The remake is all too common these days, filling the box office with the same stories we’ve seen time and time again. Of course, it’s perfectly understandable why studios choose to fund remake projects: They’re tried-and-tested products that come pre-packaged with a legacy and name recognition from already being a part of cultural memory. Creatively speaking, remakes mostly fall under two categories:An older filmgetting an update on its special effects, actors, or cultural sensibilities for a modern audience; or anon-English speaking filmbeingremade for American audienceswith English dialogue and more Western cultural values. In most cases, remakes are sadly quite cynical in their creation, even getting made against the wishes of the minds that originally created the intellectual property, but there have been times when projects were actually run by (or at least overseen by) the original creators. Strangely, we see this phenomenon most often in the realm of horror cinema.
Why Are There So Many Horror Remakes?
It’s well-known that the film industry isa legal minefield of intellectual property rights and lawsuits, so where do the filmmakers who create the original work fall into the grand scheme of these multi-million dollar remake projects? In most cases (there have been some legal blunders…), the rights to these films are bought from the original production companies and created independently of them, leading tovarying results, or the same production company that owns the film chooses to remake it without considering the involvement of the original minds. There are times however, when the creator of a film is brought in to be part of the second shot at their work, respecting their vision and giving them the chance to oversee or even lead the remake of the film.As previously stated, this rare case is seen most commonly in the horror genre: Arthouse cinema legendMichael Hanekeremadehis 1997 German-language horror hitFunny Gamesalmost shot-for-shot, simply swapping the setting and the characters out for American counterparts. Japan’s ghostly horror iconTakashi Shimizuwas brought on bySam Raimi’s Renaissance Pictures to create a summarized and streamlined American adaption of his episodic haunting seriesJu-On. Contemporary exploitation horror stapleEli Rothwanted to experiment and oversaw the remake of his first film,Cabin Fever, in the hands of creative minds he respected in order to see how the results would be different. In an industry where most writers and directors would much rather protect their intellectual property and original vision, it’s interesting to witness an artist happily oversee their work repeated all over again.
Michael Haneke Originally Made ‘Funny Games’ for an American Audience
When it comes to highbrow, thought-provoking, anddeep macabre cinema, few directors are as highly regarded as Michael Haneke.The Austrian visionary has given us nearlyfour decades of highly acclaimed work, with a daringly unique vision shared across the majority of his filmography. Haneke’s films are (typically) very cold, detached, clinical explorations of violence and sadism and their various manifestations through identity, individualism, and class struggle. It’s heavy stuff, and whether it be explored through the suicide-inducing monotony of bourgeoisie life inThe Seventh Continentor through the warped, terminally digitalized eyes of a broken mind inBenny’s Video,Haneke always successfully devastates and breaks the spirits of his audience… and perhaps his most powerful film to do it isFunny Games.The originalFunny Gameswas an Austrian-produced, fully German-spokenhome invasion horrorreleased in 1997, telling the tale of two sadistic killers torturing a well-off family in their holiday home for no other reason than sick entertainment. The film made the horrifyingly effective choice to directly involve the audience in the film, with the camera representing an almost-POV shot of an unnamed third killer following along and bearing witness to the sadistic games that the killers play. The experience is a commentary and criticism on the glorification of violence in media, facing the viewer with extreme pain and despair and asking “You wanted this, didn’t you? You came here to watch a violent horror film, so now, you’re a part of this violence.” It’s a very hostile film that figuratively assaults and berates the audience with mind games much like its characters are doing to their victims, and as reflected inan interview with cinema.com, Haneke intended this experience for the United States. “The first version of the film unfortunately didn’t get seen by its intended audience because it was in German, so I thought this would be a good opportunity for it to reach the audience it was originally made for.“In a2017 study from Cambridge Universityby Iain Robert Smith and Constantine Verevis, Haneke’s desire to address the audiences of America with his commentary on media violence inFunny Gamesis explained to have been limited by America’s resistance to foreign film. A substantial chunk of US film viewers will not watch films not spoken in English. Of course, dubbed films can break immersion if not done well, and in a nation that produces the majority of worldwide cinema hits, it’s understandable that American audiences aren’t accustomed to watching films with subtitles. This is why Haneke chose to make the same exact film again simply recreated shot-for-shot with English-speaking actors. Haneke wanted his commentary on media violence to reach the country that pretty much began commercializing violent media on a worldwide, industrial scale. The case ofFunny Gamesis a rare exception to America’s industrial imperialism in the film industry, wherea remake was willingly made by the original creator himself, hoping that Americans watch his film and understand its message the second time around.
