This is actually something I have been toying with for a while. In the past few months I’ve received emails and messages from folks asking for a full commentary. Now, since this is a huge endeavor I would just like to know people would be interested.
Here is what I aim to do. Here are 4 remakes:
Friday the 13th
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Prom Night
The Fog
Each of these has serious problems. What I want to do is a commentary where I talk about what they should have done, where they went wrong, and what made the original better. Of course, it wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t a heaping helping of sarcasm, so this won’t be a 100% serious affair. I picked these movies because they are the ones off the top of my head that I know I could go on and on about. (and I have) So if you folks are interested, let me know! If I get enough interest I’ll put up a vote so you can decide which one I will do. Also, these aren’t set in stone so if there is a movie you think I should do, go ahead and suggest!
Well I think you have both a good sense of humor and a great grasp of movies, so yeah why not? I mean hell I watch you talk about your favorite snacks at a movie theater.
New Project: Favorite snacks at the movie theater! 😛
This sounds like a great idea. While I’ve never watched any Nightmare movie (except Jason v Freddy), I’m always interested in what people think of the remake. Almost everyone hates it, but some people actually quite like it, mainly because it’s a return to the sleazy, non-pun filled roots.
As for the rest, it’d be nice to hear an analysis aside from “THIS REMAKE SUCKS BLAH!”
It’s a shame because they did have some good things going for them but in the end they went the lazy route.
Of those, I’d vote for Nightmare…but personally I’d love to hear you pick apart the remake of Stepfather. Man that one looked AWFUL.
The Stepfather is hysterically bad. The original is very, very serious and the remake was borderline comedy. I could have a lot of fun with that one.
I’m curious about the logistics. Would this be a downloadable audio file that sync up to a DVD like Rifftrax? Not sure I’m high on the idea since I haven’t seen any of these remakes and listening to the commentary would mean having to watch them, and once more for your opinion, and I don’t know if I could stomach that. Then again, I tend to be a bit more snobbish when it comes to movie choices. I remember standing outside the Redbox thinking about renting Friday the 13th because I had heard there was a particularly steamy scene towards the end, but talked myself out of it when I realized I’d have to endure over an hour of badly written “teen dialogue” first.
Yep, just like how Rifftrax does it. I may even put it up as an iRiff on their site.
The scene you are referring to is just about the best part of the movie. The girl in that scene is stunning!
If things work out the way I am planning you should really only have to know the original movies and not have seen the remakes before. Hell, with Twilight and the Transformers I only watch them with the Rifftrax.
i think this will be a seriously interesting series. i just hope you note that the friday the 13th remake benefited from being made from a lesser source than nightmare on elm street, the fog and the (not worthy of any attention) remakes of halloween and texas chainsaw massacre (the later being the best horror movie ever while the remake just sucked donkey balls). alot of people when talking about how terrible it was don’t note how it actually improved from the original in terms of story and characters.
also kinda shocked the my bloody valentine remake wasn’t one of the movie you picked. it’s in need of some defending
Rob Zombie did an admirable job with the Halloween remake. The movie was going to be made with or without him so he decided that perhaps a true fan of the series should take a crack at it. He tried to expand the story and I thought he did a good job.
I liked the remake of My Bloody Valentine. While I still think the original is superior, my only problem with the remake was the needless 3D.
I remember one critic here loved the 3D, mainly because of a couple scenes of stunning women walking around completely naked… IN 3D!
Then again, some of us can see 3D boobs whenever we want, so it sounded less impressive to me.
I saw the movie on DVD so I didn’t see the 3D. (although because it was so overdone, you could usually tell what was supposed to be 3D. Normal scene, normal scene, someone is pointing a rake at the camera) I do know the scene to which you are referring and yes, it is wonderful even without the 3D. I would say boobs are a glorious thing regardless…that was until the full frontal Kathy Bates scene in About Schmitt. I was never the same after that.
I’m interested! Just looking for plenty of notice for which movie is chosen so I can watch it before the commentary comes out to prepare
Don’t worry, it is going to take me a while to get all my research done. There will be plenty of notice. 🙂
Awesome! You should do The Roommate as well, since that’s basically a remake of Single White Female.
