remake tagged posts
Director: David Gordon Green
Writers: David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, Jeff Fradley
Cast: Jamie Lee Curtis, Judy Greer, Andi Matichak, Will Patton, Haluk Bilginer, Rhian Rees, Jefferson Hall, James Jude Courtney, Nick Castle
Cert: 18
Running time: 106mins
Year: 2018
What’s the story: 40 years after the events of Halloween, Laurie Strode (Curtis) must protect daughter Karen (Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Matichak) from unstoppable killer Michael Myers when he escapes from prison.
What’s the verdict: For a franchise with an unkillable boogeyman, a 40th anniversary movie was always likely. Less certain was if said movie would be any good.
Halloween’s 1998 20th anniversary instalment, H20, was a worthwhile reuniting of Jamie Lee Curtis and her most enduring co-star...
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Director: Luca Guadagnino
Writers: David Kajganich (script), Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi (1977 script)
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton Angela Winkler, Lutz Ebersdorf, Mia Goth, Chloë Grace Moretz
Cert: 18
Running time: 152mins
Year: 2018
What’s the story: 1977, Berlin. Susie Bannion (Johnson) arrives at the Markos Dance Academy, not knowing it is run by witches.
What’s the verdict: Remake Suspiria at your peril was the consensus opinion. Director David Gordon Green realised that and abandoned his attempt, having more success with 2018’s Halloween remake-sequel. Darren Aronofsky paid homage in Black Swan rather than tackling head-on.
Dario Argento’s 1977 horror masterpiece is too delirious, too of-a-moment, too one-man’s-vision to be effectively replicated decades later...
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When discussing Blade Runner, Ridley Scott said, “It’s as bad to be ahead of your time as behind it.”
Director William Friedkin can sympathise with this.
In the early 1970s he was a filmmaker in synch with the mood of the nation. He revitalised the cop thriller with The French Connection in 1971, nabbing Best Director and Best Film among a five Oscar haul.
Two years later he reinvented horror cinema for the modern age with The Exorcist.
Then, in 1977 he delivered to American audiences Sorcerer, a film fundamentally at odds with a country aching to slough off a decade of uncertainty and corruption.
A loose remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1953 thriller The Wages of Fear and Georges Arnaud’s same-name source novel, Friedkin’s movie was too bleak for a nation hungry for the escapist th...
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Horror Channel FrightFest 2017 has come and gone. Like any good horror icon, it will be back. But, let us take time to reflect upon a suitably wild eighteenth year for the festival. For the first time we have decided to round-up FrightFest with a series of awards. Awards which we hope will provide a flavour of what FF 2017 was like. So, until FrightFest 2018…
BEST “INTRO & Q&A” AWARD– Jennifer Tilly, Cult of Chucky
“I’m here now, bitches!” If we learnt one thing at FrightFest 2017, it’s that an intro to a movie and said movie’s Q&A will go insane if Jennifer Tilly is in the room. A force of nature, when director Don Mancini was late announcing her she burst onstage with, “I have a thing about people starting without me. But, I’m here now, so continue Don, I would love ...
Director: Rupert Sanders
Writers: William Wheeler, Jamie Moss, Ehren Kruger (screenplay), Masamune Shirow (manga), Kazunori Ito (1995 movie)
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbæk, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Chin Han, Peter Ferdinando, Danusia Samal, Michael Pitt, Rila Fukashima
Cert: 12
Running time: 107 mins
Year: 2017
What’s the story: In New Port City, a Far Eastern metropolis of the future, Major (Johansson), a human brain planted into a cyborg shell after a terrorist attack, is a front-line soldier in the city’s counter terrorism unit. A cyberhacker killing high ranking personnel at technology company Hanka is her greatest threat to date.
What’s the verdict: Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 anime Ghost in the Shell, based on Masamune Shirow’s manga, hit Hollywood influencers with...
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Director: Howard Hawks
Writer: Charles Lederer (screenplay), Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur (play)
Cast: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Helen Mack, Joe Qualen
Cert: U
Running time: 92mins
Year: 1940
Film: 
Extras:
What’s the story: Ruthless newspaper editor Walter Burns (Grant) schemes to keep his ex-wife and best reporter Hildy Johnson (Russell) from marrying new fiancé Bruce (Bellamy).
What’s the verdict: Renowned as the archetypal screwball comedy, 76 years on from its original release His Girl Friday remains sparkling and surprisingly relevant. With a few wince-inducing comments that betray its age.
On the surface this is the madcap rom-com territory Howard Hawks previously traversed to great effect in 1934’s Twentieth Century and Bringing Up Baby four years later...
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Director: Marcel Walz
Writer: Philip Lilienschwarz (written by), Philip Lilienschwarz, Marcel Walz (story by)
Cast: Robert Rusler, Caroline Williams, Sophie Monk, Sadie Katz, Roland Freitag
Cert: 18 (TBC)
Running time: 90mins
Year: 2016
What’s the story: In a Parisian suburb restaurant owner Ramses (Rusler) begins ritually murdering woman to resurrect the Egyptian goddess Ishtar.
What’s the verdict: If director Marcel Walz’s intention was for his remake of the 1963 Blood Feast to honour the original movie, then mission accomplished.
Blood Feast 2016 is as leaden-paced, awkwardly-acted, and boringly gory as Herschell Gordon Lewis’ film, without having the advantage of being the first of its kind to temper the awfulness.
More than just a name-only redo, the plot echoes the ori...
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Director: Paul Feig
Writer: Paul Feig, Katie Dippold
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, Katie McKinnon, Chris Hemsworth, Andy Garcia, Neil Casey
Cert: 12
Running time: 116mins
Year: 2016
What’s the story: Buttoned-down scientist Erin Gilbert (Wiig) has rejected the world of the paranormal. But, she is pulled back in when she and her childhood buddy Abby Yates (McCarthy), plus oddball genius engineer Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon), witness a real life apparition. After New York subway worker Patty Tolan (Jones) spots another ghost, the four women realise something dead and deadly is about to take a bite out of The Big Apple and team up to battle it.
What’s the verdict: “I hear he likes the girls” goes a line in Ray Parker, Jr...
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Director: Kevin Goetz, Michael Goetz
Writer: Mark L. Smith
Cast: Troian Bellisario, Bailey Noble, Kate Burton
Cert: 18
Running time: 86mins
Year: 2015
What’s the story: Young girl Lucie escapes a group of torturers and in an orphanage befriends orphan Anna. Ten years later Lucie goes looking for the adults who abused her, taking Anna into a nightmarish world of violence and madness.
What’s the verdict: Producing a “meh” remake of a film that saw members of the horror hungry FrightFest crowd losing their lunch, plus multiple walkouts at the official press screening really is some kind of achievement.
But, directors Kevin and Michael Goetz (whose sole previous outing was the little seen Wrecked) achieve maximum shruggage with their reimagining of Pascal Laugier’s 2008 original, one...
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