Movie Night! 'Remake/Reboot' Edition

Where do you stand on the whole 'remake/reboot movie' question? It won't surprise you to learn that I'm somewhere in the middle ;o) On the one hand, of course I want to see original movies or at the very least, see movies tackle source material that hasn't already been mined. On the other hand though, one of my all time favourite movies is a remake and I've got to say that, well... If you can improve on the original then why not? And yes, the 2004 version of 'Dawn of the Dead' is a very different movie but I still think that it does a lot of stuff better than the original. Hang on, I'm off on a tangent again... :o)

After watching 'Child's Play' the other day, I thought I'd give the 'remake/reboot' a go and see if and how well it held up to the original. And while I was at it, I found a DVD of the 'Fright Night' remake lurking in a TBR pile and figured why not give that a shot too while I was there. And that was exactly what I did. Let me tell you about them...


'Child's Play' (2019)

This remake of a horror classic (well it is) takes the approach of taking out all the supernatural elements, of the original, and going for a regular 'AI gone mad' plot instead and you know what? I thought it worked really well. There's still plenty of room for the gory kills, the creepy 'hunted' moments and a couple of really good jump scares. What I really liked though was how the film makes you look at Chucky in a whole different way. There's no evil in him originally but his innocent world view, and AI logic, leads him to make all the wrong choices and that's where he ends up. Which leads me to think that this is possibly the first 'Child's Play' movie where you can't help but feel a little sorry for him; poor little toy never stood a chance, even though he should never have killed all those people to be fair...

The only bit that had me wondering was that Andy trashed his flat and his Mum... Took him to work with her? Not quite sure of the reasoning behind that but it did lead into that finale so I'll let it slide for now. 'Child's Play' wasn't a bad remake at all, it spun the original plot enough to catch my interest and it hit most of the targets that it was aiming for. It's child's play really... ;o) Sorry, couldn't help myself.


'Fright Night' (2011)

The one thing that I kept on thinking, watching this, was that if Anton Yelchin was still with us, he would have been a superb Peter Parker in the MCU, don't you think?

But I was there for the film so I kept on with that, even though this one wasn't a patch on the original. Whereas the original was properly creepy, this iteration of 'Fright Night' seemed to decide to get all the creepy stuff done early and turn the rest of the movie into car chases and vampire fights which didn't work for me (although to be fair, maybe that's just my preference for creepy terror rather than the film doing anything wrong, it just didn't grip me).

David Tennant being a slightly swearier version of Doctor Who was a nice touch but not quite enough for me, I can't see myself searching out the sequel.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Deathworlder’ – Victoria Hayward (Black Library)

Image
Before I get into the review proper, thank you Black Library for sending me a copy of ‘Deathworlder’ in return for a fair and honest review. Talking of ‘fair and honest’… There will be loads of the latter but I enjoyed the hell out of ‘Deathworlder’ so… We’ll see how being fair goes ;o) That’s your only warning, lets talk ‘Deathworlder’… Lazulai is a world beyond the brink, its battle against the tyranids all but lost. Once-magnificent cities lie in ruin. The seas boil. The skies crack. Horrific alien bioforms devour. In mere days the planet will be consumed. The 903rd Catachan ‘Night Shrikes’ defend one of the last fortresses still standing. Led by Major Wulf Khan, to die fighting is all that is expected of them… until she is given one last mission: to lead a squad through the apocalypse and recover a piece of archeotech that may doom or deliver the entire Lazulai System. Facing insurmountable odds and zero hope for aid, the major must hold her squad together as they pick their way ...
Read more

‘Hellraiser 3: Hell on Earth’ (1992)

Image
Every time Halloween comes round, I promise myself that I’ll watch more horror films and read more horror fiction; we’re halfway through the month and you can see how that’s going so far… There’s still plenty of October left though so lets see how I do from now until the end of the month ;o) First up is ‘Hellraiser 3’ which I watched last night, mostly because I love it (you can tell how this post is going to go, sorry…) but also because it was cheap on Prime and I’m still just on the wrong side of payday. Here goes… TV reporter Joey Summerskill’s life is changed forever when she witnesses the horrific death of a teenager, torn apart by bloody chains. Joey’s search for a story leads her to the Lament Configuration Box but it has already been opened, waking an old evil from its slumber… Now Pinhead walks the earth once more, creating a new army of Cenobites from the transmuted flesh of his victims; his one desire to reclaim the Box. Even with help from an unexpected source, Joey Summers...
Read more

‘Cursed City’ – C.L. Werner (Black Library)

Image
I always have these vague ‘reading resolutions’, for the New Year and without fail, they all come to absolutely nothing. I still read loads, just none of the books that I meant to… This year is panning out slightly differently and I think I’m going to enjoy it. All the books that were originally ‘out of sight, out of mind’, in the loft at my old place, are now all over my new place and wherever I look, I’m constantly discovering books that I totally forgot I had but now quite fancy reading. Books like ‘Cursed City’ for example… I’m not going to tell you how long ‘Cursed City’ was sat in my loft, lets just say it was long enough for me to totally forget it was there and buy myself another copy… Oh well. I found it on the shelf the other day (only the one copy now) and figured it was way overdue a read, let me tell you about it… Ulfenkarn is a city of nightmares. Its vampiric rulers have indulged their bloodlust in every shadow-clad alley, turning the once-proud metropolis into a charnel...
Read more