VAULTCAST: Conversations in the Dark w/RayRay

It's one of those movies that is on just about every serious horror fans favorites list. John Carpenter's The Thing is one of the most debated and dissected films of all time, and so is certainly fertile ground for lengthy discussion. So when I wanted to discuss, debate and dissect the movie, I contacted one of my longest-running Vault contributors, and someone who has been kind of silent as of late.

I've known RayRay for more than two decades now, and I can tell you that he knows The Thing in a way that few people know any movies. He lives, eats and breathes it. So what better reason to drag Ray out of parental mothballs than to talk ad nauseum about this true masterpiece of genre cinema? The result was a Vaultcast that went far longer than most, so I hope you'll forgive our long-windedness.

If, however, long-windedness is what you're looking for, then you've come to the right place. When was Blair assimilated? What does the Thing really want? How does it work? And what the hell happened to Fuchs? Ray and I discussed the weighties, and generally rambled on and on for nearly an hour and a half, so if that's your bag, then go ahead and take a listen to this very special "You Gotta Be Effin' Kiddin' Me" edition of Conversations in the Dark. You can either listen directly to the embedded player below, or proceed to the Vaultcast page to download for listening at your leisure...




And for more from RayRay, here are some of the gentleman/scholar's finest posts:

Rob Zombie's Halloween: A Review
The Thirteen Most Badass Heroes in Horror
What Goes Bump in the Night....?
What Goes Bump in the Night....? Chapter II
This Old Haunted House
Howard Phillips Lovecraft: A Paean
First Time Around: Space Monsters

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VAULT VLOG: Of Awards and Things...

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The Lucky 13: Week Two: Creature Features/Monster Movies

Welcome back for the second weekly installment of The Lucky 13, The Vault's summer-long collaboration with Brutal as Hell. After last week's descent into the debauchery of grindhouse and exploitation, this week we visit one of the most traditional of horror sub-genres, perhaps the most traditional of all--monster movies and creature features.

Technically speaking, if one were in the hair-splitting mood, these two can indeed be separated into distinct sub-subgenres, with monster movies implying more old-school humanoid beasties, and creature features referring to more of the giant-behemoth-on-the-loose premise. But for our purposes this week, we're taking an all-inclusive look at the bizarre, other-worldy abominations of nature that haunt the history of horror cinema!

B-Sol on Bride of Frankenstein

This could very well be the most skillfully made horror film of them all--certainly of the so-called "classic era" of horror movies, in which, very often, they were treated as mere children's fare. Bride of Frankenstein is so much more than that. It's a sublime expression of cinema as art, wrapped subversively in the guise of a monster movie. For one thing, the film is tinged with a daring Christian allegory that only adds to the viewing experience. Who would've thought that the Frankenstein monster could become a Christ figure, yet this movie does it. Heavy stuff for a creature feature!

Bride of Frankenstein is filled with unforgettable scenes. Chief among these is the rightfully famous log cabin scene with the blind hermit. Parodied in Young Frankenstein almost as famously, this is nevertheless one of the truly immortal film scenes, and for my money may be the most emotionally moving one I've ever seen in a horror film. It's for moments like this one that the film totally transcends the genre.

Bride of Frankenstein is a film that is far more sublime and wonderful than it has any right to be. Filled with remarkable imagery and delightful performances, it is the kind of film you show to someone who has yet to appreciate the finer points of what genre entertainment has to offer. There is a handful of horror films of such high quality that one can literally classify them among the greatest movies ever made. Bride of Frankenstein is one of them. It's the shining triumph of the beloved Universal cycle of monster films.



Cinema Suicide's Bryan White on The Thing (1982)

These days I'm over moaning about remakes, but I used to get pretty angry about the entire notion. It just doesn't make any sense to me. While complaining about remakes, though, I would always conveniently forget that one of my favorite John Carpenter movies is, in fact, a remake in the most genuine sense of the word. Remakes often keep the general framework of the source material intact while taking giant liberties with the specifics, and that's pretty much what's happening in The Thing.

John Carpenter is a noted fan of the 1951 Howard Hawks film, The Thing From Another World, which is in turn based on a 1938 short story called Who Goes There. Hawks' film keeps the general idea of a frozen alien space ship, but throws out a lot of the short story's details in favor of casting a tangible villain with a hideous appearance. Carpenter's remake actually comes a lot closer to Who Goes There by setting the movie in a location as remote as you can get, Antarctica, and then pits a small arctic research team against a monster that it really can't even see. This is the weirdest part of choosing The Thing as my monster movie pick because when you get down to brass tacks, the titular Thing is actually a microbe that takes the form of the research team, occasionally revealing itself to be a nasty piece of bio-horror as it assimilates its victims. By the end of the movie, its true form is revealed to be a throbbing tower of flesh and teeth, but on the way, the monster--usually the draw to these monster movies--just looks like the rest of the cast.

Carpenter's flick is an examination of paranoia, and a spiral of horror that suggests that the craft they found may not even be The Thing but it's latest victim, and Earth is its latest conquest. Though the original Hawks picture is a monster movie by definition, Carpenter's version manages to fall just inside the confines because of its ambiguity. I'm in love with Rob Bottin's unbelievably nasty special effects, too. When the movie suddenly starts to feel like a body horror movie, someone's severed head sprouts legs and beats a hasty retreat. The Thing is colorful, completely nasty and is home to a brand of paranoia that is downright suffocating at times.



From Beyond Depraved's Joe Monster on King Kong

In the pantheon of giant monster movies, King Kong remains one of the reigning champions of the form, a king of the jungle in the most appropriate sense. It can’t be denied that this film seems to have it all: an engaging story, incredible special effects, and one of, if not THE, greatest scene of a giant creature’s rampage in a bustling metropolis. But there’s something that Kong possesses that other monster movies of its ilk seemed to have missed. King Kong has a wonderful sense of humanity, exhibited not only in the likable characters, but also in the monstrous form of Kong himself.

