The 80's Movie Project (already in progress)

For the last few years I have had a slow moving film geek pursuit. The whole endeavor stemmed from my issues with the annual end of the year top ten film lists. I have nothing against them, I love reading them, though I never regard them as anything close to a true sense of what the ten best films of any given year is, but rather revealing the tastes and personality (or lack thereof) of the writer of said list. Does it contain the prerequisite foreign film that the viewer saw once at a festival and appears on the list pretty much solely in a possessive manner (it's mine, and only mine!), does it contain an out of nowhere mainstream blockbuster to prove the writer's ability to register and enjoy pop art (this from someone who would have included Talladega Nights on his non existent top ten list for last year)? No my issue is with my dogged completest attitude. How could I truly create a Top Ten List if I haven't seen every film released in the year, or at least every film that provided me a modicum of interest or critical attention, since a viewing of say, Wild Hogs, would not have any effect on the process.

A few years ago I decided that I would like to start making a comprehensive top ten list, beginning with the year 1980. The plan was to start viewing films from that year and then moving along to 1981 then to 1982 and etc. Actually the initial plan was to be caught up to the current year and then go back and begin again with the 70s. Of course the whole "trying to have a life" issue has been getting in my way from completion of this goal. I began this about three years ago and while I've watched or in some cases rewatched a lot of titles from both 1980 and 1981, I still have a long way to go and truthfully have been slacking of late. So I decided that my interest would be relit if I used this blog as a journal of the pursuit.

So you might be asking the obvious question now: Why the 80s, the decade considered by many to be the nadir of vital filmmaking, the era when all the big studio were controlled by major corporations and the director, the driving force of the 1970s American New Wave was replaced by the money first aimed producers (your Murphys, Bruckheimers, De Laurentiises) and the era of mass marketing cross pollinating product over quality aesthetic ran the marketplace? Well, I'll provide two answers:

1.) I don't believe in the notion that there exists something as a "bad movie year", I think every year has its diamonds, some are just a little harder to find, if there was no challenge then perhaps it wouldn't be worth it. In the last three years I have discovered that the year 1980 was a pretty great year for filmmaking, and its very likely that I could have twenty worthy films fighting for the list. And for all the grief that the decade receives, let's take a moment to list some directors who made their first films in the decade: Michael Mann, Spike Lee, Steven Soderbergh, Wong Kar-Wai, James Cameron, Jim Jarmusch, The Coen Brothers, Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, and of course, the one and only "Savage" Steve Holland. Obviously a decade that breed these iconoclasts shouldn't be easily dismissed.

2.) No way to candycoat this, but, nostalgia. When January 1st, 1980 hit I was all of three years old, when the decade ended, I was thirteen. This was the first decade that I am aware of ever going to a movie theatre. A lot of this films I will rewatch are films I saw as a child, films that when I returned home, I would act out my favorite scenes with my friends in the backyard. While I am not feeble enough to insist these films I grew up with represent the height of filmmaking, some of these films, as my first viewings divorced of the initial time and place factor have already displayed are lousy. But nonetheless these were the years, for good and bad, that infused my love of cinema. Does that mean I won't call out say Krull and The Last Starfighter if they don't match the thrill they created in me at the age of seven or eight? Absolutely not. At the same time, as a preliminary top ten of 1980 I have created has shown to me there are a few movies whose artistic merit could be called into question that will probably make the list based on their overall influence to me as a person (for 1980, there are two of these, can you guess them?) and not including them in the list would also prove false, I may be creating this list in 2007, but something from the person I was in the 1980s should be represented, however minutely.

So here's how (I hope) this will work. I have a list of films, starting with the year 1980, that I need to see, after viewing them, I will blog a review for them. When I have seen pretty much every film from the year that I want to and can get my hands on (preferably on DVD, of course) I will then create a top ten list. My goal to complete this initial top ten list is six months. If I have any films left to see in October, unless I see them as absolutely vital, I will probably go ahead and make that list, changing it if I see one of those desired films and it has any effects on the list. Then I will move on to 1981, and so on and so forth. Please post any questions in the response section.

