With spooky season around the corner, I rewatched some of my favorite spooky movies to compare them to their remakes and reboots. So what’s really better, the new or the original?
“House of Wax”
The 1953 version was so good because it was just so ‘classically 50’s’. The trills used as a jumpscare warning and you could hear the softness in their voices even over the low quality recordings.
The whole movie had many twists and turns and random moments that I was originally going to criticize. But suddenly, all of these random moments came together allowing for better understanding of the story as a whole.
But also some of the scenes must be stylized, because I have never made it through a 70’s movie without at least one dance sequence.
The movie also has very nice pacing, especially with the length of time they are working with. They had to get through the development of a wax museum twice and the death of the museum twice which must have been 10-15 years in all.
The 2005 version has pacing and structure that I got bored with. Out of all the movies reviewed for this, this one was by far the most violent and gory, but sadly, that was one of its biggest downfalls. For the last 40 minutes of the movie it was just gore and chase scenes which, don’t get me wrong, I love a good chase scene, but these were so unnaturally long.
Neither of these movies have anything in common except for, surprisingly, the blatant sexism throughout them. With the 50’s movie, I’m not surprised, but the sexism in the 2005 version surprised me. Randomly in the middle of the movie, the guys will make crude comments about the women, and they’ll stand there and giggle. I understand it’s 2024 and 19 years have passed but I’m just disappointed, because the movie would be better without all of the sexism.
“Poltergeist”
Both movies hit death in a very easy to understand way and in both the actors are very well chosen. A lot of times in films the child actors are just annoying, but in both of these movies I feel that the children’s participation works very well.
The personalities in the 1982 version are a big reason why this movie is memorable. The characters are weird, with strange personalities, accents, or habits that make each one stand out individually. In the 2015 version though, the characters aren’t very strange.
But despite this, I do like the 2015 version better than the 1982 version.
The 2015 version had some of the best camera work I have seen so far. Each second of the movie was exhilarating and I was surprised by the lack of scariness. The youngest boy, Griffin, was being
told by his parents that it was all in his head. That nothing was really happening in the house, and the camera work reflected it really well. Many times I thought there would be a scare so I prepared for the shock, but it never came.
The best part of the 2015 version was how much it makes you care about the family. The relationship between the family felt realistic, there was hardship and a sense of worry, like a worry of no matter how much love they had, nothing could save them.
Even with how good the 2015 version is though, it still bothers me that it was a remake. If this was made now it would have been a top movie, but you can feel a scent of repeatedness throughout the movie that’s hard to shake.
“Nightmare on Elm Street”
Nightmare on Elm Street is one of the most well known scary movies. Every Halloween, you’ll see at least one person adorned in a red and green distressed sweater, but once you watch the 1984 version it becomes obvious why.
The entire movie is iconic. The hair is huge and perfect all the time, even the dead bodies have tight, perfect curls. The music also follows the time period very well, with disco chase music that surprised me at first, but strangely fitted.
The 2010 version was very different though. It still fit the time period very well but it was
just boring. The whole point of the movie was to understand Freddy’s thoughts and process which but ended up making it more confusing.
In the 1984 version the writers really tried to develop their ideas into creating a cohesive story. But, with that came lots of plot holes. In the 1984 version of Freddy’s dream universe he wasn’t in total control. If the person was woken up then they were taken out, all Fred could do is wait for them to fall back asleep. This is the reason the main character Nancy Tompson knew that if she set a timer she could attack Freddy without it becoming a suicide mission. But, in the 2010 version there is never a point that the characters learn the logic of the dream universe, instead she happens to just think that’s how it would work with not even no evidence backing it up.
The writers also tried to make it more modern by making it scarier. Which would’ve been cool, if it just was scary. I love scary movies because of the rush, gasping at surprising moments, yelling at the TV when I’m annoyed, or scream at jumpscares. All the jump scares were super predictable and the violence was all boring. I would’ve wanted new iconic murders instead of making worse versions of the already iconic ones.
Now, don’t get me wrong the 1984 version isn’t very scary either but it didn’t try to be. Meanwhile, the 2010 version is trying and insanely failing at it.