Willis O’Brien and his team of expert technicians worked wonders in their exciting world of stop-motion dinosaurs and beasts. The smallest of details were rendered by their deft hands. I’m still blown away every time I see tufts of Kong’s fur blown by the wind. But those are just superficial matters. Where the genius of the special effects crew truly shines through is during the brief but ever-so-intimate moments when the audience is able to look past Kong’s roaring terror into the warm heart that lies beneath his giant chest. This is especially seen during one of my personal favorite moments, when Kong innocently but curiously plucks off Fay Wray’s garments. The looks on Kong’s face appear so cleverly human. We can relate to him. A 25-foot jungle ape that we can sympathize with. How can you argue over the greatness of something like that?

But don’t for one moment be mistaken, dear reader. King Kong isn’t merely a sappy romantic comedy that has Tom Hanks replaced by a slightly more attractive lead. There’s red-blooded adventure and intrigue galore. And what’s a giant monster movie without scenes of terrible, wanton destruction and carnage? You’ll watch in rapt fear as Kong busts through the giant wooden gate that has kept him at bay for all these years. And who isn’t familiar with the instantly classic scene of Kong crushing his way through the skyscrapers of 1930s New York? Kong may be a softy at heart, but he never lets you forget that he is a titanic gorilla on a mission of death. He mercilessly stuffs humans into his mouth and grinds them into the earth under the weight of his colossal monkey foot. And as mentioned before, the craftsmanship of O’Brien is awesomely exhibited during the scenes where Kong wages hairy battle against the monsters of the island, most notably the snapping T-Rex.

This is the stuff that dreams of Saturday matinee boys and girls are made of. The climax atop the Empire State Building has just as much resonance now as it did over 70 years ago. It’s the last stand of a beast from a distant world against the forces of a realm it has no knowledge of. Don’t be surprised if you feel a lump develop in your throat as Kong languishes on the building as the airplanes rain their bullets upon him. This is more than just a monster movie. This is cinema at its finest.



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Head over to Brutal as Hell to see what Marc Patterson and his crew have come up with. And if you're interested in taking part in the future, just give Marc or myself a holler.

Join us next week for The Lucky 13, as we peer into the realm of Demons, Witches & The Devil...

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ALIEN vs. THING: Battle of the Ensemble Casts

If you're an astute reader of the Vault, you may have noticed that I haven't changed up the poll on the right sidebar, despite the fact that the last one has been closed for several days now. The reason for this is that I've been very intrigued with what a heated competition it turned out to be, and how close it was. The question is: Which film has the superior ensemble cast, Alien or John Carpenter's The Thing?

Both movies are superb science-fiction/horror films (perhaps the two best ever), and a big reason why is their absolutely excellent casts, made up of terrific veteran actors who are riveting in every scene. It's fascinating how the movies parallel each other in this way. In the end, The Thing won the vote, but with only 51%. It doesn't get any closer than that! So where do you stand? Truth be told, I give Alien the slight edge, but let's take a look at the players:

ALIEN

Sigourney Weaver as Ripley
The star of the film, and quite possibly the greatest performance by an actress in a horror movie, ever.

Tom Skerritt as Dallas
As the doomed captain of the Nostromo, Skerritt is able to portray both the exasperation and the inevitable failure of a good man in way over his head.

Ian Holm as Ash
Possibly the film's most memorable performance. Holm brought the rigorous training of the English stage to bear in tackling his role as the haywire android.

John Hurt as Kane
In his relatively limited time on screen, Hurt is nonetheless unforgettable as the victim of the notorious face-hugger.

Harry Dean Stanton as Brett
One half of the movie's duo of frustrated flunkies, Stanton is perfect as the ultimate put-upon space stoner.

Yaphet Kotto as Parker
And Kotto is the other half, bringing a certain physicality and presence to his role that takes a small part and makes a lot more out of it.

Veronica Cartwright as Lambert
Perhaps the film's most underrated performer, Cartwright play Lambert as the anti-Ripley, a hysterical woman who collapses under the stress of the situation.

In the case of The Thing, there are several more cast members involved than in Alien, so in the interest of relative "fairness", I've left out some of the more minor roles and focused on those who contribute most to the great ensemble work that goes on in the movie...

THE THING

Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady
For some, he is the ultimate genre leading man/hero figure in this role. It's interesting to compare MacReady to Dallas, in that MacReady is just as unready, but rises to the occasion so much better.

Wilford Brimley as Dr. Blair
If you only know him as the sweet old man telling you about diabetes on TV, you need to watch Brimley as a serious-as-cancer hardass in this movie.

Keith David as Childs
Speaking of hardasses, David is terrific as always, and of course brings that unmistakable voice with him.

David Clennon as Palmer
The parallel to Stanton's Brett, as the put-upon stoner/slacker of the crew, Clennon provides what little bone-dry humor this movie has to offer.

Richard Dysart as Dr. Copper
Playing "cool-just-on-the-edge-of-losing-it", Dysart is very effective in a situation that has to be any doctor's worst nightmare.

Richard Masur as Clark
A somewhat atypical role for Masur, who made a career of playing semi-comical schlemiels. It's interesting to see how he plays this part.

Donald Moffat as Garry
A capable character actor if ever there was one, although I'll always have a soft spot for him as the tax collector in Popeye...

Thomas G. Waites as Windows
Packs a punch as the disgruntled grunt/techie of the crew, almost an everyman figure.

Beyond looking at the individual actors, there is of course also that intangible "ensemble" factor--the way all these fine performers come together and interact with each other to produce scenes that are absolutely gripping in one way or another. As I've said, I give a slight edge here to Alien, if only because it's a tighter group, but I don't want to prejudice you guys too much. I'm very interested in what others have to say about this. So now it's your turn...

