Your thoughts on those modern reboots of classic slasher franchises?

shadow_priest_x said:
Here's the real question:

What could they have done to reboot the franchise, and stay true to the spirit of the original, which WOULDN'T have felt lackluster? How could this be accomplished?

Personally, I thought the movie was okay. Not great, but okay. My biggest issue with it was making Freddy a pedophile, which I thought was just unnecessary.
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Freddy being a pedophile was always hinted at in the series, just never explicitly stated or shown.
 
I really liked Rob Zombies Halloween movie (I didn't see the second one though) The back story on Micheal Myers was really cool, the movie kind of faded as it went on, but I still thought it was good none the less.
 
TheRuthlessOne said:
He showed talent tho

Have you seen Devil's Rejects? Halfway through that movie he gets us to feel sympathy for the Devils and actually makes the Cop chasing them into the fucked up bad guy.

It is probably his best movie now that I think about it
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Easily his best effort, and I would put it up there as one of the best horror flicks of the decade. You can tell he had real vision and a passion for bringing that story to life.

He really dropped off after that though. Maybe the studio sucked the life out of him, when he was remaking Halloween. I always go back to TDR and think maybe it was never as good as I remember, but nope, still holds up. Great movie, and there isn't much to compare it to, either. It's a pretty unique flick. That was Zombie firing on all cylinders, and I doubt we'll ever see anything remotely as good from him ever again. I think he just caught lightning in a bottle.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
One justification could be the same reason James Bond was rebooted with Casino Royale: There are more stories to tell with these characters.

Presumably if these new versions had spawned sequels then the sequels would've been new stories, not remakes of the old stories.
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While in THEORY I agree...

James Bond however is a secret agent in a world of crime and mystery solving destroying a new bad guy of the week.

Its WAY harder to have "new stories" when the sticking point is the villains shtick of "killing kids in their dreams"

like James Bond can live on infinitely because there are a shit zillion different crime/mystery/action stories that can be told with him as the centerfold

WAY harder when the method of dealing with the villain is pretty much laid out in the first volume.

Like...we cant have a sequel called "ELM" where Freddy Kreuger gets brought into the real world, loses his powers, and discovers he has a long lost brother who's trying to destroy him? like it just doesnt work.... I mean...in THEORY.... you COULD do it.... it would just be really fucking bizarre turning your despicable villain into the anti-hero.

Freddy/Jason/Michael Meyers ain't no Terminator/James Bond, who can flow in and out of different themes as hero/anti-hero due to their genre...

the horror genre restricts those iconic characters into essentially being "how can we kill people in new ways utilizing our already established universe-rules"

I have to disagree on that one.

For me, that subject is such an uncomfortable one that I can't have fun with it. All the fun factor would be killed if I'm watching 90 minutes of a pedophile trying to murder kids. At the end of the day these films are still supposed to be entertaining and that is just not entertaining to me. It's the wrong kind of creepy.
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Fair point
 
iThrillhouse said:
While in THEORY I agree...

James Bond however is a secret agent in a world of crime and mystery solving destroying a new bad guy of the week.

Its WAY harder to have "new stories" when the sticking point is the villains shtick of "killing kids in their dreams"

like James Bond can live on infinitely because there are a shit zillion different crime/mystery/action stories that can be told with him as the centerfold

WAY harder when the method of dealing with the villain is pretty much laid out in the first volume.

Like...we cant have a sequel called "ELM" where Freddy Kreuger gets brought into the real world, loses his powers, and discovers he has a long lost brother who's trying to destroy him? like it just doesnt work.... I mean...in THEORY.... you COULD do it.... it would just be really fucking bizarre turning your despicable villain into the anti-hero.

Freddy/Jason/Michael Meyers ain't no Terminator/James Bond, who can flow in and out of different themes as hero/anti-hero due to their genre...

the horror genre restricts those iconic characters into essentially being "how can we kill people in new ways utilizing our already established universe-rules"



Fair point
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Didn't New Nightmare do something pretty cool for a horror movie

I remember it being like a real world movie where Nightmare is just a movie and all the actors are characters in the movies
 
TheRuthlessOne said:
Didn't New Nightmare do something pretty cool for a horror movie

I remember it being like a real world movie where Nightmare is just a movie and all the actors are characters in the movies
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yes! and he did sort of the same meta-referential movie with Scream 3 which ALSO was about hollywood making a movie based on the events of Scream 1,

he loves that shit
 
iThrillhouse said:
While in THEORY I agree...

James Bond however is a secret agent in a world of crime and mystery solving destroying a new bad guy of the week.

Its WAY harder to have "new stories" when the sticking point is the villains shtick of "killing kids in their dreams"

like James Bond can live on infinitely because there are a shit zillion different crime/mystery/action stories that can be told with him as the centerfold

WAY harder when the method of dealing with the villain is pretty much laid out in the first volume.

Like...we cant have a sequel called "ELM" where Freddy Kreuger gets brought into the real world, loses his powers, and discovers he has a long lost brother who's trying to destroy him? like it just doesnt work.... I mean...in THEORY.... you COULD do it.... it would just be really fucking bizarre turning your despicable villain into the anti-hero.

