The lights in the house go out. An almost inaudible sound comes from the basement. What is their first reaction? Let’s go check it out. A sinister melody begins to play in the background, as they slowly open the door. A cat jumps out and scares the (expletive deleted) out of everyone.
This is the most common scene in a horror film. If it’s not a cat, it is either a different animal or some idiot friend trying to scare his friends.
I love scary movies. The difference between my choice of horror and yours’ is the age difference. I love the old original horror movies. With the technology we have these days, you can have a psycho split a person in half with an axe in vivid detail. Back in my day, to do this took great make-up and puppeteers.
Although the movies in themselves are great, using all the computer graphics takes away from the creativity of the movie. I can come up with an idea and within a few hours or so the scene is completed on the computer. I won’t knock these crafty tech guys, they do wonderful things on their computers but the people back in the day only had their creative minds to work with, along with a lot of pig blood, corn syrup, and latex.
What really gets to me is these people who want to take my classic horror movies and try to make them better in their new remakes. Leave it the (expletive deleted) alone. Come up with a new idea. Make your own horror movie. Seeing remakes of “Halloween”, “Children of the Corn”, “The Amityville Horror”, and a whole lot of others pisses me off.
The effort and lengths that the original creators went through using just latex, low budget robotics, fake blood, and some (expletive deleted) awesome special effects people working with these bare essentials, shows the real creativity. To turn around and remake their hard work using computer graphics and other high-tech equipment seems to say that they are inferior and we can do it better.
One of my all-time favorite low budget horror movies is “The Evil Dead 2”. Here we have the main character, Ash, sever his own possessed hand only to have it attack him. These days we can just use CG and create a hand and have it run around. Because they did not have the money or equipment, they had to do it with a little more creativity. When you see the hand moving around on the floor, there is actually a gap in the floor with someone underneath wearing a monstrous looking latex glove, both handmade and painted.
This is the type of creative genius that attracts me. The old black and white horror movies may seem humorous to the younger generation, but it took one hell of a mind to not only think of these creatures, but to physically bring them to life. Using wires attached to them to make them fly, spending hours in make-up, and wearing a heavy, hot and huge full-body suit shows the dedication put into these movies.
So the next time you watch an original horror movie, don’t compare it to the new remake. Look instead to the unbelievable, (expletive deleted) wonderful, creativity these people have in order to make these monsters real. When you watch a werewolf transform in a new movie, watch “An American Werewolf In London” and compare the two. Granted the new one might look better overall, but think of the time and effort the make-up and F/X people went through on the old one.
One last thing. Quit changing the (expletive deleted) story line and script! At least keep those the same if you remake it!