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In other news, allow me to puff out my chest a bit here and declare that The Vault of Horror has finally attained the top spot at HorrorBlips. If you've never visited it, HorrorBlips is an excellent website which gathers together horror news from sites and blog across the web in one place, and also ranks tons of horror blogs based on traffic and linkage. Yours truly currently reigns supreme at #1, thanks in large part to the support of all you loyal Vault Dwellers. And thanks to that sweetheart BJ-C, who dedicated her post on Day of the Woman this morning to my triumph (and who is also currently ranked #3, by the way).

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The VOH Roundtable: Does Horror Ever Go Too Far?

This week in the Vault of Horror Roundtable, we three blowhards answer the touchy question, do horror movies ever go too far? I'm really proud of the variety of responses we've got this time around, so let's jump right in...

B-Sol
This is a very tough question for me to pose, because in my estimation, the answer has changed over time. If someone had asked me 10 or 15 years ago if horror movies ever go too far, I would have definitely said absolutely not. Bring on the gore, the sicker the better! I reveled in it, and look, I'll be honest, to a certain degree, I still do.

And yet, I think some things have changed for me and the way I watch horror movies over the years. Some will no doubt accuse me of going soft because of this. Be that as it may, in recent years I have found I have a much harder time watching certain things than I ever used to. Maybe it's the changes wrought on my psyche by bringing children into the world, or just the accumulated effects of being a grown-up and dealing with the daily horrors of the actual world we live in on a mature level.

Whatever the case, I truly believe that in the past few years, I have found my limit. And that happens to be what is now commonly referred to as "torture porn". Now that term is often used unfairly and inaccurately, so allow me to specify. I think it's probably safe to refer to Hostel that way, since that's basically the flick that the term was invented for. And that's specifically the movie which, after watching a copy of it lent to me by a coworker who heard I liked horror movies, taught me that I do indeed have a limit.

My main problem with Hostel was that I found it to be a movie created for the sole purpose of showing me graphic depictions of dramatized torture. The plot was paper thin, as were the characters, and it was quite obvious that Eli Roth's goal was to titillate through violence, without even the flimsiest of dramatic justifications. Now slasher movies, in their day, were accused of showing contempt for their characters--but that's nothing compared to the way a movie like Hostel invites us to take a sick kind of pleasure out of watching people be mutilated and killed.

I found the movie to be the complete antithesis of entertainment, and could not imagine wanting to ever see it again. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe that not all works of art are required to be entertaining. Watching Schindler's List, for example, is not something I would ever describe as entertaining, but that movie serves a purpose, has something to say, and isn't all about pruriently depicting scenes of concentration camp brutality.

I was shaken up by watching Hostel, and not in the good way I expect great horror films to shake me up. In a disgusted, "what has the genre come to" sort of way. And following Hostel, I came to find the same type of thing popping up in other movies. Saw III, for example, gave me a lot of trouble watching it in a movie theater when it first came out. The original Saw was a clever, original, suspenseful film, that wasn't at all about sadism and gore. But this third installment abandoned all that in favor of following in the footsteps of Hostel, and I found myself depressed by the result. I remember thinking, "Why am I sitting here watching this? What is there that's entertaining or interesting about this?"

One last example I'd like to point out is The Strangers. This was a movie I enjoyed, but there was a bit at the end that really bothered me. It's the scene in which the couple is finally killed. I felt dirty watching this scene, and the simple reason was that I found it to be shot the way it was and included for a sad, sadistic, and anti-dramatic purpose. There was so suspense or narrative function to it at all. We knew there was no chance they could ever escape, and in the end what we are afraid is going to happen is exactly what does. It was drawn out, cruel, and demonstrated a kind of sick glee in forcing us to sit and watch two characters slowly tortured and killed. Honestly, it was repellent.

And so, after all, it seems that B-Sol, the shameless horror fanatic, does indeed have his limits. I will admit that the passage of years has had something to do with it. Extreme, prolonged and utterly gratuitous violence no longer does it for me like it used to. Ah, to be young again...

BJ-C
When B-Sol asked me "When do Horror Films Go Too Far?" I kept racking my big ol' brain trying to pinpoint an example to rant about for being disgusting, inhumane, disgusting, or emotionally scarring. You know what? I couldn't think of a damn thing. Sure there are topics that upset me like killing children, graphic rape scenes, or eye mutilation, but I in no way would ever claim that exploiting these said actions is going "too far". Torture Porn, Animal Cruelty, Rape Revenge, or Home Invasion Films tend to be the ones that get the most slack for going "too far". My argument is however, who are we to judge? I personally can stomach just about anything, but my Mormon friend (that is one of 17 children) can barely handle Shaun of the Dead.

As a theatre major, I have been trained to see things from all angles. The thing I love the most about cinema, theatre, and the performing arts in general; is that they are all open to interpretation. Everything artistic is always in a matter of perspective. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, doesn't that mean repulsiveness should be as well? Da Vinci even said that "an extremely ugly person is just as unique and special as an extremely beautiful person". Although it is off-putting and sometimes uncomfortable to see these "too far" horror films, I feel that it is just as impressive and draws me in just as much as a beautiful and moving film.

I feel that it also goes along with the saying of "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Just recently, the film Anti-Christ has been getting a lot of shit for having genital mutilation, and unnecessary sex/violence. However, is there any other film at that festival that was getting as much news as Anti-Christ. The answer is no. Human beings retain memory that consist mostly of two options. Extremely wonderful things like a wedding day or a birth of a child or absolutely heart wrenching things like a family death or a traumatic experience. For us to claim that horror films can go "too far" is denying the human psyche to have a contrast to the more "acceptable film".

