Caffeinated Clint
Talks about the remake of the 80s flop
One of the more interesting ideas – stay with me, I’ll explain myself in a minute – floating around Hollywood and Highland (are the folks that hang about on the corner there called, um, Highlanders?) right now is the remake of “Shocker”.
It kinda makes sense.
a) Nobody saw the original.
b) There’s a fantastic lead character that could path the way for a major horror franchise.
c) There are millions of unused “Shocker” toys, in a factory somewhere, put into storage once the original film took a dive at the box office.
d) It was good fun – and with a few more bucks thrown its way, could be even better.
The idea of Wes Craven remaking say, “A Nightmare On Elm Street” makes me wanna vomit blueberries – he isn’t, by the way, and I hope it never happens – but the idea of the veteran horror hound going back and ‘improving’ on one of his more least successful films? I think that’s smart. Its like a hooker coming back the day after she was called in to offer a free follow-up BJ… because she a cold-sore prevented her from giving you the full banana the day before.
The original “Shocker” is a favourite of mine. It’s as dumb as Paris Hilton, but it’s also a lot of fun. The lead character, a serial killer who is resurrected (direct from the electric chair) by electricity, was a heap of fun. Horace Pinker was his tag. Great name, too. The film was also helped by a great hard-rock soundtrack – the ‘Megadeth’ song, ‘No More, Mr Nice Guy’ made more bucks than the film – and the presence of Mr.Peter Berg (pre-director’s cap) as the implausible hero.
Director Eli Roth (“Hostel”) told JoBlo.com recently that he thinks it’s a great movie for Craven to revisit too.
“He should remake Shocker because it deserves it. But I remember Shocker was the movie that Wes Craven said the ratings killed him on. So I think that maybe he should just go back and do a director’s cut of the original movie and show us what he originally intended. It’s different though. I think the term Shocker just has a different social context now. In 1980’s it was a Shocker but now what’s the tagline going to say? “Two in the pink, on in the stink?” How can I get so vulgar at two in the afternoon? I mean, it’s three questions and I’m already making…how does that happen? I apologize. I’m so sorry. You seem like decent people…thwart your point, leave it to me.”
What a pisser.
Anyway, Craven tells ComingSoon.net today that he’s developing both a remake of “Shocker” and a remake of “People Under the Stairs” (that one doesn’t need to be remade… the story sucks anyway).
“I think that if we were going to do “Shocker,” the original film had some real disasters happen with the special effects and opticals. It really fell short of what I wanted to do because we ran out of money and ended up having someone do them that didn’t know what he was doing. I think if that were done with better technical finesse in the opticals and special effects, I think it could be a lot of fun.”
Everyone knows me. I hate remakes, right?
Well, let me rephrase that; I hate remakes – but only remakes of films that don’t need to be remade; films that were great in the first place. On the other hand, I suppose, even ‘good’ films can still be remade … but only if they do something totally different with the second serve, say like Scorsese did with “The Departed” (a remake of “Infernal Affairs”). Now that’s a remake.
To remake “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Black Christmas”, “Weekend at Bernies”, “Spies Like Us”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Birds”… that’s fuckin ludicrous if you ask me – and if they had of asked me, we wouldn’t have been having this conversation; ha, who am I kidding? – Because they’re films that not only hold up well, but the studios don’t want to do anything different them besides make every character in the film under 20 and straight from The CW. The storyline, the twists, the turns… and the endings… are usually pretty much the same. It’s lazy fuckin’ filmmaking.
Sure, I know that a lot of teenagers today have probably never seen any of those original films – and the studio will use that as an excuse whenever you’re a in face-off with them about why they’re remaking something – but there is such a thing as DVD, ya know? Gone are the days when you had to hunt through video-store after video-store to find a VHS copy of “Black Christmas” or “The Hitcher” that wasn’t completely ‘chewed’ –these days, you’re promised a good quality copy every time.
“Shocker”, on the other hand, NEEDS remaking. There’s so much untapped potential here. Yes, you CAN get it on DVD … but the film itself has a lot of laws. It’s almost an ‘in-progress’ work.
Anyway, as Craven suggests, it’s still a while way – but it sounds like it’s coming; right after his “Last House on the Left” (oh boy…) remake. I know that its set up at Rogue – where Craven’s directing a new picture soon – and they’re pretty quick in turning their ideas into a reality, so don’t be surprised if “Shocker V 2.0” is on screens next year.
