I've been curious about this film, but the Platinum Dunes remakes have always struck me as overly-violent, mindless pretenders to the thrones of the real films that they've been remaking. I saw the
Texas Chainsaw and
Amityville remakes, and was less than impressed with either. I'm not sure I'll get past that bias in time to see it in theaters, but I might catch it on Netflix or something.
I have to say, though, that this is one of the most wholly depressing quotes I've ever read as a lover of film. It came on Monday, after
Nightmare won the box office battle over the weekend:
Warner distribution president Dan Fellman wrote:
We don't have a story yet, but this is the largest horror opening in the April-May corridor, and it just proves there's a lot left in the franchise
Everyone knows, in their heart of hearts, that franchises are dictated not by artistry but by profit margins, but it's still rare to have such a blatant statement of such, directly confusing "more stories to be told" with "it made money so we figure another will too."
The original
Nightmare was my favorite of the triumvirate of iconic '80s horror films (John Carpenter's electrifying
Halloween is probably technically the better film, but
ANoES just had a surfeit of imagination that gives it an edge, and I never, ever liked
Friday the 13th; Clive Barker's original
Hellraiser tops them all, in my opinion, but it's not got the cache of the others). While I think the casting of Jackie Earl Haley was an inspired move, I've rather lost any taste I once had for Dead Teenager movies. Horror films can still be sublime, but I'm looking for much more out of them now than I once was. In particular, the advent of Spanish horror films (the films of Guillermo del Toro,
The Orphanage,
[REC], etc.) are really the place to go for imaginative, masterful horror films. I've pretty much given up on American horror for now, until there's a significant resurgence that moves past the overly-violent, derivative copycats of things like
Saw and
Hostel, and J-horror has always left me cold.
Sorry for the odd sidetrack...horror films were something about which I was passionate in my youth, and my fascination with them remains. I've been consistently disappointed with them in the past...I dunno, decade or so, but it's because I recognize their unique ability to hit emotions and themes that other films can't touch, and seeing them used for nothing but facile shocks just makes me sad. Horror's always been filled with cheap knockoffs and titillating entries, but the diamonds in the rough did used to come with a bit more frequency. I think I can name on one hand what I consider to be good American horror films of the past ten or fifteen years. I definitely wouldn't need more than ten entries.