I had written on Day of the Woman as a hot topic if rape was ever acceptable in horror films. As much as it makes me sound like a cruel and unusual person, I came to the conclusion that Yes. It is acceptable. We cannot sugar coat reality when we put it into a film. Most people are under the impression that performing arts must be "entertaining" however, that was in 1950, and we are long from that. Films and plays have begun to completely say "fuck the audience, i'm going to write what i want to write" and i must say i find that incredibly inspiring. As much as we may not like to hear it, the world is a disgusting, cruel, brutal, and terrifying place. This isn't to say that I don't believe there is hope, but I'm not going to lie and say we live in a peaceful environment. Art is imitating life after all and why should we put a barrier on what is acceptable? Look at the evening news...no one talks about a dog who saved Billy from the well or barn fire, we talk about gang shootings, wars, and the tragic tale of Caylee Anthony. How can we have no problem spreading these stories like herpes on our nightly news, but we can't have a child being murdered in a film? That sounds not only hypocritical, but boarderline unconstitutional.

The same could be said for the Animal massacres in Cannibal Holocaust. However, as much as I personally cannot agree with killing animals for the sole purpose of "entertainment", the film was killing the animals to make a point. I can understand along side the creative minds behind the animal killings, however I can not personally justify the actions. I am however only a 19 year old girl, so I have no room to tell anyone how to make a film. Which is like most audience members. It doesn't matter how many films I've seen, how many reviews I've written, or how much research I have done...the films I see are not MINE and the only people who have the true liberty of critisizing or measuring a piece of work, is the creator. You know "God is the only one who can judge me?" Well that's because he is the creator. So who are we to judge other's creations?

Again, I'm about to sound like a heartless bastard, but I LIKE when films push the envelope for me. It sort of pimp smacks you in the face and shoves a hell of a lot of reality down your throat, which to be honest, is something I think we need from time to time. So many people live in this fairytale fantasy land where everything is wonderful and squeaky clean. Which I will firmly say is the single strongest reason why the Twatlight series has such a following. Teenage girls don't WANT fanged, bloodied, nocturnal boyfriends. They want ones that sparkle in the sunshine...so in that sense, I guess I can finally understand why the hell people missed their classes the day after the film came out on DVD. I will however say, I was NOT one of those people. Same thing with the PETA videos. They know exactly how to push the button and make you so incredibly disgusted, you don't want to ever eat meat again. It's a tactic, and it works.

So to put it simply, I don't think films can EVER go too far. Art is meant to be a perspective and what bothers you, may fill others with delight. My whole thing is that if its going to bother you, then don't watch it. No one is forcing you to sit through something, you have the ability to either leave a theatre, or eject your DVD. We as mere audience members however, cannot put a scale in which to measure the fucked-up-ness of a film. Is it mildly fucked up to say that some people get off at seeing torture porn? Mildly. But hey, diff'rent strokes for diff'rent folks.

RayRay
My first reaction to the question of whether a horror movie can go too far was "of course." There have been horror movies that have gone too far and disturbed me. One right off the top of my head was Se7en, with it seemingly never ending mortification of human flesh.

But now I have been asked to think about it and give real examples.

The horror genre, be it by film or novel, is wholly wrapped up in giving us terrible visions of what we would we never normally see. We vicariously experience many things, be they monsters, or ghosts, or killers, or natural events. Part of the point is to shock us.

To that end horror movies have shown us terrible, terrible things: graphic gore, child death, violent rape, intense cruelty, advanced decomposition.

So, even when it is most disturbing, an argument can be made that, in the name of art and terror, that a horror movie cannot go too far. But we all know that isn't true.

So now it becomes my task to figure out a movie has gone too far.

Typically, extreme violence and the resultant gore are the major culprits of going too far. There was an article in the New York Times asking this same question. It was in 1982, and was in response to the gore and slime of John Carpenter's The Thing. Carpenter had just appeared on David Letterman's show, and had showed the clip of the dog-thing. Back then The Thing was widely panned, and the amount of gore, etc., was the cited reason. Yet the massive cult following indicates that The Thing, now hailed as one of the best horror movies of all time, did not go too far

Movies like Cannibal Apocalypse [which truthfully I have yet to see, but am familiar with many of its images], Last House on the Left, and the recent House of a Thousand Corpses all are incredibly violent, sadistic, gory, and while pushing every envelope I can think of, did not go too far. In fact, all three are classic horror movies in their own right.

At the same time, movies like the Hostel series and Turistas, and other so called 'torture porn' I can consider having gone too far. Why? I suppose this has something to d with my distaste of the unnecessary cruelty embodied by such films. "Unnecessary cruelty? But that's what those movies are about!" some might retort. Yes, and that is all they are about. One might even then question me about the difference between House of a Thousand Corpses and Hostel. And I would say that the difference lies in the stresses the director one puts on what we see.

In House of a Thousand Corpses, the director created characters to identify with and against that had substance, and in one or two, they were more than a little campy. The violence was a means to an end, as well as a symptom of some greater sickness in those characters. There was more to the movie than just violating the human form.

In Hostel violence was the goal. While the premise wasn't terrible, the story never carried further than the murder of tourists. When you think about it, the most clever thing about Hostel is the director makes you into one of the purveyors of snuff, because the big payoff is all about watching what's going to happen to that Asian girl. In Turistas the payoff was watching a dissection of a girl. Is it the violence and the guts, though? No. Rather, it is the lack of story to contextualize the violence.

And when you consider that Se7en has some scenes, and puts some truly terrible ideas in one's head to replace what was not graphically depicted, I can conclude that going too far is not about the blood and guts, and therefore violence. Even such things, like violent rape, as in The Hills Have Eyes, or child death, like Pet Semetary or Jaws, are not verboten, so long as the underling storyline supports the relating of these acts or events.

