January 29th, 2013 
Jesse Gumbarge 
Let me start off by saying that I’m 27 years old, I was born in 1985. I grew up on 80′s horror. I remember my father taking me to the movies on a weekly basis to see many of the slasher icons of the time (Friday the 13th’s, Nightmare on Elm St’s, Halloween, etc). I’ll admit I only caught the tail end of most of these franchises such as Freddy’s Dead and Jason Goes to Hell but I promptly made it my mission to own all the prior films on VHS.
As a kid I just knew that these movies were awesome, the business side of things were the farthest thing on my young mind. As I grew up I realized that these countless sequels were created more for dollar signs than the love of the movies. Overall 80′s horror icons made my childhood great, they were a great escape from my day to day childhood life (school dances and homework were stressful things).
I recently started dating a girl almost 10 years younger than me, she’s 19. Recently we were watching TV together and we happened upon the Nightmare on Elm St REMAKE. She immediately became excited and proclaimed how much she “loved” this movie. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was joking or being sincere. She actually was indeed serious and I couldn’t believe it. When I asked her why she loves it so much she used words like “scary”, “good” and phrases like “this is my shit”. WOW!! I asked her if she had seen the original Nightmare On Elm St or better yet my favorite NOES The Dream Warriors. She had not! That’s when it occurred to me that many kids born in the 90′s and growing up in the 00′s don’t really know much about many of the 80′s icons that we grew up with. ALL they know is remakes and reboots. It’s such a sad life and I for one blame Michael Bay for the majority of this BS.
In 2001 filmmakers Michael Bay, Brad Fuller, and Andrew Form created the production company Platinum Dunes. The company was to specialize in horror films, particularly remakes. ALL OF WHICH SUCKED!!
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003)
First up Platinum Dunes tackled Leatherface. In 2003 one of the most infamous horror films of the 1970s was revisited with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. At the time it actually looked pretty promising, I was genuinely excited and I was also a fan of Jessica Biels “assets” so I hoping that my excitement would be justified. As you could have guessed, I was deeply disappointed. It looked like a music video version of the original. I’ve talked to MANY people who love this movie (all of which were born in the 90′s) but I think I’ll stick with the original.
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)
In 2009 Platinum Dunes tackled another one of our horror icons Jason Voorhees. This movie was also not good and pretty weird, Jason took a hostage for some reason and he was running around like he was hopped on a 5 hour energy drink. The only thing about this remake we all enjoyed was Julianna Guill.
NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)
In 2010 Michael Bay and company broke the ultimate sin when they remade Nightmare on Elm St. The original NOES is one of my favorite films of all time. Robert Englund is the only Freddy Krueger in my and many of our eyes. Despite my gut and everything else telling me otherwise I still had high hopes for this remake.
Not only did this movie not live up to my expectations but it was quite possibly the worst movie I’d ever seen. Many things bothered me about this movie, so much so I could write an entire article on it. One thing in particular was the fact that instead of a child murderer Freddy was now simply a creepy pedophile (this was only implied in the original). Freddy Krueger has always had two sides to him, he was scary and comical, neither of which he is in this movie. None of this is Jackie Earl Haley who actually did an admirable job playing Freddy. But overall this movie SUCKED!!
I could go on and on but I’ll just leave you with a list of other horror movies that had no business being remade.
Thirteen Ghosts (2001), Carrie (2002), The Fog (2005), House of Wax (2005) ,The Amityville Horror (2005), When A Stranger Calls, The Wicker Man (2006), The Omen (2006), Black Christmas (2007), Halloween (2007), I Am Legend (2007), Prom Night (2008), April Fools Day (2008).
With plenty of remakes/reboots in the works the only question left is,
WHAT WILL HOLLYWOOD SCREW UP NEXT!?!?!?!?!
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It is the same with every new generation now..because remakes mostly suck….The new viewers have no idea the movies they are seeing are remakes…and that the originals were freakin’ excellent!…I for one am tired of Hollywood making the same movies over and over…with their quality diminishing more and more..until they are a parody and shadow of the originals…
I was born on 1990 yet i was raised in 60s to 80s horror i broke down ever movie i understand love them all the only movie that was remade and made sense was the friday the 13th remake, out of all the remakes it was the best it showed how he got to his victims so quick and the reason why he had a hostage is cause she looked like his mother the one woman in this world he do anything for, i mean we all know the only reason his curse lives on is cause of the death of his mom. Jason is in all sense a zombie but a zombie with a mind feelings, what the remake did is show more of the feelings and parts of his the human like essence, sure the story line changed but a at least Jasons movements didn’t, i just want to protect his lineage all the way and the reboot stays in it, but you talk about all the other reboots made cause they suck a lot,especially the nightmare on elm street reboot, which in my families opinion(die hard original horror fans) is an abomination and a failure which nearly killed Freddys true reputation.
