because that uber-convenient bunny from the original just didn't work for me. The original also didn't age very well and the terminology was badly dated. The cast was aces. Not that the original cast wasn't, but this time around, the cannibals actually looked like irradiated mutations instead of rejects from the Spahn Ranch.
The Grudge
Things I Liked About the Remake: Yeah, I admit that the following is going to sound racist as hell, but I couldn't tell the characters apart in the original. They were all Japanese and they all looked the same, because I'm a white trash cracker with zero skin pigment and, uh...'Murrica. Anyway, throwing some blond Americans into the mix made the storyline easier to follow.
Things I Hated About the Remake: Bill Pullman. God I hate that man. I don't even know why, he just reminds me of a pervy ice cream truck driver who purposely drops your change so he can see your underpants when you bend over to retrieve it.
Dawn of the Dead
Things I Liked About the Remake: Bigger cast = more action. Sure, they still make a statement about the emptiness of consumerism by indulging in all the formerly unattainable luxuries that the now abandoned mall has to offer, but there's also survivors to take in, wounds to dress, zombies to kill, etc. The boredom of the survivors never extends to the audience.
Things I Hated About the Remake: I really wish that the zombie baby had eaten its way out of its mothers womb. Now that would have been cool!
Carrie
Things I Liked About the Remake: The Climactic Prom Scene. Rather than standing stock still and trancelike, this Carrie is super mega hella fucking pissed. There is no doubt that she is the one who is destroying the gym and killing her classmates, and her infuriated screams and violent gestures are being released by a vessel who has been sealed shut for seventeen years. I also really liked the expanded relationship between Carrie and her mother, and the subtle hint that Mom is also telekinetic but suppresses it. Mrs. White clearly loves her daughter and is capable of expressing it, unlike Piper Laurie's unforgiving, unflinching Jesus Zombie. Also, thank you for sparing the gym teacher and casting a brighter light on the true motivations of Sue and Tommy.
Things I Hated About the Remake: The girl who played Sue Snell couldn't act worth a shit. Also, it's a little difficult to believe that, in this day and age of free internet access via the school library, Carrie wouldn't know jack shit about her menstrual period. That's a plot point that was easier to buy back in the still-somewhat-innocent 1970s.
Quarantine
Things I Liked About the Remake: It didn't feel the need to change the plot (much) but rather expanded on it, giving us a bigger backstory with the firemen and the handing off of Alpha Male roles. The origin of the disease is perhaps the biggest change to the story, but somehow I doubt that the largely agnostic American population would have grasped all of the cultural intricacies of [REC]'s demonic plague. Helmed by the directors of The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Quarantine retains all of the gritty realism of [REC] and casts people who look like everyday residents of an anonymous metropolis.
Things I Hated About the Remake: It spawned a really abysmal, shitcaked hemorrhoidal butthole of a sequel. That's all I got.
Maniac
Things I Liked About the Remake: Elijah Wood. He's diminutive, pretty cute and deceptively nerdy. Therefore, I can more readily believe that he'd attract the attention of a pretty girl moreso than I could accept Caroline Munro would be interested in anything about greasy, bug-eyed, creepy Joe Spinell unless it involved filing a restraining order against him.
Things I Hated About the Remake: I kinda wish they'd made Anna's jerky boyfriend a douchey white guy instead of a stereotypical obnoxious black guy, but that's just nitpicking.
And just to balance things out...
Remakes That Can Suck My Non-Existent Lady Cock
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Black Christmas
The Amityville Horror
The Uninvited
I Spit On Your Grave
Last House on the Left
The Omen
Psycho
Shutter
Happy now?
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