Even mass death is not, in itself, going too far, though film makers might fear it. In the 80's we were treated to docudramas like the unforgettable The Day After and the even more compelling BBC production, Threads [shout-out to my girl BJ-C for reminding me of Threads]. To those of us who have grown up after the threat of nuclear annihilation is no longer an ever present threat to civilized existence, both films depict, at times graphically, the run up, actual event of, and aftermath of a full scale nuclear exchange. The Day After was so graphic [for a TV production] that there were warnings before and during its broadcast, and was even credited by Ronald Reagan in altering his thinking about nuclear weapons. Yet there are tales, as always, about the even more terrible and disturbing scenes left on the cutting room floor.

Threads was an even more graphic telling of a nuclear exchange, often using stock war photos of masses of strewn bodies from the Second World War and other conflicts to bolster the charred corpses actually used on its sets. Yet, considering the purpose and the topic, there is no limit to how much gore a director might use.

And let's be honest: the most terrible thing I can see in a movie is nothing when compared the the very real events of the tribal war between the Hutus and Tutsis, the mass rape and genocide in Darfur, and all other genocides. Even much smaller tragedies, like the euphemistically termed mass suicide at Jonestown is a more terrifying, and was more graphically disturbing to me when, as a young boy, I saw the news footage of all those bodies from the air, than anything I can imagine reproduced by special effects on film. Even "just" wars leave charred bodies in unnumbered piles.

Therefore, I will conclude my meandering with this result: yes, a horror movie goes too far when it seeks to do nothing but to shock without trying to do anything more. If the movie is but violence for violence sake, without story or context, then it is probably going too far. If that's what you want to see, go rent Faces of Death or surf the web for photos of the Holocaust. But if the writer and director give the audience a story, a reason, a cause, a lesson, anything other than rote brutality, then the sky just might be the limit.

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The VOH Roundtable: When Are Remakes OK?

In our first installment of The Vault of Horror Roundtable, the stalwart staff of the VoH tackles that implacable question: When is a horror remake actually acceptable?

B-Sol
Long-time readers of the Vault know that one of my favorite topics to rant about is the dearth of original ideas in horror cinema today, and the rash of endless remakes that we've been bombarded with for the past few years now. It seems there's not a month that goes by that some cherished treasure of ours isn't being pissed upon by the Hollywood movie-making machine.

And yet, I want to be very clear in saying that, despite my reputation as an old-school curmudgeon, I do, in fact, believe that there are times when a remake is perfectly acceptable--in fact, sometimes much more than that. In my years as a fan of horror films, and of films in general, I've held to a couple of personal rules as to what makes a remake OK in book.

Here's how it breaks down for me. First off, and I guess this should just be a given, but I believe that if a movie isn't anywhere near an unassailable classic in the first place, than a remake is fair game. I mean, if the original makers didn't get the job done right the first time, then why shouldn't someone else have a crack at doing a better job?

The first example of this that comes to mind is The Blob. I'm sure I'll get flamed for this, but as much fun as the 1957 original is, it is also far from untouchable. And you know what? There are many, including this blogger, who felt that the 1988 remake knocked the ball out of the park and pulled off that rare feat--it topped the movie it was remaking.

On the other hand, and it seems like this is the case the majority of the time, most remakes are stepping on holy ground, which is where I have a problem. The most insidious example of this would be the Gus Van Sant's version os Psycho, which goes down in history as perhaps the most wrong-headed remake ever attempted. Simply put, there is no reason on God's green earth for anyone to ever put his or her grimy fingers on the work of Alfred Hitchcock. There is nothing you could do to make it any better, so why bother, other than to cynically make a buck, and piss off a lot of people?

That said, I have one other major criterion for what I would consider an "acceptable remake". I'm sure there are more who would disagree with me here, but I've always felt that in the case of movies that are largely effects-driven, if special effects have advanced so dramatically in the ensuing time since the original was made, and it looks like there is a chance these new advances could really add something, I say go for it.

Since most FX-driven flicks fall into the categories of horror or sci-fi, that's usually where this second rule of mine has applied. For example, the two movies people always point to when they talk about superior horror remakes are John Carpenter's The Thing and David Cronenberg's The Fly. In both cases, I would argue that these remakes were justified from the beginning because their conceits were both rooted partly in strong special effects (for their time), and with 30 years having passed, and light years in special effects technology, it seemed a worthy pursuit to see just what these new, young whippersnappers were capable of bringing to two of horror's old warhorses.

And in both cases, it was well worth the effort. Now, I'm not trying to reduce the success of those two movies to strictly their special effects, but it is true that the '80s versions of those films pull off things from an FX point of view that would've been unthinkable to Howard Hawks and Kurt Neumann back in the '50s. They literally take the concepts advanced in their respective originals to a whole new, breathtaking, and previously unthinkable level. And I say that makes them OK in my book.

That said, there are also cases where this can easily backfire. After all, as I've made clear, special effects aren't everything. Allow me to direct your attention to King Kong. The 1933 original is an uncontested cinematic classic. Yet the techniques used to create its monster effects some 76 years ago have been so completely eclipsed that it seemed to me, at least on paper, that Peter Jackson and company had earned a right to take a stab at creating something fresh and new with it.

And boy, was I wrong that time. I don't know about you, but I found Jackson's effects-laden remake to be a tedious, abominable bore, so vastly inferior in every way possible to the original film as to make it completely unnecessary. And the overblown CGI, as amazing as it often is, only serves to lead me to prefer Willis O'Brien's elegant 1930s stop motion work.

So to sum up: Remake of mediocre original by competent filmmakers=Fair game. Remake of FX-driven original with vastly improved FX=Worth a try. Anything else=Stay the hell away from my beloved originals.

BJ-C
I was camping the first time I watched the 1999 remake of The House on Haunted Hill. I sat in our squeaky camper with my friend Taylor, a bowl of popcorn, and a blanket to put over my eyes for the scary parts. The beginning started out in black and white, and I remember saying to her "Great, this is going to be so stupid." The second I closed my mouth, a deranged mental patient grabbed a stack of sharp pencils and jammed them through the side of a doctor's neck. It was all downhill from there. I was screaming at all the murders, and I will forever be haunted by the underwater scene. While most horror fanatics out there scoff at this remake, it is what made me find old horror films.