Freddy/Jason/Michael Meyers ain't no Terminator/James Bond, who can flow in and out of different themes as hero/anti-hero due to their genre...

the horror genre restricts those iconic characters into essentially being "how can we kill people in new ways utilizing our already established universe-rules"
Click to expand...

Good point.

Perhaps one way to tell new stories--and new kinds of stories--is through genre bending and mixing.

For instance, look at something like Bride of Chucky. It is my favorite entry in the whole franchise and for that one they more or less did exactly what you're talking about: They made Chucky an anti-hero and also introduced certain comedy elements that had not been a part of the franchise before. If you compare the original Child's Play to Bride it's almost like they're not even part of the same movie series.

I'm not saying they need to do that exact thing with Jason, Freddy or MM but I think what it illustrates is that with some out-of-the-box thinking these characters can have new life breathed into them.
 
shadow_priest_x said:
Good point.

Perhaps one way to tell new stories--and new kinds of stories--is through genre bending and mixing.

For instance, look at something like Bride of Chucky. It is my favorite entry in the whole franchise and for that one they more or less did exactly what you're talking about: They made Chucky an anti-hero and also introduced certain comedy elements that had not been a part of the franchise before. If you compare the original Child's Play to Bride it's almost like they're not even part of the same movie series.

I'm not saying they need to do that exact thing with Jason, Freddy or MM but I think what it illustrates is that with some out-of-the-box thinking these characters can have new life breathed into them.
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Freddy vs Jason I thought worked

Gotta get these guys all on board for Freddy vs Jason 2 Ft Michael Myers
 
TheRuthlessOne said:
Freddy vs Jason I thought worked

Gotta get these guys all on board for Freddy vs Jason 2 Ft Michael Myers
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Dude, Freddy vs Jason is actually the ONLY movie with any of these characters that I own on Blu-Ray. I was a bit disappointed with it the first time I watched it, but I grew to love it. I think it's really well done.

It really is a shame there was never a sequel. It made almost $115 million on a budget of only $30 million so I'm not sure why they didn't make another one.
 
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shadow_priest_x said:
Dude, Freddy vs Jason is actually the ONLY movie with any of these characters that I actually own on Blu-Ray. I actually was a bit disappointed with it the first time I watched it, but I grew to love it. I think it's really well done.

It really is a shame there was never a sequel. It made almost $115 million on a budget of only $30 million so I'm not sure why they didn't make another one.
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What would you have had happen in a sequel? I think you're setting up a bigger hurdle for originality / quality there than reboots of the other franchises in this thread.
 
TheRuthlessOne said:
Freddy vs Jason I thought worked

Gotta get these guys all on board for Freddy vs Jason 2 Ft Michael Myers
Click to expand...

shadow_priest_x said:
Dude, Freddy vs Jason is actually the ONLY movie with any of these characters that I actually own on Blu-Ray. I actually was a bit disappointed with it the first time I watched it, but I grew to love it. I think it's really well done.

It really is a shame there was never a sequel. It made almost $115 million on a budget of only $30 million so I'm not sure why they didn't make another one.
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Freddy vs Jason is great. Stupid stoner humor. Slasher humor. Turning Jason into somewhat sympathetic was a great touch

Freddy vs. Jason teaming up in a buddy cop type - we've gotta stop Michael Myers because he's bringing too much heat to our state kinda story would be great.
 
BisexualMMA said:
What would you have had happen in a sequel? I think you're setting up a bigger hurdle for originality / quality there than reboots of the other franchises in this thread.
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I dunno. At the end Jason comes up out of the lake with Freddy's head . . . that then grins and winks at the camera. So it just seems like there are more rounds to go in this championship fight.

Though I do like @TheRuthlessOne's idea, bring in Michael Myers!
 
BisexualMMA said:
What would you have had happen in a sequel? I think you're setting up a bigger hurdle for originality / quality there than reboots of the other franchises in this thread.
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I remember reading that the original idea was to introduce Pinhead in an end credit scene

He was going to pull Freddy and Jason to hell and set up a sequel

That idea was scraped cause I believe they couldn't get the rights to pinhead or something like that
 
shadow_priest_x said:
Dude, Freddy vs Jason is actually the ONLY movie with any of these characters that I actually own on Blu-Ray. I actually was a bit disappointed with it the first time I watched it, but I grew to love it. I think it's really well done.

It really is a shame there was never a sequel. It made almost $115 million on a budget of only $30 million so I'm not sure why they didn't make another one.
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I'm reading here that they spent 25 million dollars in marketing

Look at this shit
 
TheRuthlessOne said:
I remember reading that the original idea was to introduce Pinhead in an end credit scene

He was going to pull Freddy and Jason to hell and set up a sequel

That idea was scraped cause I believe they couldn't get the rights to pinhead or something like that
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This just doesn't sound like my kind of movie. At that point, they're just writing to try to connect the dots between showdown X and showdown Y rather than having a story they actually want to tell. I'm just picturing 6 disposable teenagers and the audience clapping like when Norm walks into Cheers whenever Freddy / Jason / Myers / Pinhead appears on screen. There's definitely an audience for that sort of thing but it isn't me.
 
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