Last House on the Left Remake

[Minerva_Zombi]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl2lmFPBGN8

I think I might be suprised with this one. Im a HUGE fan of the original film. And this looks pretty good. Hopefully they keep the realism. It helps you identify with the characters.

[MinionZombie]

No way in hell they'll go as far as the original movie, let alone the original script, and I wouldn't be surprised if they let Mari live in the end.

There is absolutely no way that that remake is going to "keep the realism" - the original movie was shot with a shoestring crew out in the woods doing goodness knows what to the point that some of the actresses/actors were thinking something actually messed up was about to go on.

Garrett Dillahunt, as much as I liked him in Assassination of Jesse James and as Chromartie/John Henry in Sarah Connor Chronicles, there is no way he can beat the original, long-standing cult figure of David Hess.

Also, the gang - all too young and fresh faced - in the original they were all a bit rough looking, Hess looked older in the part, and certainly not pretty - he was downright repulsive in the role at times - Junior was a frog-faced junkie no-hoper - Weasel just looked flat-out dangerous, and Sadie was the best looking of the bunch, but was nothing short of feral.

The way the original was shot too, it was all very low budget, and at the hands of a small crew out there in the woods at the time of grindhouse cinema - no fancy editing, no colour grading, no steadicams or dolleys, just down and dirty, brutal filmmaking.

Just from the trailer these differences are painfully obvious...and especially with Last House, you can't remake that film's release (under numerous titles on a rolling tour of drive-ins and grindhouses across the countries in which it was allowed to be shown), nor can you remake the cultural significance, nor the controversy surrounding it.

In other words - it's pointless and it definitely will not live up to the original, I'm 100% guaranteeing that - there's something still 'dangerous' about the original movie, this remake is just another relatively high budget 'studio' remake with familiar faces (rather than unknowns - bar Weasel who was known in the porn industry) and familiar songs.

It's too clean, too swish, too fancy, too familiar - it can never be the original movie. It'd be like remaking I Spit On Your Grave, or Cannibal Holocaust - the very definition of pointless.

This constant raping of past genre classics is just ridiculous, and I sincerely hope this latest remake sinks into the ether like that god-awful remake of The Fog.

[MoonSylver]

I could take your post almost word for word MZ & apply it to another film: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All of the aforementioned reasons are the same for why that film works as well & why the remake just can't live up to that standard. While the remake isn't light & fluffy, there's just no way to artificially capture that low down, raw, dangerous, primitive grit these types of movies are all about. There's something almost subversive about them. It's almost like watching a snuff film. Like footage smuggled out of some 3rd world country. The low tech, primitive vibe lends an air of authenticity to the films in question. In a polished, modern remake?:|

Now F13th? Oddly, I'm ok with that. That type of vibe really wasn't present there. It was fairly standard, straight forward film making. And since it's been sequel-ized to death anyway, a remake feels like about the most natural think in the world somehow...it's almost like another sequel...

[MinionZombie]

Now F13th? Oddly, I'm ok with that. That type of vibe really wasn't present there. It was fairly standard, straight forward film making. And since it's been sequel-ized to death anyway, a remake feels like about the most natural think in the world somehow...it's almost like another sequel...

Although again, Parts 1 through 4 felt quite low down and gritty in themselves, nowhere near as polished as the remake, nor with big tunes in them (that happened in Part 6 mind you - but as they were made for the film, or one was anyway, it kinda worked at that time in the mid-80s).

Remaking Last House is such a stupid idea. It really is.

[capncnut]

Remaking Last House is such a stupid idea. It really is.
Quite agree. But...

...is it really worthy of remaking? It might have been shocking in 1972 but let's admit it, it's just a watchable turd nowadays. The only reason why I bung it in the DVD player is because of the utterly hilarious commentary by Krug & Co.

[MinionZombie]

Quite agree. But...

...is it really worthy of remaking? It might have been shocking in 1972 but let's admit it, it's just a watchable turd nowadays. The only reason why I bung it in the DVD player is because of the utterly hilarious commentary by Krug & Co.
It's still an important film in the horror genre, and it speaks for the time in which it was made, and it speaks for the methods employed to make it.

It's a classic of the genre, and it has a lot of history - so it's still a very much noteworthy film.

Worthy of remaking? I think it's just 'easy' to remake it because:

1) The lack of risk and originality in Hollywood/the horror genre right now.
2) Established "brand" with lots of history.
3) Basic plot to sink your teeth into.

What would be interesting is how far will they actually go with the violence and such in the woods - will they wimp out on it, will they soften it up, will Mari live to the end of the film (possibly suggested in the trailer) and so on.

I still remember the story being related to the viewer on the DVD, about how the original script, when being typed up for copies by a typing pool, was taking so long to turn up because the typists were all handing around each new page and reading it in stunned fascination - you just don't get background stories like that with remakes, and that's representative of why it's so futile to have these remakes of genre classics.

I keep banging on about it, but if you're gonna remake, remake a shit film - like Drive-In Massacre - the original was absolute garbage, but there are themes that could be grabbed onto for a solid retro-slasher in a grindhouse stylee.