I know it sounds completely ridiculous to think that one of the "worst horror remakes" could have influenced me to enjoy old-school horror, but I promise it does have a point. After that weekend, I ran home to my computer and used Ask Jeeves (yes, this is before Google blew up) and typed in "the house on haunted hill movie". I was hoping to see if it in fact WAS the guy from Night at the Roxbury in this film. Instead of getting a bunch of images from the movie I had just seen or finding out that YES Chris Kattan did a horror film, I was given a picture of Vincent Price.

Being only 9 years old, I had no idea who the HELL Vincent Price was. My mother did a great job leading me to the Freddy films, Jason, Michael, Carrie, and the rest of Stephen King's characters, but I had no idea who this guy was with the Boris Badinov mustache. So I went to my local family owned video store and asked "Do you have anything with Vincent Price?" The man smiled at me and said "Of course I do, and I wouldn't let most kids rent his stuff, but then again Brit...you've never been like most kids".

I scurried out happily from the video store with VHS copies of House of Wax, The Pit and the Pendelum, Theatre of Blood, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, The Fly, and on top of the stack..."The House on Haunted Hill". Along with those films, he sent me home with a few of Castle's other greats, like Uranium Boom, The Tingler, Macabre, and what ended up my personal favorite, 13 Ghosts. I must have looked pretty bad-ass to any middle-aged pedophiles down the street--a little 9-year-old girl with a vast collection of horror films bungie-corded on the back of her Huffy.

We have a tendency to write off remakes as a bunch of crap that can in no way ever live up to the original. I can't say that the people saying these things are wrong, but I can't say they're right either. The thing about remakes is that it inadvertanly brings the old horror genre along to a new generation. These remakers are trying to be a part of cinematic history (or taking a slice of the pie the original brought) but if you get the word out that it is a remake, then the original starts getting more play. Of the stack of films my video store owner sent me home with, a handful of them ended up being remade. I can't begin to tell you how many of my friends I made come over and watch the classics before we snuck into the theater to see the new ones.

Most of my generation doesn't really have the horror chops that I do. Which is both a blessing and a disguise. It's a blessing in that old horror films aren't being completely worn down. We may love Michael Myers, but after watching him every Fear Friday on AMC, he loses his fear. Bash as you may on Zombieween, but the theater I was watching the premiere in screamed, yelled at the screen, and cheered in excitement when he pulled out the mask from the floorboards once more. When My Bloody Valentine 3-D hit theaters, I went to my campus' Family Video in search of the original copy. It had been checked out, and a waiting list was created for people who wanted to see the original first.

Does it break our hearts when we see our favorite films being remade? Of course. But we cannot go into these films with a bad attitude or boycott them. Look at the remake of The Fly. That film is a BILLION times more terrifying than good ole Vinny's version. Sometimes an update, or an up-keep for that matter, is in order. It's impossible to keep these old films in circulation when they have to compete on Blockbuster shelves with big-budget explosions and Megan Fox. However, when a remake is happening, people browse the shelves to find the original versions, and a lot of the time, pick up other old-school ones sitting next to them.

I'm only 19 years old. Most of the people reading my blog, as well as The Vault of Horror, are well into their 30s, and these are the people that got the blessing to grow up along with the classics. I'm not so lucky. My generation DEPENDS on remakes to be made. A good amount of the people who HAVE seen the originals--we're brought there by some sort of remake.

Face it, people are LAZY. They're going to go watch what is available to them and what is recommended. Only freaks like us die-hards are the people that pick a horror movie out of Netflix or Blockbuster based off the back cover. I honestly don't know anyone who actually reads the back of those anymore. It's all about marketing, and remakes are GREAT marketing for the originals.

I thank people who remake films, because without them, most people wouldn't even know the original versions existed. To be honest, I probably wouldn't be the young horror connoisseur I am today without that remake of House on Haunted Hill.

RayRay
Well, to lean a little on my Philosophy minor, you can never know a priori whether or not a given remake is ok. Unfortunately, the remake needs to be made and then judged. I say this because, a posteriori, there are remakes better than originals, and some that were terrible flops. And then there are some that are not bad, but that just begs the question of whether they should have been made.

That being said, there are horror remakes throughout at least my lifetime that were great. These include, from the 70's and 80's, in no particular order: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Fly, The Thing [of course], and The Blob. Each of these brought something new to the table missing in the original, and each had respect for its forbearer. The Fly, in particular, is superior as a whole, telling a much more compelling story, and if anything, only lacks the gut wrenching "Help me!" from the end of the original.

Between the originals and the remakes, times changed. As B-Sol has pointed out in his posts, there were once codes and policies which prevented either gore or unhappy endings. Also, Hollywood in the '50s and '60s was often in the thrall of anti-Communism, and the movies reflected this. In particular, the invaders in Body Snatchers and James Arness' Thing from Another World were metaphors for Communism and/or Communist infiltration.

In the remakes the stresses were not on the politics of the day, but more about the isolation that can come from hysteria. And while the ending of the original Body Snatchers is vague, the ending of the remake is terrible and foreboding. Similarly, the admonishment to the world of "watch the skies" in Thing From Another World is replaced by a quiet "see what happens," which is much more chilling.

In others, the abilities of special effects improved so much that The Blob and The Fly were almost begging to be remade. And the fan bases were happy to see these movies redone.

Each of the above movies was successful, one way or the other, in remaking their original. And each brought something new to the table, either a new look, a twist, a return to the original source. In their own way, each was an improvement.

And I think there are some very commendable remakes done these days, as well. I think the new Dawn of the Dead holds up well against the original, though I am not the Romero freak some others are. But I have yet to see the remake of Night of the Living Dead, of which I have heard mixed reviews. However, DotD is excellent, both as a remake and a stand-alone film.