Shimizu Was Offered To Remake ‘The Grudge’ as a Streamlined, Big-Budget Film
Takashi Shimizuis a legend ofJapanese horror cinema. It’s no surprise either, as this 51-year-old filmmaker created one of the single most iconic horror series in history, as well as one of the most instantly recognizable horror villains:TheJu-onseries. Also known as theGrudgefranchise overseas,Ju-onis a long-running series of films, episodic mini-shows, and short films, all combining to tell the tale of a violent curse, left over from a double homicide, that continuously claims the lives of the residents of a suburban Japanese home. The series is known for its fully committed and complete hyper-focus on thebuild-up and pay-off of horror scenes. There’s very little filler or side content with characters being developed through B-plots. No, every minute of each Ju-on episode is spent building an atmosphere of dread leading towards terror as the iconic mother-and-son ghost duo arrives to wreak murderous havoc.The series has quite a few entries at this point, each one containing multiple episodic stories, and each told out of chronological order. The episodic, disordered nature of theJu-onseries helps amplify the horror through confusion and obfuscation of facts, keeping the horror a haunting mystery and maintaining the audience’s fear of the unknown intact. But of course, there’s a downside: It’s a very hard series to follow. Ju-on can be incredibly confusing, especially for Western audiences, as a lot of the lore and world-building is built on the foundation of Japanese folklore.So, when Sam Raimi’s Renaissance Pictures wanted to bring the magic of theJu-onfranchise to the Western World, Shimizu was brought on board in order to maintain the series' original feel and vision. Ina 2004 interview with Hollywood Gothique, Shimizu explained how his American reboot, simply calledThe Grudge, was a streamlined and summarized version of various episodes ofJu-on, brought together in a neat, easier-to-follow package and with the fancier special effects of a Hollywood budget to boot. Shimizu may not have been the one to jump at the chance for his vision to be remade for Americans, but he took the opportunity in order to see how his vision benefited from more flash and a refreshing new look at his series' increasingly complex lore.
Eli Roth Helped Make Another ‘Cabin Fever’ 14 Years Later
In a slightly different case than the rest, the beloved American director who exploded ontothe gore-riddled horror scene of the early 2000s, Eli Roth, also brought his brush back to a finished canvas, producing a remake of his very first feature film,Cabin Fever, in the hands of directorTravis Zariwny. The original filmput Roth on the map as a torch-bearer for the sexually explicit, gore and torture-focused horror homages of ’70s Grindhouse cinema, reviving the genre and revitalizing it with a lowbrow, post-American Piesense of humor through a deceptively simple premise: a group of students goes to a cabin and gets their flesh slowly eaten by a virus.Roth’s original effort kicked off his career and established his unique vision within the horror genre, a vision that is definitely an acquired taste that many have criticized since the director’s rise to fame. This is the main reason why Roth was so interested in seeing aCabin Feverremake. It wasn’t to oversee the project and ensure that his vision remained intact — quite the contrary — it was to experimentally see how the film changed 10 years later in the hands of a fellow filmmaker whom he respected now that Roth is an older, more experienced filmmaker. Inan interview with IGN, Roth spoke about how he’s changed as a director since makingCabin Feverat the ripe age of 30, and how this led to him quickly and excitedly jumping on the chance to produce a remake of his first film out of pure curiosity. The 2016remake ofCabin Feverutilized the exact same script but changed key moments such as character deaths, much to Roth’s enthusiastic excitement. “I looked at it as like staging a play – as an experiment I just wanted to see how it would turn out.“All in all, despite the many times that studios have gone ahead and remade films without the input of the original visionaries, it seems they’re more inclined to get them involved in the development of a horror remake. Horror is a unique film genre in how it utilizes the medium of cinema to create its desired effect, to terrify, and it’s the unique vision of the creators that subjectively defines how effective the terror is for the audience. In horror, the translation from script to screen is much more subjective than in other genres due to the elaborate and varied techniques of scaring someone and the near-infinite approaches one can take to apply these techniques. When as much as half a second of extra pacing or an extra source of lighting on set could completely change the feeling of a horror sequence, horror remakes stand to benefit a lot from keeping the original visionaries handy — so no wonder studios choose to bring ‘em on board!
