We remember them from a childhood haze. On Halloween masks. In cartoons. And sometimes even echoed in the puppetry of the Children’s Television Workshop. Existing in the same world as jack-o-lanterns and broomsticks, they permeated our julevile ritual of giddy, gothic pageantry every October.
And whether we knew it or not, these childhood images of Frankenstein’s monster and Dracula all came from the same place. Ever since the 1930s, Universal Studios has defined our horror monsters. That film studio’s classic movie interpretations are not only responsible for certain characters becoming iconic linchpins of the genre but have proved to be our most popular versions of the characters. The Universal Monsters have always been with us.
The seemingly ever-present nature of the Universal Horror Monsters throughout the decades comes, first of all, from the sheer ground-breaking brilliance of those early sound films from Universal but also the characters’ flexibility within the genre. The movie versions of Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy and the Invisible Man lend themselves to re-interpretation just as freely as the original works of Stoker, Shelley and Wells leapt off the page and into 1930s movie theatres to the horrified delight of audiences.
For, as beloved as the early Universal movies are to so many, there’s a certain joy we take from seeing these beastly characters re-imagined and re-packaged with methods not available to the early sound film makers. Is this because the originals are so strongly iconic, so engrained in the public consciousness that we know a remake can’t hurt them? Because we know, no matter what film bares the name, the original (as far as English-speaking sound productions go) will always be the original and never be replaced? After all, as much as fans may delight in more content featuring their favourite characters, the principle motive for these remakes is simply to keep selling a proven product- to trade on the name.
This is precisely what I find so unsettling about the current cinematic climate. Content seems second place to the title of the film, so long as that title is somewhat iconic or just vaguely well thought of. When a sequel to The Fast and The Furious is titled Fast and Furious I ask myself, ‘Are they hoping people won’t notice it’s a different movie?’
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| "Ssshh....no one will know." |
And indeed, if studios are intent on merely selling the title of a film without caring about what that film contains, why not save themselves some money and just re-release the original?
Well, of course, this is where the slight difference in content comes in. For these remakes have shiny new cast rosters- famous, current, sexier and often younger than the originals. Why watch Chris Sarandon seducing virgins with his pointy teeth when you can see a buff Colin Farrell do it? And who is to even know the film isn’t an original if one is of a certain age and pays attention only to a certain part of the main stream? You hear Kevin Bacon was in Footloose and you think, ‘I don’t remember him in it.’
This means the studio has won. They’ve pulled off the con and convinced you that you’ve just seen Assault On Precinct 13, even though Austin Stoker was nowhere in sight.
And don’t let them convince you it’s a new adaptation of the source material either. If that’s the case, why reuse the name Total Recall instead of We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, or a new original title? It’s marketing on the strength and popularity of someone else’s work. This would be okay, if we were talking about a sequel, but here’s a re-do of that first director’s work- a film that effectively says ‘That’s great but we can do it better’. Somewhat disrespectful.
Audiences, for the most part seem not to mind. We like all-new polishes on things. ‘Oh, Bond’s back? And he’s not so much like Bond now, as much as he is like Bourne? Whoooo, reinvention, I like it.’
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| "Bourne, James Bou.....wait, I messed that up." |
And having to sit through a grainy old thing from the 70s when you can get a new version with CGI and six-packs, hardly seems like that big a decision for today’s desensitised movie-goer who thinks they’ve seen it all. Likewise, they’re hardly going to take the time to read subtitles when someone’s very kindly re-shot the movie in English for them (see- anything Swedish).
And so it becomes clear that I am somewhat angry about the remake, reboot and re-imagining filled movie market these days. So, why then, do I not get upset when my beloved Universal Monsters get a make-over?
Well, we are talking, for the most part, about characters that occur in literature and are therefore always going to be open to any kind of interpretation. Nobody but Peter Jackson read Tolkien and saw it exactly the way Jackson saw it, hence why many people enjoy the Ralph Bakshi animation. And one of my favourite group of characters, Dumas’ Musketeers have received so many adaptations that the fun simply comes from seeing who will fill the roles of the various French heroes this time. Unless we’re speaking about Paul W.S. Anderson, in which case, why bother casting when there’s all that CGI and Asian martial arts to bring to 17th Century France.
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| The Musketeers- Some stories never get old. |
Either way, as I despair at the lack of originality in modern cinema, I do sincerely hope they never stop revisiting those great Monsters from the Universal stable. As they keep creeping out of their crypts and laboratorys, I’ll keep watching. And also, keep hoping that, somewhere in our future – just maybe – there’ll be a Monster Mash.
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