Oh, the Roommate…such a painful movie. Not even Leighton Meester, Minka Kelly, and Aly Michalka’s awesome midsection could save that one. You’re right, it was Single White Female for teens. I may have to keep that one in mind for the future because I don’t know if I want to watch it again so soon!
I like this idea. I haven’t seen 3 of the 4 you mentioned, but I have seen The Fog remake. Even if I don’t remember the original one, because I’ve only seen it once as a kid, I know the remake was just horrible from its own standpoint.
While the original Fog was very atmospheric and creepy, the remake was CGI Fog, CGI Fog, CGI Fog. Everything that made the original good they just threw out the window so they could have plenty of Boo scares and one of the most ridiculously stupid endings I have seen in quite some time.
Ok, that’s all the buy in I needed to convince me. I’ll put a poll up on the side bar for about a week and then I’ll get working on the winner. It will take me a while to get it done but I really want to make something worth listening to!
This is not going to delay your usual Good Bad Flicks reviews is it?
Nah, this is just something I’ll work on in between regular episodes. (which is another reason why it will take a while)
The only to me is worth another viewing would be the Friday the13th and I think it would be great if you got drunk and high on weed that is and do the commentary just a suggestion
There are some funny drunk commentaries out there but they are all group efforts. Not really my thing.
My vote is The Fog, I have such a white hot violent hate for all of the Carpenter remakes, but this one was ESPECIALLY uninspired. That crappy Prom Night “remake” looked like a made for cable Lifetime Movie; and there are actually people out there who will tell you that the F13 and NOEM remakes were actually good (I am not one of them), but EVERYONE hated The Fog remake. I would love to hear your input on it, as well as your praise for the atmospheric (and very awesome) original.
The Fog remake was terrible. While the original has one of the best, creepiest stories in horror, the remake had one of the dumbest, most dull, most nonsensical story ever. From what I remember, the movie looked really nice (the locations and such) but the effects, comedic relief, acting, etc were all awful.
Prom Night, for as terrible as it is, is a laugh riot. I wouldn’t mind doing that one because it is such an enjoyable watch for all the wrong reasons. I’ve seen it twice and it is a better comedy than most comedies.
NoES is bad because they took kills from the others in the series and did them poorly. If you are going to such lengths to create a new path for the character then why do a retread of the old material? All you are going to do is annoy fans of the original and the new fans you want to bring in won’t know the difference. Also, Rooney Mara was a terrible choice as Nancy. All she did was mope around the film the whole time. (which as it turns out according to her she was doing it on purpose because she is such a wonderful actress she really shouldn’t have been in such a movie) I can’t wait for her career to go away. Katie Cassidy should have had the lead, she was way better.
F13 had a very good Jason (Derek Mears) but the cast was a bunch of unlikable sots. I didn’t root for any of them, I just wanted them all to die.
Heh. John Carpenter is actually from my hometown so we sometimes like watching his movies just to see all the shoutouts he smuggles in. Like the original fog and all of its references to streets I’ve actually driven down and more.
So yeah. With a bit of bias I’m voting for the remake in this instance. 😉
That’s so cool. That is one of the things missing from directors today. They seem to be making films on a assembly line creating a product rather than actually making something their own. The best directors put their own little things into movies. It ties the movies together and it is just plain neat when you notice them.
I would vote for either F13 or Nightmare. That way we at least get to watch glorious kills and blood (nakedness is also welcomed) so the Fog and Promnight are out just for that. Hell to be honest if you do any of them I would go rent it and then watch it just for the commentary.
Well, it looks like it will most likely be either F13 or Nightmare, at least for the first one. F13 has some fantastic nudity, which they at least got that right. I think Prom Night would end up being the funniest and The Fog would end up being the one to make me the most angry. The way I keep thinking about these I may just end up doing them all anyway.
EDIT: Oh snap, I just noticed it was a 3 way tie between Nightmare, F13, and The Fog. My goodness! I wasn’t expecting that. Oh well, still a few more days of voting.
