The plague of lame horror remakes is a sickness that is devouring theatrical horror alive (or at least undead). No amount of words could explain the insipid factors that have created this trend or the seismic implications it has on international film health, so I’ll just use two: Platinum Dunes. This outfit, which just cleaned up with a new Friday the 13th and muddied cinematic history with an asinine Texas Chainsaw Massacre, is far from the only host of post-1970 rehashes, but they make a good mascot and scapegoat for this heartbreaking wave of awful.

Perhaps I should stop to explain why this bothers me so much. Simply stated, I’ve invested years of my life striving to earn my stripes as a film scholar, and within that effort it has become sentimentally important to me to champion horror. Although the genre will never have much mainstream respectability, it is a point of great importance for anybody who loves movies. Historically, from Edison’s Frankenstein to Weine’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Murnau’s Nosferatu, horror is always at the vanguard of the format, expanding it’s range of effects, grammar, and subject matter. This has persisted throughout, and horror has also functioned as a rogue genre for bold artists to address the unspoken anxieties of their generations and obliterate the taboos of their times. Because horror is not taken seriously, horror filmmakers are able to be much more audacious and serious (and funny) than the dramas and the romantic comedies of their times. Horror’s breakthroughs penetrate mainstream movies later, and if horror wilts, so will mainstream when it is too late.

So why is Platinum Dunes the main bad guy? Let me quote from their own press material:

Platinum Dunes has produced The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, The Hitcher, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and the forthcoming Unborn, Horsemen, Friday the 13th, The Birds and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

From that statement, one would think that Platinum Dunes is one of the most influential horror studios in history. They are not, however, advertising the groundbreaking original horror films those titles imply, but rather their flaccid remixes. Platinum Dunes is the house Michael Bay built, and as the pioneer of soulless, incoherent, fast cut, avid fart, sound fcuked movies, it makes sense that he would use his clout to create inferior versions of his favorite horror movies. It isn’t that what they’re doing is entirely wrong, it is that they are doing what they are doing entirely wrong. 1974′s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is an uncanny fever dream, using deceptively minimalist but perfectly conceived techniques on a low budget to create an indelible cinematic nightmare that has a lot to say about Vietnam, the energy crisis, the questionable morality of meat eating, and America in the post-hippie early-’70s era in general. 2003′s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a headache edited and shot like a grimy hack music video that has nothing on it’s mind beyond sloppily botched carnage and fashionable nihilism.

Remakes are not inherently bad, and there is sometimes even a place for them beyond lazy moneygrubbing. Invasion of the Bodysnatchers has been made at least 4 times, and at least thrice well. Don Siegel, Phillip Kaufman, and Abel Ferrara all delivered versions of this creepy story that reflected the anxieties of their particular generations. In fact, Kaufman’s first remake, made in the late ’70s and slyly parodying the indulgences of the Me Decade, is probably the best version. This may be the opening salvo of the Golden Age of Remakes, including John Carpenter’s 1982 The Thing and David Cronenberg’s 1986 The Fly. In contrast to the current remake wave, however, these were made by brilliant filmmakers who brought a sensitive mind to the material and actually updated the films, producing new versions that actually improved on their antecedents. The current wave favors cheap commercial hacks who do nothing to update or improve the material beyond increasing the quantity of bloodspray and cuts-per-minute.

Horror will never die. Such is the curse of the monster. The last decade has given us a number of original DTV horror delights (particularly for women, in superlative shockers such as May, Ginger Snaps, and Teeth). Theatrical distribution is dying, and good horror, as always, is an indicator of that reality. Perhaps I should embrace the future and start scanning NetFlix for my fright fix. I would be a bit crestfallen, however, to see the silver screen shocker disappear from the American cultural fabric. What is going to give dates an excuse to clutch and grope at each other in a dark room with others? What is going to get geeks out of the house?

On the other hand (this hand is much smaller than the hand that typed the rest of this entry), maybe there are some good remakes on the horizon. The bulk of this post might indicate some idealistic notion that all horror touchstones were imaginative breakthroughs that should not be touched. Maybe, in some cases, a remake may be in order. Take Last House on the Left, for example. A grindhouse perennial, it was unleashed on audiences in the early ’70s. Some critics (well, mostly just Roger Ebert and genre junkies), latched onto the shocking reality and grim philosophical and moral questions the film unabashedly posed. Many more were disgusted, finding the movie exploitative in the worst, most sadistic way in it’s amateurish but genuinely sadistic depiction of rape, torture, murder and vengeance. Neither side was quite right. Those applauding the true horror present conveniently overlooked the offensively blunt lack of care in depicting the atrocities that make up the narrative. Some have argued that the incompetent aspects of the film give it a “realism” that helps it, but that is undercut by hopelessly inappropriate incompetent “comic” sequences featuring bumbling cops who, despite their slapstick maneuvers are supposed to represent hope to prevent a pair of horrific murders. Still, the claim that Last House on the Left is nothing more than filthy, sadistic exploitation willfully ignores the real philosophical rigor and bravery of the piece. This was Wes Craven’s first movie, and despite the extent of savagery he has presented since, one senses he touched darker places here that he was unwilling to revisit (which may explain the misplaced bad comedy from the first time director). Last House on the Left, as unpleasant as it is, is a narrative worth revisiting. In fact, Craven cribbed it from Ingmar Bergman, who originated the basic plot in The Virgin Spring. The new movie, from the previews, promises to stick very closely to the horror of the plotline and has not shed signs of a copout happy ending, with hope of fixing the offensive problems of the original (no Keystone Kops investigating a horrific sexual double murder, hopefully). Perhaps some films can still be remade well?

Maybe, but Second to Last House on the Left had better do it damn well.

Yeah