fantastic Cinema : 10 remakes of successful

Every time a remake is announced in the media, there occurs the same phenomenon is deplorable in the mind of his potential audience : there is concern both that this new project betrays the state of mind and artistic qualities of the original film, that one comes to expect that it will be only a pale copy harmless, and refrénera its attempts to show innovative and bold. There is a malaise, no ? It is true that in the last ten years, remakes of classic horror films generally have annoyed or depressed in the public by their inability to rise to the height of their models. However , The Thing of Carpenter, The Fly by Cronenberg , or even The hills have eyes d’Aja have proved that it was not impossible to tell a story already known and enrich it with new ideas and new iconic images. So here is a list of 10 remakes that have managed to find the balance between fidelity to the original film and new proposals.

THE SURVIVOR

Released in 1971, directed by Boris Sagal, with Charlton Heston, Anthony Zerbe and Rosalind Cash

In the near future. The surface of the Earth has been ravaged by wars biological. Robert Neville, a former scientist, is the last of the men to face the hordes of mutants that roam the night in the deserted streets.

Remake of I am legend d’Ubaldo Ragona and Sidney Salkow ; The Survivor is, in fact, a new adaptation of the cult novel of Richard Matheson, the precursor of the myth of the zombie as it is understood today. However, Boris Sagal takes liberties with the original work in order to guarantee Charlton Heston a role of messiah upholding the values of the american empire with a gun in each hand. Despite this rewriting testostéronée and reactionary to the last human in the face of the zombies, the film is full of memorable scenes involved in the painting of a world in perdition. And unlike the version of Ragona and Salkow, the opponents of the survivor are really threatening, and it includes the functioning of their alternative society.

The INVASION OF the SNATCHERS

Released in 1978, directed by Philip Kaufman, with Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams and Jeff Goldblum

Elizabeth realizes one day of the strange behavior of his friend. Then, little by little, other people become strangely. During their sleep, a plant that manufactures their double perfect, while the original disappears.

Remake of TheInvasion of the profaners of tombs of Don Siegel, the film of Philip Kaufman uses the concept of nerve-wracking a novel by Jack Finney. Delirium paranoid about the identity and the simulacrum, the story of the invasion in question has such a potential that is able to cross eras, that she has already been through four versions (and a countless number of imitations). The version of Kaufman is distinguished from that of Siegel in moving the plot of a small town unknown to the city of San Francisco, making the state of panic most spectacular and the horror of the threat, paradoxically, more unspeakable, reflecting with accuracy the poisonous climate of the seventies.

THE FELINE

Released in 1982, directed by Paul Schraderwith Nastassja Kinski, Malcolm McDowell and John Heard

Irena found her brother Paul in New Orleans. In the days that follow, a mysterious panther kills a prostitute. The animal turns out to have strange links with Paul and Irena.

In the early 1980s, the screenwriter Paul Schrader enjoys a prestigious, thanks to his scripts for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. If it comes to fruition to take up the concept of Cat People by Jacques Tourneur, one can not really consider The Cat as a remake will direct his original model. Schrader is recaptured the idea of the metamorphosis of the feline by moving the plot in the decor and mystique of the French quarter of New Orleans. Taking the opposite total of the treatment of Jacques Tourneur , while a play of shadows and suggestion, Schrader offers a fantastic addition to front-end, events more graphic, bringing a vision of a more sexual and more exalted in its history.

THE LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS

Released in 1986, directed by Frank Oz, with Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene and Steve Martin

The young Seymour, an employee of a seedy florist, is the owner of a mysterious plant he has named Audrey 2, by love for Audrey, his pretty co-worker. But the plant feeds on human blood, speaking to demand for its food and growing to an alarming extent.

Remake of the 1960 film directed by Roger Corman, the black comedy Frank Oz was able to take advantage of its technical resources consequent to re-bid in the madness and the fun of its original concept. Here is an example of a remake with a more value-added production, since Corman had to deal with a low budget and two days to shoot just (a record !), the artisan Frank Oz, colt barn, the Jim Henson Company offers a musical high-end, lavish sets recreating a new york district high in colors. Special Mention at the design and animation of the wonderful puppet Audrey 2, yet impressive at the time of digital imaging.

THE NIGHT WATCHMAN

Released in 1997, directed by Ole Bornedal, with Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte and Patricia Arquette

Martin, a law student, is hired as night watchman in a morgue to make ends meet month. But a serial killer follower of necrophilia rode for some time in the city, assassinating prostitutes.

Ole Bornedal, a maker of Danish, arrived in the U.s. to produce the remake of his thriller and offers almost a copy-paste, except that it has a comfort output and allowing him to sign a film of a noble bill. Preserving the atmosphere murky to the original alternating sequence of voltage and the interludes, which dampen by the calmness or humor, Bornedal highlights his scenario by a judicious use of lights and decorations on the empty, and demonstrated a real mastery in the direction of the actors.