I will give you a (well researched) list of films from the year 1980 that I have seen, but before that, let me tell you the way I came up with this, its based upon films that had their debut release in America in the year 1980, so say a film premiered in Cannes in the summer of 1979, but didn't make it's release in American theatres until April of 1980, then I consider it a 1980 film. Foreign films can be a little trickier, so I have a two year grace period between a films release in its homeland and America. So say a German film debuted in Germany in September of 1978, but didn't make it to America until March of 1980, I still count it as a 1980 release because my first opportunity in America to see the film would have been in 1980 (assuming I watched any foreign films at the age of four). But if for some reason this film never got a release in America until it was discovered by some rep theatre in 1985, I will consider it a 1978 release, not a 1985 release, comprende? I've gathered the release dates of these films from the IMDB and Wikipedia. So far, that tends to work, although there is one title that is causing me some concern, The Great Santini, which both websites list as having an October 1979 release, but which was up for several Academy Awards along with the films of 1980, which would lead me to the conclusion that that 1979 date is incorrect, I am going to go ahead and throw it in with the 1980 release (based on the Academy Awards) and if further research proves otherwise, toss it out f its top ten or runner-up worthy.

So here's the list of titles from 1980s I have seen:

an # after the title means I have not seen it since 2004, when I started this goal, but would like to see once more because its a strong contender or its been very long since last seen

Airplane!
Alligator
Altered States
American Gigolo
The Apple
Bad Timing
The Big Red One
The Blue Lagoon
The Blues Brothers #
"Breaker" Morant
Bronco Billy
Brubaker
Caddyshack
Camera Buff
Can't Stop the Music
The Changeling #
Cheech & Chong's Next Movie
The Children
Coal Miner's Daughter
Cruising #
Dressed to Kill
The Elephant Man
The Empire Strikes Back
Fade to Black
Flash Gordon
The Fog
Foxes
Friday the 13th
From the Lives of Marionettes
Inferno
Kagemusha
The Long Riders
Mad Max #
Maniac
Melvin and Howard
Midnight Madness
Motel Hell
My Bodyguard
The Ninth Configuration
Ordinary People
Popeye
Prom Night
Raging Bull
The Shining
Shogun Assassin
Somewhere in Time
Stardust Memories
Stir Crazy
The Stunt Man
Terror Train
Used Cars #
Watcher in the Woods
Where the Buffalo Roam
Wise Blood # (difficult because its not on DVD and out of print on VHS)
Zombie

Now here's a list of films from 1980s that are on my "wishlist", for the most part, these are the films that I will be seeing and blogging about, please feel free to let me know any important or interesting titles that do not appear on either of these two lists:

Any Which Way You Can
The Competition
Fame
The Final Countdown
The First Deadly Sin
Forbidden Zone
The Formula
Gloria
The Great Santini
Heaven's Gate
The Hunter
The Idolmaker
Inside Moves
The Last Metro
Loulou
Mon Uncle D'Amerique
Nine to Five
The Octagon
Private Benjamin
Resurrection
Return of the Seacucus Seven
Saturn 3
Seems Like Old Times
Tess
Times Square
Tin Drum
Tribute
Urban Cowboy
When Time Ran Out...
Xanadu

So look for reviews from the above titles in the near future...

When Bad DVD Covers Happen to Good Movies

Film: 24 Hour Party People (2002, Michael Winterbottom)

Offender: MGM

Exhibit A:


Film: 24 Hour Party People (2002)

Through shadowy means, I have been able to obtain the transcript from the art director's meeting at the MGM DVD division on the day of the decision to go with the cover:

"So what's on the schedule"

"The film is 24 Hour Party People"

"Okay, never heard of it. But the stock solution for smaller market films is a big picture of the star of the movie on the cover. Who's in it?"

"Steve Coogan"

"Steve Coogan...Coogan...Okay, I got it, a big picture of him with his "Crocodile" Dundee clothing on, and maybe the tagline could be "You call that a party? Now, this, this is a party"

"Uh, actually that's Paul Hogan you're thinking of"

"Oh? Then who is Steve Coogan?"

"A British comedian"

"Okay, ax that plan, Americans don't like movies featuring people speaking a foreign language, so let's hide the overall foreigness factor"

"British people speak...nevermind"

"So what's this movie about?"

"The late 70s-early 80s post-punk and dance music scene and the man who created Factory Records and introduced the world to bands like Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays"

"I've never heard of any of those bands, but I got a vision...this movie is about outsider non conformist, in your face type music, like Fall Out Boy right?"

"Uh, I guess"

"What is more in your face than a giant picture of a guy's tongue sticking out right at you?"

"I..."

