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If done right (Dawn of the Dead remake) they can turn out to be cool, however a good portion of them just sacrifice small things for no reason...

I'll go ahead and use The Texas Chainsaw Massacre for an example, in the original, they filmed it in such a way that you saw the abusive psycopath father and I don't know if this was an isolated case, but I felt sympathetic for Leatherface who of course was mentally handicapped so the kid didn't have a choice in the world with how he was brought up.

The remake, beautiful cinematography and R. Lee Ermy aside, didn't really play that up, for some reason there was a whole community just okay with what that specific family was doing, and while The Beginning did a pretty okay job of explaining it, I never really gained the level of human sympathy for Leatherface as I did with the original. They turned it into an everyday 90's slasher flick.

Things like this seem to be more and more common with remakes, Hills Have Eyes is another good example which was turned into a gorefest. The unfortunate truth is that if you want to make a horror movie these days and have it make some money, you're going to need to make it as shocking as possible, so writers cut short the character development, and just throw in violence.

The remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre (with Jessica Biel) was a pretty awesome/scary film, that had me scared. It wasn't "turned into a gore fest". They just took more truth/facts/detail from Ed Geins's life. The first one only focused on the fact he was mentally challenged.

I watched the original and laughed. Leatherface looked like he went down to a Halloween store and bought a clown mask, and proceeded to paint over it. Not to mention I didn't feel bad/give a s**t for most, if not all, of the characters. They were skanky drug addicts. And, whose idea was it to include a guy in the wheel chair? He clearly wasn't going to get far from the killer.

Another thing that was stupid in the first film was all the stupid flaws added in for suspense. For example, It does not take 10 hours for anyone to cut through a wooden door. Hell, chainsaws are made to cut trees.

I like the Jessica Beil remake (#5) and the prequel film (#6) further provided insight into the sick and twisted family. Some of the parts involving the family made me, literally, throw up. It was that disturbing.

The only real TCM remake I had a problem with was the Matthew McCanoughey/Renee Zeilwigger one. It had no real story, you didn't feel the characters were descending into a twisted/sick hell like you did the other ones... and not to mention LF was not a twisted psychopath... he was more of a slobbering mentally challenged younger brother you keep out of public sight.

Most of the time, remakes can add to a film... they can show/create/build/film things you couldn't do, or do correctly when the originals come out.

However, some originals (i.e. Night of the Living Dead) are and will always be, classics. I like the sequels to originals more than remakes.

I guess you missed the whole cancer side story? And who cares if there wasn't any justification of it? The prequel summed it up.

Anyway, I don't need every single point made. If anything, I like to infer with my own thought. You're just too used to stories that come right out and say "________THIZ HAPPENS CAUSE______LAWLS"



That entire paragraph was entire BS. Chainsaws can cut through grains, layers, paint, etc. Besides, rewatch the movie since you're own it's d**k so much. You'd realize it was a plain ******** wooden door. I can paint a door with treated sealers. It's not going to make it as strong as steel. It'll just block water.



Ed Gein/his family and Leatherface/his family have too many similarities just be "simply inspired". It's based off it. Psycho, however, was the film that was inspired.




And your comparison is on a "I'm on the original's D 25/8 so everything based off of it is automatically s**t" level.

Now to add my two cents.

I never saw any of the TCM movies so I can't comment on them at all. What I can comment on is the old original vs remake debate. I've seen message boards (on IMDb) about classic horror films or any classic film that they feel shouldn't be remade because they feel that a classic movie (I'll use the sci-fi film "Frankenstein" as an example) has no purpose being remade. I'm sure we can all agree that certain classics such as that, Gone with the Wind, etc should not be remade. While I've seen plenty of people on there supporting the remakes of certain films there's just as many that support the classic version of it. Some remakes come out very well. Some like the remake of 'House of Wax' with Paris Hilton don't.

We got to remember the eras that each were made in. We need to respect each era that both the original and remake was made in. We can't criticize a film made 30+ years ago now because of it's limited technology. Laughing at what they had to use to make a film then isn't a good way of respecting it. No one is supposed to like the remake better than the original and no one is supposed to like the original better than the remake. Basically just because a movie is remade/going to be remade don't mean it is/going to be better than the original. Sure the technology is better now but that was part of the charm of the originals. Criticizing for reasons like that isn't a fair criticism. I personally like movies that aren't perfectly polished.

Also I don't think that remakes should take the place of the original or classic version of it. Most directors will tell you that their intent isn't to replace the original so we shouldn't have that mindset that remakes are made for that purpose.


I agree there are remakes that are indeed better than the original. There are plenty. To say that the majority of remakes are better or vice-versa isn't a fair assessment.

Things that are often discussed in the debate such as actors, story, graphics/tech, etc.

Actors such as Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, Vincent Price, etc. are seen as the masters of their genre and according to many are hard to rival. Many people's criticisms with movies whether it is a remake or a movie based on a novel or story is whether it falls in line with what it is being modeled off of. That seems to be the case here. Whether the 2003 TCM remake is better or not I can't say due to not seeing either, seems to partially judged/criticized due to how close the two are to each other. That subject of stories lining up seems to be a major source of criticism.

I'll end with this:

We can't automatically assume or think that the remake is better than the original just because of it being "better" tech wise nor can we assume the original/classic version is better just because of it's classic status. There are more important things that would make one better than the other than the era it is made it. You shouldn't hate a silent film from 1914 for it being made in 1914 the same way you shouldn't hate a film made in 2007 because it was made in 2007. There are and should be more factors involved then that.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with tending to prefer the original or remake better than the other but try not to short change the other or criticize each other unfairly. Classics are classics for a reason. Many remakes are acclaimed for a reason.

Sure we can get further into this debate on which is better overall but this is my stance on it.

What you guys should do is do what you're doing now and discuss individual films. I'll throw films out there when this one gets exhausted to keep it going.