Ghost Upon the Floor

     Late one rainy spring pandemic night, while scrolling through social media, the Ghost recently came across a post asking horror fans what modern film remakes-- from the 1970s through the 1980s-- were the best. For an even less discernible reason, I decided to marathon watch those I had not seen, to be able to answer such a curious question.

     The films listed were "Halloween," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Friday the 13th," "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Child's Play."


     Previously, I had seen the remakes of  Halloween and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. How did they all fare? What worth could there be in determining how well films that remade modern horror classics over the last decade or more had succeeded, failed and everything in between? I could not answer the question-- so I set out to find answers.

"Halloween" (2007)

     John Carpenter's 1978 film Halloween is, without hyperbole, my favorite horror film. It links the spirit of more old fashioned, Universal monster movies with very modern fear and horror, and does so, beautifully, to the backdrop of All Hallow's Eve. There is a reason why it has endured, and been imitated so often, and will continue to be so for years to come. No fear film holds up better for me; no matter how many times I watch Michael quietly stalk Jamie Lee Curtis and her friends in the waning afternoon before dusk falls on Halloween, I will always have my anxiety surge and heart beat fast as Laurie tries to run away after darkness falls and her friends have been killed.

     This is all to say that I avoided seeing the remake of Halloween for a long time. I did not see it when it first came out at the theater. I remember seeing a DVD for sale at a now long extinct Blockbuster shortly after it was released on video, and I snatched it up and put it on my shelf, where it stayed for a long time. I don't know how long I waited to watch it. But when I finally did, it was not what I was expecting, and it was not good.

    For me, Rob Zombie took everything that worked for the original film, and made it the opposite. The anonymity of Michael in the original, not knowing him, his motives, or even seeing him for much of the film, gave such a build up of dread and wonder; the kind of fear that lasts long after the last shot. In Zombie's film, Michael is given a paint by number sympathetic backstory, which is as predictable as it is ridiculous. And the charismatic actors of the first film-- the teens in Curtis and PJ Stoles, as well as the adults anchored by Donald Pleasance-- are replaced by unmemorable actors who struggle to stay with us as the characters and events of the first film did so beautifully.



     I only saw the movie once, and I have no desire to ever watch it again. The updated score is worth listening to as Carpenter's brilliance is timeless, but other than that, Rob Zombie's Halloween is something of an unsuccessful elseworlds story that I am comfortable leaving in the discount bin for all the years to come.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

     Since first appearing in 1984, Freddy Kreuger has had a long and varied legacy terrorizing teens in the A Nightmare on Elm Street films. He's fought Jason Vorhees from Friday the 13th, had offspring and even been brilliantly reinvented in 1994's New Nightmare. The one constant, however, until 2010's remake, was that the character of Freddy was played, always, by Robert Englund.


     I went into the remake of Nightmare with as much of an open mind as I could. I have long enjoyed the series and Englund's performance, but it had been many years since I saw a Nightmare film. Obviously, the most divisive thing about this remake is the recasting of Englund. Jackie Earl Haley's casting was blessed by Englund himself-- and, I found, the casting is actually the least of the film's problems. I didn't find Haley's performance problematic, and it is one of the reasons to see the film. This version of Freddy is darker (in terms of lightning, performance and story), and Haley's performance extends that, and works incredibly well. This Freddy is darkly menacing, and the fine line the production walks between having Freddy appear more like a burn victim but not too boldly associated with real-life burn victims is walked reasonably well. Freddy, like Michael Meyers and Jason, are our modern day monsters, and they will be recast for years to come, as Count Dracula and Frankenstein have been-- and will continue to be, as well.


      The script is good to average. There are some lines to be cringed at, but the younger actors are competent, and the older actors who add some weight to the production-- we're looking at you, Connie Britton-- do the best with what they can. The controversial decision to make no qualms about the fact Freddy was a child molester is not a bad one. It increases his malice and evil a great deal, and makes the actions of the parents more understandable.

     The end result is not a bad film-- and it is actually an affecting horror film in parts. The shadow of the original looms large, however, and it is never quite lived up to. If all we had was this remake, it was be hard to imagine we would have been given one sequel, let alone a whole film series spanning over thirty years. For fans of horror and the Nightmare series, this remake is respectable, and well worth watching. It is a shame we have not-- yet-- been given a proper sequel with Haley returning.


 Friday the 13th (2009)

     When the remake of Friday the 13th was first announced, I had every intention of going to see it. And I always meant to. When I embarked on my journey into the remakes, I knew it had been a few years since the movie had come out, and I'd had every intention of getting around to seeing it sooner or later.
     I was somewhat shocked it took me more than ten years. 2009's Friday the 13th, for apparently legal reasons, straddles the line between remake and sequel interestingly-- if not always deftly. The remake proper, or the rehashing and re-shooting of the story, happens in the first several minutes, before the title sequence. It wouldn't take much to have the script refer to the happenings of the first two films, and jump off from there as a sequel.

