The Horror Movie Watcher… peeves part II
MORE things that annoy me:
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What’s in a name? part I –
The never ending sequel parade. Few sequels are as good as the original. Some franchises work well as a series of movies: Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, James Bond, etc. Some do not, but that doesn’t stop Hollywood from riding the cash cow into the dirt. (Halloween, Wrong Turn, Pumpkinhead, Children of the Corn, Hellraiser, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm) Just say NO! to lousy sequels.
What’s in a name? part II –
The never ending remake parade. I can see doing a remake if a film was shot on a low budget, was in B&W, or is over 50 years old and can really benefit from an update. War of the Worlds, Ghost Ship, Willard, The Blob, and The Thing (1982), all benefited from remakes. Most movies do not. Some actually infuriated me: The Fog, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Haunting, Carnival of Souls, and Fright Night, are all unwatchable remakes. And, I won’t even mention Evil Dead 2013 again.
Tired old themes-
There are some film ideas that should be put to rest forever. Three Musketeers. Tarzan. Dick Tracy. Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Bonnie & Clyde to name a few. Early in film history, these were very popular subjects and each had several films of varying success on them. It is – over – for these subjects. Every few years someone in Hollywood tries to resurrect these franchises. Adults would rather watch the old films and kids are not interested in these themes anymore – give ‘em up! (Although, I must say, I thought it was over for swashbuckling Pirate movies too and I was proved wrong). I would certainly put The Lone Ranger into this category. We will see if the star power of Johnny Depp can pull this tired old theme out of retirement.
QUESTION:
So, what tired, cliché, overused and abused themes and subjects do you think should be put to rest?
parlor of horror 
The only thing that REALLY bothers me…… PG 13 horror!
I would make the same assumption, but Poltergeist was PG and I liked that… However, trying to trim a film to fit a PG-13 rating, in order to encompass a bigger demographic, that’s just bogus. I think every story should be what it is – if it becomes a blockbuster, great! If not, it would still be appreciated by those who liked it. (I know this is what you were saying but I thought I would just add my 2 cents :))
The innocents must be slaughtered!
Sexy monsters (not just vampires anymore). Wait, let me be more specific: monsters that I as an audience member am “supposed” to see as sexy. If there’s sex with some type of monster that is meant to be horrifying, that’s ok.
Oh, not a fan of Twilight and Zombie romance?
I guess this goes without saying.
I wholeheartedly concur! Endless sequels and prequels, remakes, colorizations of black and white films … the list goes on and on unfortunately.
The Fog! Argh! Why oh why? These days horror fans need a damn flow chart for all the remakes, reboots and re-imaginings. John Carpenter, being the uber-capitalist that he is, loves getting a hefty paycheck whenever they remake his films or do another “Halloween” flick. At least someone is benefiting from it all cuz it ain’t us. Good post, man! 🙂
we still got more remakes to look forward to – Carrie, Poltergiest, Christine… I know I’m forgetting some.
“Christine” is being remade? Didn’t know that. Carrie looks cool though. Don’t mind that one too much.
I take extreme exception to you lumping Jason Goes to Hell in with those other horrible sequels!
One of my biggest peeves is when CGI is overused. Nothing derails my suspension of disbelief faster than a giant CGI dragon squaring off against a giant CGI robot against a CGI backdrop.
Yeah, I liked Jason Goes to Hell, too – I even liked Jason-X (I know, everybody hates that one)
The worst thing is CGI helicopters and CGI explosions, they look so fake and cartoonish – its ridiculous. Almost every SyFy movie has a horrible looking CGI helicopter (goes good with the horrible cgi snakes) 🙂
Good luck on getting Hollywood to stop making sequels or remakes. Universal was shooting out sequels to their monster films back in the 30’s and 40’s. That doesn’t make it right, but if there is a buck to be made the movie companies will do it of course. For remakes my feeling is I can ignore them and I don’t have to see them. I like you point on old franchises. While I like some of these, I can certainly understand that reviving them doesn’t do anyone a lot of good. Fans keep griping about Hollywood not doing anything original, but the only way to change this is don’t go see their remakes and sequels and only would we see anyone maybe try new ideas. Of course this won’t happen because despite our protests many people still go see these remakes and sequels hoping they won’t be “that bad” and normally they are worse. Oh, well that’s what old DVDs are for.
I know you’re right, I even wrote in my King Kong/ape movie list last year that Son of Kong was clearly made to capitolize on the success of King Kong, had no finished script when it began shooting and suffers dearly for it.