Call Me Snake…

Well, well…what a surprise, Hollywood – that bastion of original ideas, is remaking (ruining would be the better term), yet another classic 80’s movie..this time – Escape from New York. Now then, I am an 80’s kid, my formative early years were spent in the company of Snake Plissken, Robocop, Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees and all the other amazing celluloid heroes and villains of that great decade. These classic movies hold up as well today as they did back then, thanks to wonderful story telling, great actors and amazing directors, plus most of them were more than the sum of their parts, with an underlying message or theme that was indicative of the era they were made.

Hollywood are incapable of replicating the feel or theme of these classic movies, and yet they continue to churn out badly written remakes, with no wit or feeling and certainly no kind of social awareness or depth. Now some of you may say that all they are doing is updating them for a modern audience, and yet every remake so far had been a braindead, effects driven dud that is unable to compete with their superior forebears.

Halloween, Robocop, Friday the 13th, Total Recall, Fright Night, Poltergeist, Escape from New York….the list goes on, and if they’re not remaking 80’s movies, it’s Japanese or European horror, there really is no originality left anymore…I look to the independent scene more and more, it is here that all the great new ideas spring from these days…sigh, so friends, what are your thoughts on this…please feel free to discuss this in the comments.

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