     Nevertheless, this is a remake the succeeds more than it fails. With Jason almost entirely masked by makeup or his iconic hockey headgear, the problems of recast actors that plague other films like Nightmare have never faced the Friday  films. There is not much original in this film-- younger people at a lake camp being butchered by Jason-- but there's also not much that is terribly bad. For the most part, the film feels like an unsteady, near return to form, that should have set off a few more modern sequels.


    Why it's been more than a decade and Jason has appeared in movie theaters is something I find curious.


Child's Play (2019)

     I have many opinions on the Child's Play films, and they are all over the place. The original trilogy decreases in quality, from an admittedly cheesy but effective starting point. The image of a killer's soul possessing an already creepy child's toy doll and running a murderous muck is a winner. In the 1990s, the later sequel  Bride of Chucky embraced the camp in a way the previous films hadn't-- to great success. The addition of a Frankenstein's monster's bride for Chuck in the way of Jennifer Tilly's character is a brilliant success, the kind of which the films in the franchise which came after never quite achieved.

     I was interested to see what would be done with the first legitimate remake of the Child's Play films. When your iconic horror star is an actor's voice in a doll, it doesn't seem to make sense to recast that voice; but, if you have to, you can't do much better than Mark Hamill. I was also excited to see what the comic talents of Aubrey Plaza, as the mother, would do in such a campy horror film.


     Apart from Rob Zombie's Halloween attempt, Child's Play was by far the worst of this crop of remakes. It swings big, often lazily, and misses all the same. I was willing to be game for this effort, but the film makes it nearly impossible to stay game. Done away with is the possessed serial killer angle, and in its place is a smart technology turned sentient and/or evil story, straight out of (but nowhere near the quality of) the Netflix television series Black Mirror. There may have been opportunities for a Bluetooth Chucky to be scary and entertaining, but this film does not find them.



     The script is at points laughably bad, such as when an entirely wasted (in terms of talent) Aubrey Plaza tells her son to go play outside, in the very urban city, at night under the street lights. This film also makes use of one of my least favorite horror tropes-- the murder of a family pet as an early sign to the threat's danger. The way in which this is done is so tasteless it turned me off from the film completely. Mark Hamill pardon the pun hams it up and tries to chew every last piece of scenery, but there is nothing in this film worth watching. Especially poorly done is the climatic brawl in a department store.

 Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

     Disclaimer time. Of all the horror franchises here discussed, the one I maintain the least fandom in is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre films. I first saw Tobe Hooper's 1974 original film when I was a kid, and the impression wasn't a lasting one. I remember being disturbed by the images of slaughtering people as farm animals are (and worse), and how images of people being placed on hooks were not one I would want to relive by re-watching the films every October, as I do with many of the original films on this list. However, the original TCM movie remains a titan in horror and has spawned countless films that have attempted to do what it did.

     Which brings us to the 2003 remake, which I did see at the time of it's release. Without having a huge love for the films or the character of Leatherface, I found the film a surprisingly effective horror movie in its own right, managing legitimate scares and gross outs that rivaled the original; or, at least, stood on their own from the original. I found it incredibly interesting that the original's cinematographer returned to work on the remake. While Daniel Pearl's work in the original is realistic and almost documentary like for the 1970s time in which it was made, his take on a darker, more stylized cinematography for the film in 2003 adds intriguing dimensions of fear to the work.

     All in all, I still find the Chainsaw remake the most effective remake of this lot. Keep in mind the original I am not a huge fan of, and I appreciate passionate fandoms, as I myself am a part of many of them.

 Today, November 8, 2012 is author Bram Stoker's 165th birthday. A day which has brought us a quite thoughtful Google doodle, and-- to my welcomed surprise-- a popular interest in Stoker's life and work online and in social media. 

Stoker has always been one of my favorite writers, even though I have read so little of his work other than "Dracula." As a man, Bram lived an incredibly interesting life-- one that would take many blog posts to get into, and one I am always looking to read more about. (I currently have an appealing and large biography of him sitting on one of my many bookshelves.)