"The answer is nothing is more in your face than a giant picture of a guy's tongue sticking out right at you...except for...a guy with a pierce tongue sticking his tongue out right at you! That's it, make it happen. I want people afraid that this DVD cover is going to eat them, that's how punk this movie is. Now, I have a lunch to get to."

"You sure about this one?"

"Do I look sure...of course, I am sure...oh and another thing, let's have the title on the dude's tongue and I don't know...a random hot babe that is not in the movie on the other side"

Better Option:


This poster gives more of the sense of the film and actually looks like it could be the record cover for a band that was on Factory Records, well, actually it looks a lot like a Wire album, and they were not on Factory, but they are from the time frame and sensibility of the bands featured in 24 Hour Party People and not the dated 90s grunge signifier that is a pierced tongue.

Must Be the Season of the Witch

This was originally posted to my old blog in November of 06.

For a movie I have claimed to dislike for over twenty years, I have an unhealthy fascination with Halloween III: Season of the Witch. My initial dislike goes back to the age of nine, when as a young horror enthusiast, I decided to throw a Halloween party. The centerpiece of which would be the viewing of a horror movie. Since my parents were divorced, procuring a horror film would not be an easy task, my father was the parent that allowed me to watch scary movies, but he was no longer living with us. I also knew I would be unable to convince my mom to rent a Halloween themed film, or at least one that didn't involve Mickey Mouse in some way. Fortunately for myself, I was a bit of a electronic guru at that young age and knew how to program the family's sole VCR. A few nights before the holiday, Channel 2 (KTVU, in their independent years before they became the local FOX affiliate) aired Halloween III and I recorded it. While I hadn't seen either of the first two films, I knew a little bit about the series, my dad often would tell me plots of horror films as little ghost stories. So I assumed the film I would be showing to my friends would be the latest exploits of one Michael Myers, serial killer extraordinare of Haddonfield, Il.

Disappointment abounded when Michael Meyers never shows up in the third installment, which instead revolves around a madman bent on killing the children of the world by manufacturing masks through his corporation, Silver Shamrock, that will eventually kill all who wear them on Halloween while they watch a catchy jingle infused advertisement.

While I went back to the film once, probably at the age of 16 when I use to rent entire horror series in bulk, I have not watched the film in its entirety for over a decade. However, AMC, the channel formerly known as American Movie Classics, now known as the channel that will air anything they can get for cheap, has been showing it frequently prior to Halloween as part of its Horrorfest programming. I caught a good chunk of the movie a couple of times and plan on rewatching the film in its entirety on DVD in the near future (or at least by next Halloween).

Still, I find myself asking why the fascination with the film? Well, here's a few things I do know I find interesting, bullet pointed for your pleasure:


* With no shame whatsoever, I love the poster design (to the left). The eerie melting pumpkin face, the red dawn sky and the elongated silhouettes of children. It looks as if something as gone wrong in the town from another 1982 Universal release, Spielberg's E.T. I prefer it over the Miramax horror poster style of the late 90s where they put their good looking cast members in a row behind some image of danger culled from the film (the Scream series and Halloween: H20) and the current Lionsgate style of showing some abstract gruesome detail, usually not actually in the film itself. (Saw and its sequels, Hostel, and even the more clever The Descent poster being prime examples)

* I was too young to appreciate it at the time, but John Carpenter's original intent for continuing the Halloween series was commendable. Instead of the rehashing of the original and resurrecting Michael Myers each episode, he decided that beginning with part 3 each Halloween sequel would have an entirely different plot, pertaining to some sort of horror taking place on Halloween. In a way he foresaw The Simpson's Treehouse of Terror conceit. However after part 3 bombed, they never continued with that line of think and Universal would lose the title rights and in 1988, Michael Myers would return once more in the aptly titled: Halloween IV: The Return of Michael Myers.

* The insanely, and some say, annoyingly catchy Silver Shamrock jingle and the idea that kids would willingly watch a television commercial on Halloween is a pretty clever indictment of the wave of consumerism aimed at youth that was and has been prevalent since the Reagan era.

