Many of us horror fans will by now be very familiar with the sense of Deja Vu that seems to accompany being a horror fan these days. I don’t mean in some strange Matrix-esque style of reliving ones life, but rather that almost more bizarre feeling of having seen something on our TV (or in the cinema) which surely we’ve seen before. Usually with different actors, and perhaps more dated special effects. But the bottom line, we’ve seen this. It is a frustrating sense of deja vu that is becoming more and more frequent. It is that most odd horror phenomenon, the remake, the reimagining, the return to familiar ground. Horror it seems has become a regular breeding-ground for these films, stories already told. Can we stomach any more?

The fact of the matter is that Horror fans on many forums have frequently voiced the fact that we seem to have a lot of remakes pushed our way. Is it that we’re easy targets? Are our films so unable to stand up to the trials of time? I mean, surely there is a reason why we’ve seen Psycho twice, Dawn of the Dead twice, The Hills Have Eyes 4 times (sequels and remakes of sequels) and a number of other films. And with the impending Radio Show with Bloody Disgusting’s very own Mr. Disgusting (one of the big names in our beloved genre) looming, I found myself reading some of his fine articles on the upcoming Friday the 13th film (which I take it will not really be a ‘remake’ but will not really be continuing it on Earth 2 with Jason X as its predecessor, to my eternal disappointment) which continues the trend of new stuff trying to copy the old stuff. Many horror fans have had it up to their eyeballs in remakes, and are dying for something original.

Here’s where I differ from my fellow horror fans, as I have said repeatedly on the HMF radio show, because I am all for letting people try something new, or something old as it were. For a start, I’m one of those sad pseudo-intellectuals who actually believes that at the base, there really only are a limited amount of narratives. Hell, I am not even sure I buy the theory that there are 8, I think there might just be 7. All good things come in sevens. Days of the week….. and….. Dwarves. Ok, good things don’t come in sevens, but narratives do. For those of you not familiar with it, give this very brief intro a quick read. Even more briefly, its the literary theory that there are only a few good stories out there, and we just keep adding content to those basic structures. Quite a funky thought in my opinion. My point is that the originality is not really that big a deal. How often haven’t we seen films that are almost spliced together from two films, combining 2 narratives or at least borrowing from each other. Who here didn’t sit down and think that in many ways our favourite films resemble some other films. My point is not that there is no originality, my point is that what makes us love films isn’t how amazingly original they are in all aspects, its what they do bring to the table. Rob Zombie’s Halloween, for what it was worth, at least gave us something interesting in the Michael Myers story, even if it did not appear in any great length to differ from many of our modern slashers, except perhaps in good style. Likewise, The Thing, The Fly, and Dawn of the Dead were not terribly original compared to their predecessors, but they did change things and make them a bit more impressive. Is that so bad?

According to horror fans, it seems it is. We greet new films, who often no doubt think they have a really cool new take on an old story, with a mixture of disappointment and anger as though we were actually expecting something other than the new take on an old story. I for one am loving it. Why reinvent the wheel?

Now some will tell me that its all very well to try and recycle some storylines, or to splice them, as Doomsday did by becoming Mad Max meets 28 Days Later in Braveheart. They even say that some ‘reimaginings’ are worthwhile. They just don’t want remakes. Well, I for one am happy to have a familiar title with a new-look film that recycles a storyline, every bit as much as one which triest to invent a newfangles title for a recycled story-line. Every film I watch, I think that there is potential to do something good with it. Does that mean all films are good? Fuck no. There are so very many films I wish I could unwatch or at the very least forget about. Equally true, there are a fair few that are mediocre and indifferent. But hey, it was worth the effort.

Even one of my ‘holy grail’ films of horror, The Wicker Man, was given the remake, and I cursed it’s name to the skies, until I realized that if we’re honest, I couldn’t care less about that film (it was a pile of dung, btw) but someone might’ve liked it. Let them try to enjoy it. I don’t need to watch it, or to buy it. Let them try to make others happy.

This ties in very much with one of my previous opinion articles on here, and if I’m honest, ties right into my MA thesis about John Stuart Mill. The fact of the matter is that remakes are just like-titled films for us to try and enjoy. I don’t think they are any better or worse than new try-hard horror films which inevitably resemble old ones anyway, and which more truely resemble even older stories in literature and theater. So what if they aren’t purely original, what is. So what if you don’t like it, someone else might. So what if they retread familiar footsteps, at one point we liked those footsteps, perhaps someone younger can like these once more.

I end this little article with a little thought I always enjoy. If you think of a good idea, and find someone else has already thought it, does that make it a bad idea? Or is that not proof that perhaps that is a good idea waiting to happen. Could not our remakes be good ideas? We can only judge, one film at a time. Or 2 if you like good movie marathons as any good horror fan should.

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