I’ve not seen any of these so I won’t vote, but I’d definitely love and watch a full-length commentary.
Thanks! I’ll do my best to make it good. ^^
I’d love to see The Fog properly riffed. Any of those remakes that decide to go the “SUPER CGI” over actual plot deserve this the most, I think.
I haven’t seen many of your videos (yet!) but you possess a great sense of dry wit from what I’ve seen and really capture some of that Mystery Science Theater sarcastic-energy than many online critics strive for but often fall short of. It really is highlighted in how much you clearly enjoy watching “bad” movies which is the same energy you get from the classic MST3K episodes where, even if they tore a movie apart, they clearly were having a great time watching the film and writing the jokes.
It’d be great to see an iRiff! 🙂
The Fog overdid the CGI so much. I think out of all of them it would lend itself well to more humor because it is such a disjointed mess. The whole thing was CGI fog and boo scares, it deserves a good trashing. As I’ve said before, I think I’ll probably end up doing all of these at some point.
I’m glad you are enjoying the show! I have always had an affinity for what most folks consider “bad” movies. While most people avoid bad movies, many times I’ve found myself thinking “I heard that movie was awful, I can’t wait to see it!”
I was considering putting it up as an iRiff in the hopes of appealing to a new audience that most likely are unaware of the show.
Yeah, The Fog was my pick just because it offers so many things to poke fun at. Plot makes no sense, the acting is awful, the effects were cartoonish and laughable even at the time of its release- just a complete mess.
Nightmare and Friday the 13th remakes were…well, just exactly what I would expect from Michael Bay produced remakes of 80s horror films. The Fog on the other hand is the same case as The Haunting remake: Very loosely use the source material to create an incomprehensible orgy of of failure all across the board.
Go with friday the 13th
Looks like that is going in that direction
I would so love to hear you rip them apart – especially Nightmare. I can’t believe how bored I was watching that! And I have a few choice things I could say about the F13 remake – although I did meet Derek Meers, and he is an awesome guy, but that movie was just atrocious. I’m in!
Nightmare made me angry at how lazy it was. They had plenty going for it but chose to just make it like a greatest hits of the previous movies but with zero impact. Mears is a monster! Such a nice guy but good lord he is huge.
I’d go with the Nightmare one. That’s the worst of the lot to me. Samuel Bayer should just stay away from directing movies. Jackie Haley puts the Rorschach character in too much and most of the deaths except the last one are really lame. Lousy acting, unlikable characters, and too much ripping off the original makes this one the worst of the four. At least the other movies put some effort into not being a shot for shot ripoff, although The Fog remake is almost just as bad as the Nightmare one.
One of the major problems I have with Platinum Dunes is the directors are all music video directors. I understand Bay is looking out for his buddies but then what we get is a bunch of movies that look like freaking music videos. All style, zero substance. It’s like 2 hours of dangling your keys in front of a newborn.
Thankfully it seems that Bayer’s movie directing career has stalled.
Derek Mears was a solid Jason and Julianna Guill was one of the hottest girls ever in a Friday film. However, a terrible script, shoddy directing and the shoehorning of three films into one just didn’t do it for me. TCM 2003 took the grimy nature of the TCM and made it look like a music video. It was one of the best of the Platinum Dunes movies but that’s not saying much.
It wasn’t really “balls” as much as it was they wanted to get to Jason and the hockey mask ASAP. He found it sitting in a freaking barn for crying out loud.
Its fine if you liked it, I just didn’t care for it.
I would be fine if they did a F13 sequel following the story of the first. I liked Mears a lot and wouldn’t entirely mind seeing them give it another go. Problem is, the first one did ok but not great. In Hollywood’s eyes it was a failure. So chances are if they did do another one they would make some serious changes, most likely for the worst. As it stands now though, the sequel is cancelled.
They have been talking about making a FF film with one of the big ones. I have a feeling it will be Halloween. A shame. I think there is potential in a FF slasher but they should do it as a new character, not try to bring a classic into it.
btw, still working on the rifftrax. Good grief, this took a lot longer than I anticipated