ripperman
Posts: 134
Joined: 3/10/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DancingClown
quote:
ORIGINAL: Tidus
I think lots of the Stephen King movies could be re-done, IT is too long imo though they would have to find someone awesome for pennywise.
Lots of them look very dated Pet Semetry, Children of the corn, Salems lot, Christene (this one would be very hard to pull off)
To be fair IT was a mini-series as opposed to a film. And besides an epic, complex story like IT that spans decades needs length. I have mixed feelings about IT, although I think the casting of the kids was pretty much perfect, the location was perfect for Derry and it was very atmospheric. Tim Curry was great, of course. But as a network mini-series it lacked real horror, despite having some chilling moments, and as many of you who have read the book will know there are some pretty hard-core moments there that just simply couldn't be replicated on network telly. So despite having the adequate amount of time needed to convey the story and its various time-strands the terror the characters felt as adults didn't seem justified enough because the horror they wtinessed as kids had been toned down. I do remember talk a few years back about a new adaptation that centred entirely around the young girl's point-of-view though nothing seemed to come of that. But there's the rub - a proper adaptation needs the room for the book's complexities and you can only really get that on TV, but as a compromise the horror gets muted as a result.
Salem's Lot was another mini-series (although it was released briefly as a film in a version that's nearly impossible to find these days) and it was remade recently with Rob Lowe in the David Soul role. And it was utter bollocks that wasn't even remotely chilling, the writers had attempted to modernise the story which just didn't work. Contemporary vampires are just not scary. And that was one of the Hooper version's strengths, the vampires were properly scary. In the remake the vampires were made to be more loquacious, more self-aware, more weirdly human. That may work for Buffy and Twilight but in this case it killed the story dead. It was shit. The original may look a little dated but it's still very effective as horror, despite the 70s melodrama. It's drenched in rural, gothic atmosphere, the location is perfect for The Lot, the casting is fantastic (despite the writer turning Mr Barlow into Nosferartu). As a huge fan of the book I may have quibbles with some of the plot and character changes but everything else was pretty much nailed.
As for Pet Semetery. The film is very atmospheric and managed to nail the sense of mortal dread that pervades the book, and there are some chilling moments (Zelda, anyone?), but the economic script just didn't allow time for the book's themes of death and grief to be properly explored, and as a result the characters lacked depth and true motivation. How does a man of reason and science end up digging up his dead son? The main character arc was just a bit too flimsily conveyed, ironic considering that King wrote the screenplay himself. Rumours of a new adaptation have been circulating for years and I certainly would be intrigued. Although I simply can't imagine anyone other than Fred Gwynne as Jud Crandall, it's like the role he was born to play.
Christine. As has been mentioned the premise doesn't exactly send a shiver down the spine, although King intended his novel to be like a "warped episode of Happy Days" more than anything else, so a satirical approach would be key and there's certainly a lot of dark humour in Carpenter's film. Perhaps a remake with a more contemporary setting in this case could actually work, as the story's themes about teenage alienation and high-school rites of passage are certainly universal and self-perpetuating and could easily be conveyed with modern teenagers. Although the car itself - the Plymouth Fury - is fairly iconic and I do think that would have to stay the same, despite a more contemporary setting. So would that ultimately work? Would a modern American teenager fall for such a vintage model? Not sure. Perhaps an Impala.
Yeah I think Pet Sematary holds up pretty well. Some really disturbing imagery abounds throughout such as the funeral, nightmare inducing stuff  Having said that a remake could be interesting. It is one of those stories that has a good premise and asks a lot of interesting questions, plus the movie wasn't one of the big horror guns like Halloween et al so no sacrilege involved.
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RE: Remakes you want - 
You hush your mouth! 
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