Get Ready for the Onslaught
Get Ready for the Onslaught
Written by Ben Chamberlain
What horror movies scared you when you were younger? Was it Halloween? How about Nightmare on Elm Street? Friday the 13th? Was brutality more your thing? Or was masked big men? Classics horror films have been getting remade for years and as the world’s fascination for gory horror starts to come to a close, the film industry is remaking every horror film they can to milk every last drop.
This year sees at least 12 classic horrors getting remade! Yes 12, a disgracefully high amount and what’s worse, many of these are released early in the year and there is a high chance more will get announced and released by year’s end.
Nearly every horror classic is present, in fact pretty much all that is missing is a Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and that’s only because it’s already happened! Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Last House on the Left, Halloween, Piranha, The Crazies, Tale of Two Sisters, My Bloody Valentine, The Birds, The Wolfman, Susperia and believe it or not, Rocky Horror Picture Show are all confirmed remakes for 2009, with many more smaller horror remakes going straight to DVD.
Many of you are aware that I’m a horror nut, but despite this I haven’t seen many of the original horror films that get remade, so the idea of seeing something get remade doesn’t bother me as much as it would others. However, remaking 12 classics in 1 year is terrible and many of them I have little to no hope for!
What do I pin hope on? Last House on the Left looks undeniably awesome, although this will be pushing all the boundaries and would not be surprised if this got banned in most countries. The original was Wes Craven’s first ever film and was banned in Australia until 2004 due to its extreme brutality. The remake won’t be released until the end of the year in Australia, if it gets released at all.
Surprisingly, I have also pinned hopes onto the Piranha remake. Now the original is no classic, but it spawned a sequel which was directed by James Cameron and that film started the career of one of the greatest directors of all-time. The remake is helmed by Alexandre Aja, the crazy French dude who had a film debut at Cannes when he was 18 and went on to do wonders with the Hills Have Eyes remake. Also the film will be in 3-D, which is just really freaking cool. Aja also wrote a little known thriller called P2 which is definitely worth a look if you doubt his skill as a storyteller.
For acting, The Wolfman will be the movie to see. Benicio Del Toro stars as The Wolfman and he never does anything half heartedly. It also stars Anthony Hopkins and Hugo Weaving and the director has promised that it won’t be a weak horror. However, the project has received plenty of delays which is never a good sign, another bad sign is that it’s been completed for over a year but won’t get released until November.
As well as Last House on the Left, another Wes Craven films are seeing remake this year is Nightmare on Elm Street. It will be hitting cinemas at the end of the year but that’s about as much as we know. It was originally suggested that Freddy will take on Jigsaw and Michael Myers over the Halloween weekend in October, but this isn’t happening. The Saw series has dominated that date for the last 5 years and will continue this year, producers won’t take the risk in competing against it. Even producers of the Halloween 2 remake are not releasing it over the Halloween weekend.
Speaking of Halloween 2, Rob Zombie is returning to helming duties to bring Michael Myers back to the big screen for another hyper-violent series of grisly murders. The first Halloween remake was very poor, overlong and really quite boring, but Zombie is a master of his crafts and wouldn’t touch this without wanting to improve it drastically. Expect this to push some serious boundaries and be sickeningly gory.
Aussies are also jumping on the horror remakes this year! Young Aussie talent Emily Browning will be starring in the Tale of Two Sisters remake, which has been retitled The Uninvited. The film will be released here at the end of March and is expected to do solidly. Radha Mitchell has taken the lead role in The Crazies remake. Naomi Watts is also rumoured to be starring in the remake of The Birds, but this is not officially been announced as yet.
If you would like to see something more original, then March sees the release of celebrated foreign horror Let the Right One In. The film has received high praise and currently sits in IMDb’s Top 250 of All-Time. The film will be showing in limited release for a short period of time.
Sam Raimi is also returning to the horror game. The horror master has been directing silly Spider-Man movies and is now returning to his b-grade Evil Dead roots. Yay. Alison Lohman is his scream queen whilst Justin Long finally makes his way back into the horror genre after leaving a stain on the rom-com genre.
Dennis Quaid is back! Yes the man is here in 2009 bringing 2 grisly, gory and completely scary horror films to the big screen. First up is The Horsemen, which sounds like Se7en on crack. Then he is doing it all again in Pandorum, an edgy space thriller in the vein of Event Horizon and Sunshine. Although both of these films will most likely be scarier due to Quaid’s acting then the horror itself.
So that’s it, that’s horror for 2009. The good, the bad and the ugly. I will be seeing all these films, so if you see me around the office, ask me for some feedback! Enjoy.
UPDATE: I wrote this sometime ago, since I wrote it Nightmare On Elm Street has been pushed to 2010 and The Birds to 2011.