Stu Monroe is a hard-working Southern boy of no renown and a sick little monkey of great renown. He has a beautiful wife, Cindy, and an astonishingly wacky daughter, Gracie. His opinions are endorsed by absolutely no one…except www.HorrorTalk.com!

In Defense of the Remake

Look around at what's coming down the pipe in Hollywood and you'll see a slew or remakes. Granted, I could have made this statement any time in the last ten years (at least). It's not exactly what you would call a "dated" statement. Remakes are here to stay. The craze is more than just a craze. It's just how shit is. It has taken me these last ten years to really come to grips with that reality and to see some of the good that has come out of it.

The funny part? Remakes are not a new thing. Jane Eyre has a ton of different versions. The Thing is a remake of The Thing From Another World. Ditto for The Fly. Ditto for House on Haunted Hill. Ditto for The Crazies. You get the idea. It is (admittedly) out of control here in the last few years, but remakes have always been around.

Be honest with yourself: there are some good remakes out there. I've already mentioned The Thing, The Fly, House on Haunted Hill, & The Crazies...all remakes that are superior to their respective original. You can add The Hills Have Eyes to that list. That movie is the shit; so unrepentantly violent and nasty.

You probably have your own list of both remakes that you hate and remakes that you love. I hope you can admit that you love at least a few of them. It's in the vein of art imitating life, but why would you hate on something that could be quite good simply because it's (gasp!) a remake? Try to have that open mind, y'all. You may just miss out on a good thing. You could also get a Nightmare on Elm Street starring Jackie Earle Haley. Yikes.

I am thinking in particular of the upcoming remake of Stephen King's It. There's so much to be nervous about there. I think we can all admit that it's blasphemous to think of anyone except Tim Curry as Pennywise. That role is the definition of iconic. There's a generation or two of people out there who have clinical issues with clowns simply because of that one performance. 

But is the rest of the miniseries so fantastic that is blasphemous to think of It being remade? Hardly. I say that with a very serious soft-spot for the original. It's that powerful nostalgic magic of how it affected you at that time and where you were at that point in your life. Totally classic, but hardly first-class filmmaking. This time around you can have the restrictions off as it pertains to ratings and what you can do with the horror. The miniseries didn't have the house at 29 Neibolt Street. It didn't have the hobo under the porch. It didn't have Patrick Hockstetter and his horrible death. It didn't have the battle with the Teenage Werewolf. And talk about the taboo elephant in the room: it didn't have the underage gangbang in the dark under Derry.

The remake will have all of those things. Uh-oh. Get ready for the offense and the outcry on that last.

And the cast of children is looking pretty solid. Did you see Finn Wolfhard's amazing performance in Stranger Things? He's going to be Richie "Trashmouth" Tozier, for fuck's sake. I can't wait for that shit. I'll come right out and fanboy on that. Bill Skarsgard looks like he could step in and be a totally different, but very scary, Pennywise. I've never seen any of his work, but fans of Hemlock Grove are insanely stoked to see him in that role.

I got sidetracked (as I tend to do), but my point is this: don't be afraid of the unknown when it's tied to the well-loved and nostalgic. A remake doesn't cancel out or in any way negate the original. Your beloved still exists, and it can be called upon at any time. Often times a remake is someone's love letter to the original.

Unless you are trying to remake Clerks. Then you can go fuck yourself vigorously.   

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