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BY MrcrrAEL Grr,Tz {/ 'i'' o8
il(e zombles crawhng ort t o- tfr"i. graves, old teen
slasher movies refuse to die.
So-called "classic" homor films of the 1980s hke
"Prom Night" ile brought to life again with bigger
budgets, more gore - md cuter, fmiliar casts culled
mostlv trom TV
A new "Prom Night" opens Friday and stars Brittany
Snow from TV's "American Dreams." Scott Porter fron
"Friday Night Lights" and Johnathon Schaech of "Models
lnc "
Yet Anliony T inpone, editor of lanboy honor magzine
Fangoriar, says the trend is nothin6i new. "HollJvood was
making remakes ir I Ire silent davs, says Timpone
"HoUyrvood realized they had these movies with audi-
ence awileness, so they just kept going back to the wel.[
There've been umpteen versions of 'Dracula' md 'Fr anken-
stein' and'Dr Jekyll & Mr
Hyde.'All those old chest-
nuts get trotted out every
so often "
R'
'f c^'np enl.liar-
flm fmatics may be get-
ting tired of this trend.
Go to the web site
Ain't It Cool News, at
w.aintitcool com, and
you'll hear rumblings of
discontent The site's west
Coast editor, Drew Mc\'ee-
ny, aka Moriarff, begins one
post by stating, "I knowwe're
supposed to get furious over
every single remake that's
mounced tiese days. ."
Fangoria's Timpone
echoesthatcomplaint "It'
definitely has reached its
saturation point when you
realize that George Rome-
ro's first three zombie
movies - 'Night of the
Living Dead,' 'Dawn
of the Dead' md'Day
ofthe Dead'- havr
all been remade, and I
'Night of the Living
Dead'has been remade
twice," says Timpone, who
is based in New York"It gets to the point where enough is enough already."
Indeed, "Prom Night" is just the tip of the butcher knife
The first version staned Jamie Lee Curtis - and practical-
ly the entte oeuwe ofthe Queen of Screm has been re-
worked in the last few years-
Rob Zombie rebooted "Halloween" in 2007 - the 1978
origrnrl, crediled as the firsl of irs gerue. stared a
then-teenaqed Curtis - md 1980's "Ter-
ror Train" has been reinvented as the
upcoming "Train " Even John Car-
penter's "The Fog" (1980) was done
again in 2005
Not all of the era's slasher films
have aged well, however, so it's
not always a bad idea to giYe them
another shot
"I'd rather see bad movies re-
made md done right as opposed to
clmsic fllms where you cm't do them
better," says Timpone, who points to
2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massa-
cre" as one of his favorite do-overs
"At least the American re-
makes have been better thm the
Asim remakes, like 'Shut-
ter'md'The Eye,"'says
Timpone "There, tbey
took the great origi-
nals md just dmb-
ed them down, where-
as some of the Americm
rng them out That recent post on
Ain't It Cool News had to do with who
might play Jason in a remal
scheduled to come out in February 2009 Despite neg-
ative reaction to the spate of remakes, fms excitedly
parsed and debated what needed to be done to make
th.is new "Friday' a good one
"The fam have come to accept remakes as a fact
of life," says Timpone "Even the honorfans who
complain are there opening night " a\ s",
?But they ile obvious-
ly making money orthe
studios wouldn't keep tum-
BY MrcrrAEL Grr,Tz {/ 'i'' o8
il(e zombles crawhng ort t o- tfr"i. graves, old teen
slasher movies refuse to die.
So-called "classic" homor films of the 1980s hke
"Prom Night" ile brought to life again with bigger
budgets, more gore - md cuter, fmiliar casts culled
mostlv trom TV
A new "Prom Night" opens Friday and stars Brittany
Snow from TV's "American Dreams." Scott Porter fron
"Friday Night Lights" and Johnathon Schaech of "Models
lnc "
Yet Anliony T inpone, editor of lanboy honor magzine
Fangoriar, says the trend is nothin6i new. "HollJvood was
making remakes ir I Ire silent davs, says Timpone
"HoUyrvood realized they had these movies with audi-
ence awileness, so they just kept going back to the wel.[
There've been umpteen versions of 'Dracula' md 'Fr anken-
stein' and'Dr Jekyll & Mr
Hyde.'All those old chest-
nuts get trotted out every
so often "
R'
'f c^'np enl.liar-
flm fmatics may be get-
ting tired of this trend.
Go to the web site
Ain't It Cool News, at
w.aintitcool com, and
you'll hear rumblings of
discontent The site's west
Coast editor, Drew Mc\'ee-
ny, aka Moriarff, begins one
post by stating, "I knowwe're
supposed to get furious over
every single remake that's
mounced tiese days. ."
Fangoria's Timpone
echoesthatcomplaint "It'
definitely has reached its
saturation point when you
realize that George Rome-
ro's first three zombie
movies - 'Night of the
Living Dead,' 'Dawn
of the Dead' md'Day
ofthe Dead'- havr
all been remade, and I
'Night of the Living
Dead'has been remade
twice," says Timpone, who
is based in New York"It gets to the point where enough is enough already."
Indeed, "Prom Night" is just the tip of the butcher knife
The first version staned Jamie Lee Curtis - and practical-
ly the entte oeuwe ofthe Queen of Screm has been re-
worked in the last few years-
Rob Zombie rebooted "Halloween" in 2007 - the 1978
origrnrl, crediled as the firsl of irs gerue. stared a
then-teenaqed Curtis - md 1980's "Ter-
ror Train" has been reinvented as the
upcoming "Train " Even John Car-
penter's "The Fog" (1980) was done
again in 2005
Not all of the era's slasher films
have aged well, however, so it's
not always a bad idea to giYe them
another shot
"I'd rather see bad movies re-
made md done right as opposed to
clmsic fllms where you cm't do them
better," says Timpone, who points to
2003's "The Texas Chainsaw Massa-
cre" as one of his favorite do-overs
"At least the American re-
makes have been better thm the
Asim remakes, like 'Shut-
ter'md'The Eye,"'says
Timpone "There, tbey
took the great origi-
nals md just dmb-
ed them down, where-
as some of the Americm
rng them out That recent post on
Ain't It Cool News had to do with who
might play Jason in a remal
ative reaction to the spate of remakes, fms excitedly
parsed and debated what needed to be done to make
th.is new "Friday' a good one
"The fam have come to accept remakes as a fact
of life," says Timpone "Even the honorfans who
complain are there opening night " a\ s",
?But they ile obvious-
ly making money orthe
studios wouldn't keep tum-