I also think the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre was also well-done, and told a little more of the story of that terrible family without encroaching on the original. To be frank, I have always had mixed feelings about the original TCM. When I first saw it, I was really disappointed with the poor film quality, especially the interior scenes with the decrepit grandpappy. Over time I have come around on the original TCM, and now recognize its greatness. There are some truly great scenes, notwithstanding that there was better film quality in some contemporary pornography.

Other remakes have fallen into the category of simply having good special effects, like the remakes of House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. Neither is a bad movie, but neither is really a good stand-alone movie. Sans effects, the same can be said of the remake of Psycho - not bad, but not necessary, especially as a near shot-for-shot remake.

Then there is Halloween. Halloween, the remake, as a stand-alone movie, is fantastic. As I said in my review, it's biggest problem is it is a remake of Halloween. And while it brings a lot of new material to the table, while respecting the ground trod by John Carpenter, it is the baggage of the original that sinks this as a remake. Too many questions are needlessly raised. I also think it is a complete waste of the skill and style of Rob Zombie. More often, I would rather he use his considerable talent to spin new visions on old themes, not on H2. Let him rip with more insane twists, like what he gave us with his dreadful Firefly family.

And then there are the rest, as far as I am concerned. While I didn't see the "remake" of Friday the 13th, I didn't need to. Seriously, what ground is going to be uncovered? I got sick of Jason after he was killed by Corey Feldman. How many different ways can Jason stab, crush, twist or break the human body? Simply put, this is just laziness and cynicism at the studio level. I can, and will, say the same thing about the remake of The Hills Have Eyes. It brought nothing new to the table, and was a cheap attempt at making money, not a good movie [for which I do not begrudge making money].

And then there are the remakes that have almost everything going for them, except that they forget the focus of the movie they are making. Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds is one of these. The original is nearly perfect, a movie that holds up, full force, till today. It is absolutely terrifying at every turn. Even the quiet moments are fraught with unknown terror.

When I heard Spielberg was remaking WotW, I was overjoyed. I don't think there was a Spielberg flick I didn't at least like, and most I loved [E.T. excepted, now that I am an adult]. And I was also banking on Tom Cruise once again turning to gold any movie he is in [yeah, sorry, I liked Cruise's movies before he went batshit. I mean, have you ever seen Cocktail? B-movie masterpiece].

Yet this was one of the biggest disappointments I had, Star Wars prequels aside. It had it all in the beginning - Morgan Freeman's narration, an unassuming introductory sequence, and a fantastic initial attack scene from a visual standpoint [though the idea of 200-foot-tall secretly buried mechs under city streets was a tad far-fetched]. After that, the movie devolved into Cruise's character not trying to survive, but learning how to be a Dad. Give me a friggin' break. The friggin' Martians are coming, and the daughter is going to get snippy about peanut butter? Eat your friggin' bread! No to mention the vercochte idea of traveling to Boston as a strategy in the middle of an interplanetary invasion. What, Martians are Sox fans? What about finding a hole?

Then the movie totally lost focus. If you recall, the climax of the original was in the very end, with everyone praying for deliverance in a church. The Martians are still going strong, with no end in sight. A Martian attack ship comes through the CEILING, AND THEN...........!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow, who knew the human race was going to have its fat pulled from the fire by microbes?

But as the new WotW was winding up, the Martians were already faltering, and you see one get blown up by a handheld anti-tank rocket. That doesn't make the invaders all that impressive, after all, considering we hadn't dropped any Daisy Cutters yet, or nukes, for that matter. Apparently, we were supposed to be happier about the mysterious survival of a petulant teenager than the human race. Personally, I liked it better when I thought Robbie bought it doing the one brave thing he did in the movie. At least it would have brought gravity to the story, which by the end it totally lacked, [except in the scene when Daddy had to beat a man to death to keep him quiet].

By relieving the stress of imminent extermination, by failing to respect the original, Spielberg had carnal knowledge of the proverbial canine. In short, it was an error to try to make it a film about growing as a family, rather than huge monstrous death machines killing everything.

In conclusion, I think it is impossible to know when it is ok to remake a horror film. Perhaps you have to look at the motivations of the people making a given film. Did they love the original? Are they trying to add something to it? What is their angle? Then you have a chance for a good film.

But Spielberg had the best of intentions. He wasn't trying to cynically make money. He wanted a blockbuster for all time. What WE got was an all-time bust. So I guess it has to be okay to produce remakes, just don't expect too much.

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The Thirteen Most Badass Heroes in Horror

RayRay is back again, true believers, and this time I am bringing you my exclusive list of the 13 greatest horror movie heroes. Why thirteen? Why not? And thirteen is a pretty scary number, so I am going with it. Or maybe I couldn’t come up with 15. Whatever.

This list was inspired by B-Sol’s post a short while ago regarding his top ten favorite horror movies characters, and I realized that there was only one protagonist. Since then I have thought deeply about the subject of the protagonist, and realized there were too many. So I decided to go for the heroes.

In any event, I want all to know I do not think this list is exhaustive, and would like stir some discussion on the topic. I surely missed some great horror heroes, and want to hear about it.

Also, I want to let everyone know this list is not about the final girl, or last survivor, or the best scream queen. This list is reserved for characters that saw the evil with their own eyes and went out to confront it, and then did so in as badass a manner as humanly (or superhumanly) possible, and often paid the ultimate price for their heroism.

So, without any further delay:

13) Dr. Sam Loomis (Halloween, 1978, Halloween II, 1981)
Dr. Loomis, played by the wonderful Donald Pleasance, did it more with his brains rather than brawn. But he was also the only person to realize the depth of the evil in Myers, and realized he had to try to keep him locked away. When he realized that was impossible, he knew he had to confront his patient, and knew he had to pack heat to do so. And when it came to it, he also knew he had to sacrifice himself to do the deed. [After the sequel, the series sorta dumbed down a lot].