* Something that I found kind of ridiculous, but in an enjoyable way, below is a picture of your leading man of Halloween III, one Tom Atkins :


So here's the thing, its not the most indicative photo of him, but basically you get the point, not the most attractive guy, even of his day (no Tom Selleck, he). Anyway, basically he plays a doctor in the film, a doctor who decides to skip work and town to go investigate the death of one of his patient with the aid of the patient's daughter, a nubile early twenty something. Not only does he leave work, probably causing some poor guy who was probably looking forward to the time off to cover for him and possibly endangering various ill and injured persons, he also lies to his wife and children, and ends up sleeping with the hottie. I repeat, he is our hero in the film. (Don't get my wrong I like Mr. Atkins, and thought he was particularly great in the still MIA on DVD cult horror film, Night of the Creeps)

* Early meta. The characters in Halloween III watch the original Halloween on television throughout the film. (In blow your mind trivia, in the original film, Jamie Lee Curtis and the kids she babysit watch Howard Hawks' The Thing From Another Planet, which Jon Carpenter would remake in 1982, the same year Season of the Witch was released).

* And last, but certainly not least, it certainly cannot be titled the worst film to carry the Halloween moniker. No, that would go to Halloween: Resurrection the post-respectable Halloween: H20 sequel, where not only Michael Myers returns again, this time after decapitation, Jamie Lee Curtis' Laurie Strode is killed off, there's a lame cyber-web reality show based plot, and it ends with Busta Ryhmes going all Jackie Chan on Mikey's ass. It's probably better than parts 4-6 too, put that would require further research (aka new viewings)

If this entry has helped to whet your Halloween III jones:

Here's Wikipedia's surprisingly expansive page on the film.

The original teaser trailer




And of course, I couldn't leave you without a word from our sponsor, Silver Shamrock

The Horror. The Horror?

Republished from my old blog, circa February 2006

WARNING: MANY SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING FILMS HERE: When A Stranger Calls (Simon West, 06), House of Wax (Jaume Collet-Serra, 05), Final Destination 3 (James Wong, 05), Hostel (Eli Roth, 06)

Ever since I snuck out of my bedroom one night when I was around the age of seven and witnessed my first scene of horror from the movie my dad was watching on the family's Betamax player, where an arrow going into an unsuspected teenager's eye from Friday the 13th part 3 (which admittedly would look a lot cooler with the 3-D technology the film had in its theatrical release) I have had an affair with the horror genre. Its been rocky. Sometimes we go months without consummating our love, often times I am left with a feeling that I am the only one putting any effort in our staying together, and in the last couple of years, the horror film is trying to attract me by dressing up in kinky costumes ("ooh look at me, I am Dawn of the Dead tonight, love me." "I only dressed like Texas Chainsaw Massacre because you said you liked the way she looks!")

Simon West's remake of the 1979 Carol Kane vehicle, When A Stranger Calls, is one of those PG-13 horror films. The original film's drawing point was that it was a live action version of the urban legend where a baby-sitter receives several calls asking her if she's checked on the kids and long story short, since you no doubt know it very well, the calls are coming from within the house, the kids have been murdered, the babysitter must escape. Two things about the original film: a.) the 1973 Bob Clark film Black Christmas did this "calls coming from within the house" scenario first and way more compellingly and b.) that part with the phone calls, was only about fifteen minutes of the actual film, the film went to follow Kane's life post-babysitting and the killer's life post baby killing and their next encounter. The only positive thing I can say about the 2006 remake is that it at least kept the "baby-sitter receiving threats" as the main storyline. But other than that, West's movie is basically a horror movie with its balls cut off. West has proven to be a director whose films utterly lack any visual sense, oh they might look pretty on occasion, but they are convoluted messes that are edited together like two pieces of shit wrapped in scotch tape (The General's Daughter & Tomb Raider are two of West's most notable pieces). An example from Stranger, in the prologue, after the phone calling attacker kills a victim (off screen), we follow a detective as he inspects the crime scene. We learn this detective guy is a hard ass that's been doing this for years, he's even growing a beard. When this detective asks what the murder weapon was, the response he is given is "there is no murder weapon", now allow me a tangent, if these people were murdered, doesn't there kind of have to be a murder weapon? Unless this guy kills him with his mind. But if he can do that, why does he bother stalking baby-sitters, why not show up somewhere and just use his mind killing powers. Anyway, this grizzled bearded detective walks in, we don't see the actual crime scene, just his reaction, one of shock, this dude has seen something fucking crushing. Now I guess that would be a good tease of a beginning, if it had any fucking pay-off. When he gets around to finally going after the main girl, he comes off as incompetent. He kills the main girl's friend and the maid, both off-screen, but the dude can't even kill two children, who are asleep, and have colds. Yes, you read that right, in the remake of the movie about the baby-sitter who gets phone calls asking her to check up on the kids, and finds out the killer is in the house and already has murdered the children, the children survive. The opening is never referenced again, and appears to actually have been from another movie and just added here to pad the short running time. West is more interested in jerking off to the state-of-the-art house that serves as the set of this non-horror film then he is in telling a simple yet time tested effective thriller story, and while its the least of the films problems, the horrid dialogue and paper thin personality of all the teenagers in the film, found me wondering if screenwriter Jake Wall not only has spent any time with actual teenagers recently, but whether or not he had ever been one.

