Fright Night remake--is it necessary?

What is up with all the remakes lately? Is Hollywood out of ideas?

I watched Fright Night just a couple weeks ago.

What is necessary about remaking it? Just to make it in 3D? Wasn’t the original loud enough? Not enough bright colors? I know, too many people actually cared about the characters and could follow the story–it’s time to remake this movie into some loud, no plot or character development, video game piece of shit over-cgi’d trash for adults with a 12 year-old mentality.

I think they’re just striking while Vampires are still hot property.

They’ve cast Anton Yelchin in the lead (William Ragsdale) role, and now need someone to fill the Vampire (Chris Sarandon) role and the Hunter (Roddy McDowall) role.

I was thinking Thomas Kretschmann and Jim Broadbent, respectively, would be good.

BZZT! Your rant would carry a lot more bite if you didn’t pull out this lame chestnut that we all know isn’t true. Plenty of original ideas come out of Hollywood (and indie filmmakers) every year. And it’s not like remaking yesterday’s movies is a new trend, after all there were three versions of The Wizard of Oz before the iconic '39 one and two previous versions of The Maltese Falcon.

Besides that, the last two remakes I saw (Friday the 13th and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3) were both quite entertaining and I’d say Friday the 13th was ever better than the original.

Is it ever necessary? No. Just leave the Lost Boys alone, man. (I know they sequeled it, but thankfully they haven’t remade the horrible wonderfulness that was LB.)

My general problem with remakes is that they seem to be made only to trade on an established name. Most I find are pretty bad or bland compared to the original like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Occasionally they do it right like they did with Star Trek.

I just wish the makers would take care and try to craft a decent story rather than just throwing junk on the screen.

Thats the thing. They are simply trading on an established name because they know it will automatically generate a certain amount of revenue. I wish they would make more remakes of very old, obscure, foreign or plain old crappy movies (like Ocean’s Eleven, The Departed or The Italian Job) and less remakes of iconic or cult classics (like Red Dawn, or Nightmare on Elm Street).

Maybe it’s that so many movies from the 1980’s are being remade–movies from my teen years that I still enjoy watching: Clash of the Titans, Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street, Karate Kid, Robin Hood, RoboCop, Superman, etc.

And now Fright Night? Maybe if Joss Whedon were involved…