12) Alice (Resident Evil, 2002, etc.)
Milla’s Alice, one of the few heroes on the list that could do a swimsuit calendar, is one lady you don’t want to mess with. She deals with the chemically undead caused by the T-virus handily, never backing down. She is a bad broad, and as the series went onward, only got badder.

11) John Constantine (Constantine, 2005)
Maybe you hate Keanu, and maybe you didn’t think this was the best movie. But to be real, the man is accursed and condemned to Hell, yet in thrall to God, and still wrestles demons like hillbillies rassle ‘gators, and is one of the few humans that can tell Satan to shove it. Plus, the crucifix-come-shotgun is a badass weapon.

10) Hellboy (Hellboy, 2004)
Hellboy, played by Hollywood’s man in makeup, Ron Perlman, is a super, duper badass. He has it all: no looks, one good hand, and a Good Samaritan. Plus, he can speak to the dead. Being the son of Satan, yet fighting for the good guys has to wear on a guy’s psyche, but that has not stopped ol’ Red yet. Few of our heroes can deliver a snappy line while fighting creatures of Lovecraftian terror, like Samiel, The Desolate One.

9) Michael (Dawn of the Dead, 2004)
Michael, played by Jake Weber, is the Superego awash in Id at the Crossroads Shopping Mall. He keeps his cool, puts the other hormonally challenged males in their place, and quietly becomes the leader of the small band of survivors. He faces the horror of the situation without fear, and when his chips are cashed, he walks away from the table with a nary a complaint.

8) Dutch (Predator, 1987)
I am sure I will hear it that this is not really a horror movie, but if not, then neither is Godzilla. In any event, Dutch, one of Ahnold’s best played roles, is a super badass. First, he and his team dispose of an entire company of bad guys, and then, like little Indians, his squad is picked off. But does Dutch panic? No, he tells the little Commie girl to get to the chopper, and then takes care of business. Which is not a problem, except business is 7 feet tall and packs a small nuke. Just for surviving, Dutch makes the list.

7) Wray (Planet Terror, 2007)
Not only does Freddie Rodriguez’s Wray never miss, he makes his girl Cherry Darling into a walking zombie destroyer. But before she rules the wasteland, he has to take care of business, which includes taking out most of the zombies in Texas. Though his origins aren’t clear, what is is that Wray was an undercover agent and/or commando, and if killing was his business……

6) Clarice Starling (Silence of the Lambs, 1991)
Jodie Foster’s Starling is at once a delicate, pale West Virginian girl running from demons, and at the same time a vicious hellcat with a big brain. She not only figured out who he was, she single-handedly went after Buffalo Bill into his lair. Not for the faint of heart. And while she did get a little lucky that Bill was cocky, as they say: fortune favors the bold. And most importantly, she was the music to tame the most savage of hearts, that of the good doctor’s.

5) Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Bram Stoker’s Dracula, 1992)
Sir Anthony’s Van Helsing was, in my humble opinion, the version of the character played with the most vim and vigor. While stodgy and old, he was nonetheless the most knowledgeable of the vampire hunters, as well as the one who stiffened the others’ backbones for the hunt and kill of “wampyres…….nosferatu……” Not to mention he seemed to get a kick out of it, and the slaying of the blood sucking undead never seemed to bother his appetite for rare beef or strong, dark ales. My kind of guy!

4) Father’s Merrin & Karras (The Exorcist, 1973)
For this one there is a double bill. I could not decided which of Pazuzu’s nemeses to choose, so I went with both. Max von Sydow’s Merrin brought gravity and professorial steadiness, while Jason Miller’s Karras was devotional anger at the defilement of innocence. Both priests fought for the soul of young Regan, no matter what temporal torments, or whose voice, the demon threw at them. And in their single combats each paid the ultimate price for that little girl, but they succeeded.

3) Ash (Evil Dead I-II, Army of Darkness, 1992)
I know this is going to get me grief. Ash is only number 3?!! Sorry, kiddies, but at least he cracked this rarified air. Hey, if asswhippery were a religion, Ash would be the patron saint. He also gets points for introducing the phrase “pillow talk” to medieval Europe. But the man can’t remember 7 lousy syllables. However, he did lop off his own hand, and he can handle a rifle like few others. And he saved the world in both the 13th and 20th centuries, so he gets to be in the high pantheon. Plus, being the King of the One Liners makes him that much more awesome.

2) Ellen Ripley (Alien 1979, Aliens 1986, etc.)
Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley is the very first female action hero. She goes from junior officer on a doomed interstellar freighter to leading a bunch of badass space marines, to the savior of mankind. Not only does she tangle with one of the most fearsome creatures man ever encountered in the stars, she wins. And she only got angrier and more badass as the series went along, though the quality of the movies declined as an inverse proportion to her badassery. Notwithstanding, she took the Queen on, woman to woman, and it was no small feat to have defeated such an implacable, indefatigable foe. Especially one so pissed off.

1) R.J. McReady (The Thing, 1982)
Kurt Russell’s McReady, the surly, Scotch swilling, chess playing chopper pilot at
Outpost 31, is number 1 on this list. This may be controversial, but that’s why people do silly lists like this. McReady is number 1 because a) he faces what I consider to be the scariest monster of all time, b) he does it in the worst conditions I can think of, c) he rapidly realizes the gravity of the situation and does not lose his mind (unlike Blair, who does, or Fuchs, who commit suicide), and computes that this is a battle for the planet. He also gets that if they lose, humanity is gone. He takes control in a situation more suited to madness, never loses his cool, and is willing to pay the ultimate price from the word go. That, and he is handy with a flamethrower.

So there it is, true believers. I look forward to hearing from all the Vault Dwellers on how awesome I am for making this list. I hope you enjoy chewing it over as much as I enjoyed making it. Until next time……..

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