THE HOUSE OF HORROR

Released in 1999, directed by William Malonewith Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen and Taye Diggs

Steven Price, a billionaire decides to organise the birthday of his wife in a psychiatric hospital, abandoned that it intends to develop into an amusement park. But strangely, neither Price nor his wife know the guests who come to the feast.

Remake of the Night of all the mysteries of William Castle, The House of horror is justified by the refresh box-about a classic of forty years ago. As a fan-boy invested, William Malone respects the work of the artisan Castle in ensuring a relationship direct with the cynical humor and the device fun of the original film. The provision of a Geoffrey Rush bantering to the estate of the trappings and false leads in the plot, Malone knows perfectly well that he should entertain as much as scare. But the director is not satisfied of a simple transposition in the colors of the original work, it brings a scenario in the Twenty-first century by adding a technological dimension to the traps of the house.

A CRIME IN THE HEAD

Released in 2004, directed by Jonathan Demmewith Denzel Washington, liev view Schreiber and Meryl Streep

Raymond Shaw, a hero of the Gulf war, is on the verge of becoming the next vice-president of the United States. Major Ben Marco, who was the commander of Shaw, has no memory of the feats of arms that the young man is attributing to it. Worse, he is haunted by a nightmare where he sees himself killing two of his men with the complicity of Shaw.

There I confess, I have taken in the widest sense of the term “fantastic” since the original movie of the same name, directed by John Frankenheimer, is more polar. But as the movie of Jonathan Demme, the original already had, in the absence of a supernatural dimension, an atmosphere of the strangest. This strangeness remains in the remake, because, to transcribe the delusions and conspiracy more than improbable that haunts the main character, the filmmaker chooses, paradoxically, a serious tone and a realization free of any flights of baroque. With his cast prestigious and the corridors of power, for decor, A Crime in the head is part of the tradition of the great political thrillers such as the american cinema has the secret, this time with a postulate paranoid to drive you crazy.

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Released in 2009, directed by Dennis Iliadis, with Garret Dillahunt, Monica Potter and Tony Goldwyn

The night the Collinwood arrive at their holiday home beside a lake isolated, their daughter, Husband, and his girlfriend Paige are removed.

With the original in 1972, Wes Craven launched the genre of “rape and revenge” that only the audience the more experienced could cash in. By reproducing faithfully the storyline of Craven in the context of sterile retreads to the chain of the years 2000, Dennis Iliadis , was likely to give birth to a version faded of violence without the concession of the first film. Fortunately Iliadis has managed to establish itself in the face of its producers, to ensure a work of subversive that does not fit at any point in the canons of the horror movie mainstream. Abandoning the 16 mm grainy which gave his aspect cradoc to the original, in favor of an image more carefully, the director offers a touch less visceral and more strange, where the scenes are horrific, are offset by sequences almost poetic and dream-like, in which the camera captures the spirit of youthful victims escaping into the depths of the forest.

LET ME

Released in 2010, directed by Matt Reeveswith Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chloë Grace Moretz and Richard Jenkins

Abby, a mysterious 12-year old daughter, just moved into the apartment next to the one where Owen. While the arrival of Abby in the neighborhood coincides with a series of murders inexplicable and mysterious disappearances, Owen understands that innocent girl is a vampire.

Remake of Morse, a Swedish film by Tomas Alfredson , released two years earlier, Let me play the card of loyalty to the original. Morse had attracted lovers of the fantastic in adopting the point of view of a child, countering the horror of certain scenes with a poetic melancholy. Matt Reeves was able to capture the state of mind cafardeux of childhood that hovered over the original film, keeping in little details about its scenario and its snowy atmosphere. If some of the viewers have not seen the usefulness of this remake copy-and-paste, others of which I am a part of, appreciate that it has managed to add a spark of life to this story slow and cold. To note that the legendary firm Hammer raised to life after thirty years of absence in co-producing the film.

DREDD

Released in 2012, directed by Pete Travis, with Karl Urban, Olivia Thirlby and Lena Headey

In the near future, Mega City One is a sprawling metropolis riddled with the vice. The only authority remaining is represented by the judges, a police force in the city, which combines all functions : cop, judge and executioner. Dredd, the ultimate judge, will be assigned a mission in the vicinity of the tower of Ma-Ma, baroness of the drug.

We conclude this selection with not a remake direct, but a new adaptation on the big screen of the hero of a comic book, Judge Dredd. Pete Travis is moving away from the model most objectionable film of Danny Cannon, who seventeen years earlier had used the source material of the comics, and violent and subversive, in order to get it roughly in the canons of the blockbuster. Travis comes back to the fundamentals of the cartoon by John Wagner in clearly showing Dredd as an anti-hero little endearing, and justify this characterization by the primed its urban setting futuristic. Dredd is a character without a face and without a state of soul, which can only be judged by its acts ; and the director has understood and as well evolve into a pure action film confined in a tower (Trap Crystal in the world of Neill Blomkamp, sort of).

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