Just stumbled onto this about a remake for Texas Chainsaw Massacre:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hol...ent_id=1519817

Shocking enough, but the report said that the remake would be less gory than the original. Any fan of the original knows that there is almost zero gore in TCM.

I don't want to pass judgment on this before I get the whole story, but the remake will probably suck.

[Harj]

get used to crap remakes mate, like the following:-

1) Ring
2) The Italina job (! NO!)
3) Get Carter
4) planet of th Apes
5) SPOILER !!!!!!!! The original dutch film had the guy waking up in the coffin, end of film, the american film had thesame character survive.
6) why bother? its easier for hollywood to rehash than come up with original ieas.

Why develop a film from scratch when half the movies been done for you 20 odd years ago?

I wold like to say that TCM is one of the discs that have 'bloopers' on it, ie. actors cocking up, i wish more films on dvd would have this.

[Rambo John J]

Add the upcoming remake of George Romero's classic Dawn Of The Dead, written by the fool that wrote the celluloid version of Scooby Doo, a film I've yet to hear a single positive remark about. Apparently the MPAA even removed the one reason to watch it - Sarah Michelle Gellar doing one of them there lesbian kisses (again ). Too strong for minors, so I hear.
The remake of DOTD starts shooting before the year's out.
Surely someone's realised that twenty-something's in a mall are exactly the people the zombies in the original were portraying? Talk about missing the point.

Last thing I heard about the chainsaw remake was that Michael Bay was behind it. If that's still the case we can expect Leatherface swinging his chainsaw in front of a tangerine sunset while Aerosmith play some godawful rock ballad behind it. Nice

One of the major reason so many of the old horror/gore films were so damn good is that, in those days, make-up and effects departments had low budgets and, I believe, therefore tried harder with what they had to work with and were proud of the realism they achieved.

These days it's easier to chuck a couple million $$$ at a CGI company and have them do the work... most of which, in terms of horror and gore at least, has yet to ever look realistic.

Horror and gore is by definition visceral and bloody, it needs 'real' prosthetics and effects to really achieve it's aims and make you squirm.

Is anyone really going to be impressed with CGI zombie heads being shot? I doubt it.

Compare the creature effects in The Thing (20 years old) to something like Species and you will (should at least) see what I mean.

I can count on 1 hand the number of remakes that were fit to watch, and I can't think of a single one that is better than the original. Like sequels, they appeal to the lowest common denominator of movie fans. Fans who heard a movie was good, but won't rent it because it's not in the "new release" section, or doesn't have some hot teenage actor/actress in it. When I'm in a video store, and I hear someone say "I'm not renting that, it's in black and white!", I have to resist the urge to strangle them. (but that would be wrong, or so my therapist tells me )

A few remakes are decent films, but still pale in comparison to the original. "A Perfect Murder" was a half-decent movie, but doesn't come close to "Dial M".

Hollywood should leave classics alone, and remake movies that "could have been great". Rollerball was a good idea, but with poor excecution.

As for CGI, I wish that studios would put the work into it to get the results, or STOP USING IT! The haphazard use of CGI these days has led to some embarassing effects, which can only be compared to the low-budget blue-screen effects from years ago. They just don't look real, and take away from the film instead of adding to it.

Although, to be fair, John Carpenter's The Thing was in a sense a re-make of the 1951 film 'The Thing From Another World' as this was the first film based on John W. Campbell Jr's book 'Who Goes There?'.

I totally agree though, the vast majority of remakes don't better the originals.

And now we have the joy of 'The Wicker Man' being remade with Nicholas Cage (?!?!).

Forgot about The Thing. Although I liked the original, the remake was better.

[Harj]

My original post forgot to mention what the spoiler film was, 'The Vanishing'!

One good remake was 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' with Don Sutherland.

To further this story, here's some commentary on the remake of Chainsaw from Ain't it Cool. I'm only posting it because he makes the same point as me, and it makes me feel cool.

http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=12621