The fact is that I am no longer a teenager. And the horror film is primarily made for teens. Within the last few years studios have discovered that they can eek some dough off pre-teens as well, and with that came the advent of the PG-13 horror film. The results has had its successes (The Ring and uh, um...okay only The Ring) but mainly has lead to the chicken shitting of the horror genre. I am sorry but murder and death is not rated PG-13. Its very much R, and probably most often NC-17.

The remake of House of Wax will be most remembered for the major acting debut of famous-for-nepotism-only tabloid cover-girl Paris Hilton (she has several straight to video credits to her name), but it surprisingly has a lot more bite than I was expecting, and for the record, Ms. Hilton gives only the second worst performance in the film, the worst belonging to Mr. Chad Michael Murray, who gives the least convincing "I am a complicated rebel" performance since Vanilla Ice's Cool As Ice. Sharing pretty much nothing in common with its namesake, the 1953 Andre de Toth directed, Vincent Price starring original, other than the fact that uh, there is a house with wax people who are actually dead people underneath the wax, the remake takes way too long establishing the characters, and making continuous reference to the Paris Hilton sex scandal. We get it, she's a good sport, she's willing to laugh at, but come on, like seven references? After our teenagers finally get to the town of wax, things pick up nicely. The film is actually rather brutal. Our heroine gets her fingers cut off, her boyfriend's face is cut off. Most surprisingly of all, Paris Hilton's offing has an extra tinge of sadism and is undercut with sadness, she appears the most hopeless, director Jaume Collet-Serra is well aware of our schadenfreude desires to see Hilton get it, and he serves up her death so viciously that we begin to feel sorry for her and maybe further investigate our own desire for blood. The film spends way too much time with its non-interesting characters (something I will muse about further in the Hostel discussion), and the killers motifs are rather dull, but Collet-Serra makes death seem real (something that is diminished in the PG-13 horror film) and creates decent atmosphere.

The Final Destination franchise is a bit like the baseball player Dave Roberts. If you need a stolen base, you insert Mr. Roberts, likewise if you are looking for fun, inventive, over-the-top Rube Goldberg inspired death sequences, go to Final Destination. If you are looking for the cinematic equivalent of an Alex Rodriguez or Albert Pujols, a film with interesting story arcs, top quality cinematography and good acting, look elsewhere. I remember being somewhat surprised about my enjoyment of the first installment, but being amazed by the David R. Ellis' directed sequel. Watching it, I was struck with a mouth opened, "is this really happening?" grin on my face. Nobody was spared, not even a pre-teen, from death's grip. And death just didn't make you trip down a stair or anything, it had a really long winded set up where things like a misplaced straw would ultimately attribute to your end. FD3 brings back the original's director, former X-Files scribe James Wong, but it pretty much follows the outline that part 2 perfected, elaborate sets up that lead to over-the-top grizzly deaths. Seriously, you'd be surprised how a Slurpee could ultimately lead to your termination. FD3 is also the most cynical of the franchise. It basically kills off every single character (even the apparent heroine and her beau and sister) and lead me to ponder the question, would it have just been better for the character who saw the vision of the rollercoaster beforehand to have just died then and there. She would have saved herself a few weeks of trauma, practically every victim dies in front of her eyes, and ultimately she dies in a horrible crash anyway. You can't escape death after all. As is the case in most part threes of series, the stench of familiarity suffocates the film. While the second part took the death sequences to the next level, this one merely sustains status quo. And hey, I don't mind you guys not really developing your characters (see above Dave Roberts metaphor) but you could do a little better job putting across the idea that your lead character is a control freak other than having her and everybody else repeatedly tell us that very fact. Like the first two in the series, there are a lot of Joe Dante-esque in-humor. Characters with the last names McKinley and Lincoln are "assassinated" and in the final subway collision, the two last stops are Booth and Oswald streets. Another appreciated gem, though hardly subtle, two soon to be killed characters listening to the disco classic "Love Rollercoaster" after surviving the initial rollercoaster disaster.