 In looking through clips and passages and images to mark this post for Stoker's birthday, one comes up with a lot. Few other novels have been capable of creating a character which becomes larger than the book itself-- larger than the other books written because of it, than the movies made based on it, and so on. Although the legend and mythology of the vampire predated Stoker's work, Count Dracula has become synonomous with vampires, and certainly stands as the father of all modern appearances of vampires in popular culture-- as well as the father, in many regards, of modern horror in general. Devices that appear revolutionary in modern horror such as the pseudo-documentary that claims to be real evidence (for instance, the film "The Blair Witch Project") was done years ago with "Dracula" a novel written as all first hand accounts and diary/journal entires. At once, Stoker's novel is atmospheric, truly perfect Gothic horror tale; and, a very worthy piece of serious literature. I've written a bit about readings of "Dracula"-- there is so much in the novel; social commentary on what it means to fear the other (nationally, ethinically, sexually, religiously) abounds, but never hinders the effect the novel has at being such a successful horror story.

 I have many copies of "Dracula," and often can't resist buying new ones I see because I like a cover or a design. Perhaps my favorite copy (other than the worn paperback I devoured in grammar school when I first read it) is this hardback copy featuring the Edward Gorey illustrations. For all the wonderful movies spawned from "Dracula," all the pop-culture art and so on, there is nothing that has ever come up to the experience of reading the book. "3 May. Bistritz. - Left Munich at 8.35..."

 Happy Birthday, Bram.

 I've always been fascinated by the history of urban legends. Trying to trace the trail back to when the first time the story was told about the ghostly hitchhiker, or the man with the hook at a lover's lane. And this is why I became rather enthralled when I quite accidentally stumbled upon the- for lack of a more accurate term- legend of the Slender Man.


 After coming upon what appeared to be an urban legend I had never heard before, a quick Google search of the "Slender Man" gives you what appears to be a complete, detailed and time-tested history of a mythical supernatural creature; tall and slender, often dressed like a man, but with no discernible, or blankly white, face. Think of a darker Jack Skellington. The Slenderman has been reportedly sighted near children who have subsequently disappeared-- captured in black and white photos, and, even audio footage. For all the Slenderman's purposes, he seems nothing but the Bogeyman's latest incarnation-- even if he has something of a patchwork of sightings throughout history, in everything from old German woodcuts to accounts of Allied soldiers in World War I encountering Slendermen as German soldiers on the battlefield. The story which has sprung up on the Slenderman is detailed on a "Creepypasta Wiki" entry, a website I previously knew nothing about, but is apparently a forum where people submit brief, horror themed short stories which are called creepy pasta, rather than a short story. 

 This mythos, while not entirely convincing, seems, at least for yours truly, as if it could have benefited from the less is more approach of more modern urban legends (like the Blair Witch), rather than trying to create a new character who has literally been present from the beginning of time. However, I do find the speed and popularity with which the legend of the Slender Man has taken off to be impressive-- making use of all the Internet age's tools to spread stories. In fact, the whole legend of the Slender Man originated entirely from a contest on an Internet forum to create creepy supernatural characters and images. Given how easily online forums and other social media has birthed this first urban legend created entirely from the Internet, I would imagine the Slender Man is the first of many to be created online in years to come.

 There is also quite a bit of debate online over whether the Slender Man can truly be called an urban legend or if he is just an Internet meme (or trend), as an urban legend has historically been a story which developed, lasted and transformed to last over time. Can a tall tale told instantly in this time of rapid, world-wide digital communication become, so fast, its own urban legend? Or is the Slender Man simply one of many of the Bogeyman's centuries old transformations and different characters? Perhaps, only time will tell. As of now, we have the many pieces the character has spawned to enjoy-- all kinds of Photoshop and other art (some genuinely creepy) and amateur video. And there is even a film titled "The Tall Man" coming out this fall about a legend/entity that abducts children-- although the filmmakers apparently deny any connection to Slenderman (and, in their defense, bogeymen-type characters who abduct children-- whether Michael Myers, Freddy Kreuger or Pennywise the Clown-- are nothing new.)

When I was thinking of what to write this evening, as I just begin decorating the house outside and in, the thought of what I like to have as a backdrop for my decorating (however late) came to mind.

 Whether I'm getting out the orange stands of lights, fog machine or tombstones, I have some essential needs for a soundtrack: horror movies. And not just any horror movies-- for this ghost, having John Carpenter's "Halloween" playing on the TV, followed by something older, something black and white and flickering like Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" is called for. And these are just two of many which will do.

 No matter how many times sequels, remakes or re-imaginings are made of "Halloween," film will never achieve, in my humble opinion, the October orange effect of Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode walking the autumn streets of Haddonfield with a pumpkin, to Carpenter's genius score. And no matter how often the character of Count Dracula graces the silver screen, films like Lugosi's will always carry a dreamy, nightmarish authority that I've always found something of a comfort in. These films, seen so many times, remain vibrant and needed for the season-- even if only in the background as we begin to decorate, or fall asleep to at night.