10 Horror Remakes That Are Better Than You Might Think
Steve Barton
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The Thing: Technically, The Thing wasn’t a remake. Except it kind of was a remake… of a remake. Redundancy was going to be a challenging obstacle to avoid as it is, given the fact that John Carpenter’s own remake painted the fate of the Norwegian base camp members pretty damn clear. It looked awfully obvious that the alien had been thawed/escaped and tore that camp apart from the inside out thanks to that nifty ability to absorb and shapeshift. You know, exactly what happens back at the American camp. So, right off the bat, it was probably reasonable to ward off any hope of a deeply thought-provoking concept.
With that said, the other big misfire comes in the excessive visual effects use. High caliber practical work isn’t easy, cheap or timely. It can actually be hell on set and delay schedules like you couldn’t imagine (look into the production of Jaws for a fine example of this form of hiccup). But computer graphics, while tedious in the task of creation, are something of a safer bet. The challenges that can occur when dealing with practical effects can typically be worked around and properly manipulated with the assistance of computers. But to remake The Thing (or make a prequel, if you prefer) with CGI-heavy SFX feels truly blasphemous.
The effects of the original were instrumental in the pic’s overall greatness. They are still to this day among the best effects you’ll find on film. You simply cannot cheat in that particular department if you’re out to create an amazing new chapter of a cherished story. In case you forgot, someone did some serious cheating.
But oddly enough, outside of those detriments, there are some real strengths to be unearthed. The script is much sharper than I initially believed after my inaugural viewing. There are some layers to the story that work, and the steady stream of tie-ins to Carpenter’s classic are greatly appreciated. A female is successfully infused into the story, and oddly enough (I have no idea if this was intentional or not) Ulrich Thomsen, who basically plays the “mad scientist,” looks a little bit like Robert Cornthwaite, who plays his mirror in The Thing from Another World, the first cinematic transfer of John W. Campbell, Jr.’s story, “Who Goes There?” It’s a really loose link that plays as strangely charming.
I certainly can’t claim the latest rendition of The Thing is a great movie. At all. But there are some killer sequences in the picture. I know because it’s one of those pics that no matter when it’s on, I find myself watching. That means something in my book.
House of Wax: Sometimes it’s best to just completely discard established groundwork, which is pretty much what director Jaume Collet-Serra opted for when putting together a House of Wax remake. The very first time this story was shot, it was loaded with comic relief and dumped on the masses under the title of Mystery of the Wax Museum. Fast forward 20 years and director André de Toth cast Vincent Price in the lead and eliminated a whole lot of the hokey jokes that hurt the first film.
Now, fast forward 52 more years, and not only has Collet-Serra kept the laughs away, we’ve also got what is basically a totally different story. In the Price version it all boils down to greed, jealousy, a flaming museum and a little cruel justice dealt to his seedy business partner. Warner Brothers’ 2005 flick has nothing to do with any of that… other than a building engulfed in flames.
This one travels the teen slasher route as a handful of kids find themselves stuck in what seems a ghost town. Well, it is a ghost town, as all the inhabitants have been turned into real life wax displays by a pair of lunatic brothers, and this group of traveling youngsters are next in line. Although radically different, this could easily be labeled the most entertaining House of Wax pic yet. Paris Hilton gets herself mutilated (always a plus), Jared Padalecki makes an appearance, the stunning Elisha Cuthbert flaunts her stuff and Chad Michael Murray proved he’s capable of shaking that awful “One Tree Hill” stigma.
So much better than pundits initially chirped!
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