Eli Roth's Hostel declares itself a respite from the PG-13 pussification of the horror genre, much like Rob Zombie's The Devil's Reject did last summer. Where The Devil's Rejects was a symposium of 70s independent horror, Hostel's influence is with Asian horror, specifically the works of Takashi Miike who has a cameo in the film. The Zombie and Roth films also share one other thing in common, I found them grueling tedious and uninteresting. Confession, I am not the biggest Miike fan either. I find himself frequently dabbling in the tedium side of things as well. Yes, I get he's pushing buttons, but his films are so over-the-top and cultish by measure, what else is he doing other than preaching to the converted? Hostel continues a recent trend that I noticed in the superior Wolf Creek and the House of Wax remake, the trend of spending way too long with the characters before any of the macabre mayhem begins. Wolf Creek is somewhat forgivable, its characters are well rounded and human, and if Miramax didn't hype the movie as "the scariest thing ever made, ever" and went with a more mysterious ad campaign, the shift in the story would have been far more effective. But like the cardboard cut-outs in House of Wax, the Hostel travelers are a bore. Three frat boy tourist. I wanted them dead within five minutes. Basically their dicks are the reason they end up being killed and/or mutilated. Fans of the film say that Roth is making a commentary about "stupid Americans" coming to Europe to get cheap weed and fuck hot chicks, but it never feels like less than a celebration of those traits, hell, the director himself even has a cameo egging the characters on. When the "killing" finally does start (which felt like a fucking hour into the film), Roth than goes over the top with gore. I will admit to feeling the appropriate queasiness at that point, but it was too little too late by that point. After the shit hits the fan, the lazy mood of the film finally picks up, but ultimately we are left with a wasted premise. With fifteen minutes left, we realize that the people torturing and amputating our victims are actually paying for the service. Hello, why did you not make a film from the perspective of someone who is paying, not from these boring ass frat jerkwads? Damn you Eli, you took the least interesting aspect of the story and made it your focus. When our survivor begins to find and kill the people who set him up, I get that Roth is trying to make some comments about vengeance a la Chan-Wook Park, but his point is ruined by the complete randomness of the encounters. Hello, if you really wanted to make any commentary at the nature of vengeance, instead of having the survivor randomly come upon EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO WRONGED HIM in the film, maybe he actively seeks them out and tries to mutilate him like they did to himself and his friends. Roth, the writer, clearly is just aping his idols and not paying attention to subtext. I was not a fan of Roth's debut film, Cabin Fever either, but the guy has enthusiasm, and there are a few sequences that he directs with sufficient tension. Maybe he ought not write his own screenplays from here on out. I am sure his buddy Tarantino has a horror screenplay kicking around somewhere for him to direct.

So is it time to (pardon the upcoming pun) bury the horror genre? Of course not. I don't think there ever has been a time where a cheaply produced horror film was not a sure fire money maker. And while its frustrating, the PG-13 horror film will be around as long as teenagers want to take their dates to get scared. I think what the genre needs is some fresh talent. Despite some claims on internet sites, Eli Roth has not shown the chops to be anywhere close to being the poster boy for millennium horror. What do the following A-List directors have in common? Roman Polanski, Richard Donner, Stanley Kubrick, Jonathan Demme. They have all directed well received horror films. Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman have been discussing a collaboration on a new horror film for a few years now. That film needs to be made, someone has to show the suits that a horror film with intellect has way more crossover appeal than the next Saw film. Meanwhile, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, George Romero and Wes Craven are seeing films from their prime years being remade while their personal directorial presence dwindles year after year as they get further away from their salad days. And it appears that no horror specialist look prime to replace them. And one last comment, this time on remakes. I understand why they are so prevalent, they already have a name association, and their presence presents the studios with twice the marketing capability, make money off the new film and then on the DVD release of the older one. Its sad how many films we are seeing remade and begs the question: are younger horror fans just too lazy to go to a video store or Netflix and do their own research like I did when I was their age? The silver lining is that I can only really envision this remake mania lasting another two or three years, from lack of titles worthy of remaking alone. Sure we will enter the next phase, the sequel or prequel to a remake, which will kick off this year with the prequel to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. And try as I might, I will still go on seeing them, hoping for a fresh voice or at the very least, that thrilling feeling I felt first when I sneaked into my kitchen after my bed time to see Jason off a teenager.