oh and they are redoing carrie again
For shame Jesse
I live my whole life ashamed,,,
I’m glad you brought this up Jesse. Remakes in general are one of the many things making Hollywood into the butt of every cinematic joke. Much of it started with the horror remakes. I didn’t bother with the Texas Chainsaw joke, nor did I bother with Friday the 13th. TChM lacked the blunt spirit, and FT13th looked like it had a creative team that I’m sure Jason Voorhees would love to track down (and I don’t mean that mess they created). Even if sequels or prequels are under hands to making money, I accept them more than trying to fix what doesn’t need to be fixed. Nightmare on Elm Street I didn’t bother paying to see. Aside from the fact I was curious about the new Freddy, I was not liking the rest of it. Particularly, I glimpsed the recreation of what would be Tina’s death. The original moment was so innovative for it’s time, and yet it was so awkward, so raw, that it hit that nerve that much harder. In the remake trailer, what they did was so common place, so CGI–it was useless. I did watch it when it was on Netflix, what I saw was the filmmakers take NOES and tried to give it a twist, and then said,”HA! No we’re not.” Not that it’s any of my business but you should school your 19 year old friend on Robert Englund and see what she says. But in my experience from her generation, and even some in our generation, they will probably say something frustrating like, “This is so 80′s.”
I am 32, I remember seeing the first Nightmare on Elm Street with my babysitter when I was about seven. She told me, “Don’t tell your parents, this is going to be really scary!” It didn’t disappoint, it was starkly terrifying…preying on dreams, shared dreams. The remake was off-base, cgi and make-up robbed a great actor of one of the best tools, the eyebrows. I’m a bigger fan of Friday the 13th, and I liked how the “remake” paid homage to the earlier films, however, it would have been much better as a true remake, featuring Pamela Voorhees. As for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, can anything really live up to the original? When Leatherface closed the slaughterhouse door in the original movie, I was terrified, had trouble sleeping. I think Michael Bay’s problem is he thinks that we need to know a motivation behind the deadly action. The motivation should be, and was, random death delivered on undeserving and unsuspecting people. This is the true horror in the world, death has many faces and none. Random death happens to good people for no reason, and to bad people for no reason. What truly scares us is giving up the illusion of control, and these movies expressed that in the most effective way. Where the sequels mostly fail, and the remakes are doomed to fail, is trying to humanize the boogeyman. The fear of death, the reality of death, will always be far more terrifying than the explanation of death. For the record, my favorite NOES is 2 and my favorite Friday the 13th is part 4.
AlexMills has reminded me about another re-make that wasn’t touched by Michael Bay but just as bad…Halloween (I know it’s technically not 80′s but it paved the way for many slasher films, including a ripoff named Jason Voorhees). I’ve always liked Rob Zombie’s music and I love and own his first two movies. They weren’t the most original, but he took some familiar plot lines and put his own characters in them–they’re great. Then came the disappointments, Halloween 1 & 2. Like AlexMills has pointed out humanizing the boogeyman, Rob Zombie’s vision is a great example. Original: Michael Myers was in a middle class home, and for no reason the kid just snapped. RZ Remake: Michael Myers’ mommy was a white trash stripper, making him a focus of ridicule at school. On top of that, his white trash step-father was a lazy and abusive hard-ass–of course he snapped. This is a generation that needs an explanation for just about everything. It has led writers and directors to humanize villains. Which is why remakes are a BAD thing. That’s why Halloween was a bad remake. It was scarier when there was no explanation why Michael Myers is a bad guy–he just simply is. If you want to tell the story why a villain became so bad…create another character. Don’t try to update Michael Myers, he’s timeless going after Laurie Strode; the one played by Jaime Lee Curtis not the BITCH Rob Zombie came up with. That’s another problem with this generation, nothing is black and white but many shades of gray. Many people cannot grasp the concept of a genuinely evil villain. Not even a genuinely good guy there’s always a hidden agenda with every character. So it’s not the good natured doctor Loomis trying to stop the evil Michael Myers. It’s the greedy douche doctor Loomis trying to stop the now tragic figure Michael Myers. The biggest disappointment of Rob Zombie is that he didn’t have the sense to move on. Instead like a tool he made a sequel which I didn’t bother with. But I’ll hope for the best that Lords of Salem will be worth paying for.