COMPLEXITY & SOPHISTICATION:
15 Best Movie Remakes 1980 - 1989
Commercial cinema maintains the industry and recycles past
winners, breathing new life into used plots and forgotten pictures, just like a
fresh coat of paint revives rooms and sprucing up homes for sale as houses.
It’s often a generational practice, of course, and changes of details or in
scope and scale are sometimes radical to match whatever gets attention.
Zeitgeist drives ambitions, but safe bets are normally the best choices.
Tech advances are vitally important for cultural
developments, especially for cinema. The crucial difference between Metropolis’ silent-film expressionism, and retro-futurism
in science fiction's masterpiece Blade
Runner, is 55 years, or half a century of progress. Typical reasons for
movie revisionism are cultural, and/ or usually artistic, especially when older
works from the B&W era get updated with colour, and other film-making tech.
Remakes usually keep traditional elements, particularly those of specific genres
yet frequently address modern concerns. An excellent example is William
Friedkin’s dynamic ‘road movie’, Sorcerer
(1977), an American updating of Cluzot’s thriller The Wages Of Fear (1953), that improves on the gritty French
original, not just in colour but adding the skills of Hollywood adventure cinema that
enhance many hair-raising stunts.
My listing’s in chronological order...
Flash Gordon
(1980)
Created to rival the time-warped sci-fi astronaut Buck
Rogers, comic-strip space-hero Flash Gordon appeared in chaptered movie serials
(1936) that often seem unbearably creaky, today. After his critical success
with The Man Who Fell To Earth
(1976), and then following the massive box-office influence of Star Wars (1977), British director Nicolas
Roeg failed to make his Hollywood debut with a lavishly conceived, seriously biblical
SF drama that was, perhaps unfortunately, derived from intellectual readings of
Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comics.
Italian mogul Dino De Laurentiis produced Mike Hodges’ vaguely surreal adaptation,
FLASH GORDON, as a cheerful adventure, that begins with UFOlogy themed attacks
on planet Earth, evoking This Island
Earth (1955). After their plane crash, Flash (Sam Jones), and Dale (Melody
Anderson), are launched into deep space aboard a rocket by rogue NASA scientist
Dr Zarkov (Topol). What happens next is brightly coloured pulp sci-fi that’s
lavishly designed yet simply filmed, but its combination is often more than sum
of its fantastic parts, and so Flash
Gordon is almost hallucinatory at times.
“What if it isn’t a dream?” Ming
proves he is a merciless psycho with a great performance by Max von Sydow, as
Emperor of shiny futurism, and quite intentionally cheesy glamour, in this
fascist utopia (fascistopia?). “Show us this loyalty. Fall on your sword.” Simplistic
visual effects are easy to forgive when a brisk pace with memorable set-pieces
and a quotable script ensure this ultra-stylised pantomime bazaar of the bizarre
has contrary standards to slicker, expensive visuals of Star Wars. Flash has courage and tenacity enough to survive a cruel
death, by execution, and every other unkind attempt on his life, so “flying
blind, on a rocket cycle?” sums up the heroic resistance to malevolent Ming. Re-enactment
of pulp-era sensations, with a knowingly extravagant flamboyance and
post-modern styling, this fabulous tribute movie celebrates its origins while
avoiding the epic hyper-realism of rival space operas by embracing its own preposterously
naff quality. Forty years later, Flash
Gordon’s enduring appeal lies in its commitment to such colourfully
charming escapism and moments of witty humour, so it’s now called a ‘cult camp
kitsch classic’ by its makers.
Outland (1981)
A fully updated revision of western heroism in High Noon (1950), OUTLAND appears to
have been inspired by Battle Beyond The
Stars (1980), an amusing sci-fi remake of classic Hollywood cowboys film, The Magnificent Seven (1960), a
gunslingers version of Japan’s iconic Seven
Samurai (1954). To celebrate inter-world futurism, character-names are borrowed
from real people in science, industry, and SF... physicist O’Neil, astronaut Sheppard,
author Ballard, tycoon Hughes, astronomers Lowell and Sagan. At a mining colony
on Jupiter’s moon Io, trouble comes for Sean Connery’s marshal. His wife
leaves, taking his young son away to Earth, and corporate management (led by
Peter Boyle) hates police. Life is hard on this highest frontier, where only
drugs or death provide any hope of escape from greedy exploiters. Outland is gloomy SF, with industrial rigour, set during a time of
Solar-system expansion, perhaps before Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), where freedom just seems like a liberal myth. So,
it’s no wonder this space western feels like its thematic umbilical is
connected to new TV series The Expanse
(2015-21). Is one man with a gun the only defence against capitalist power? The
lone lawman becomes a hero whether he wants his damned job, or not. Fighting
oppression when any individual is powerless to change the system is quite
pointless, but the marshal defeats the killers, and punches the villain,
anyway. Somebody’s got to do it, obviously. Finally, playing the cranky old Dr
Lazarus, Frances Sternhagen is effortlessly formidable, especially when she upstages
Connery.
Cat People (1982)
Paul Schrader transformed the mystery noir Cat People (1942), from creepy suspense
into a grisly masterpiece of erotic horror. This version makes explicit what
could only be suggested 40 years earlier. Virginal orphan Irena (Nastassja
Kinski) finds long lost brother Paul (Malcolm McDowell) in New Orleans,
discovering a shared heritage and their family’s curse. If she has sex, Irena transforms
into a panther, a feline beast that must kill before she can become human
again. A lesser director might have made this 1980s version a sleazy exercise
in serial murder with wild-cat excuses for its werewolf styled violence. But
Schrader turns both magical affect and mythic tale into a psycho-drama of
abstinence, with an apparently incestuous relationship offering the haunted
Irena her only escape from alternatives of a lonely existence, or a nightmare
life-style. Working at a local zoo, she finds a kind of salvation with curator Oliver
(John Heard). After closing time, she stays behind, sketching animals,
especially the jaguar captured in a hotel room. Paul and Irena’s relationship soon
changes, from peculiarly awkward to dangerous. The mysterious black cat kills a
zoo keeper (Ed Bgeley Jr), then escapes while Oliver invites Irena to a bayou
cabin, where she rejects his attempted seduction. Police keep finding violent crime
scenes of terrible carnage. Irena expresses curiosity, frequently, but also
reveals her fears of sexuality, like an unhealthy mix of shame and fragility. Eventually,
feverish dreaming of her dreadful ancestry unmask a goddess of death knowing
that love means freedom. David Bowie’s theme song (“putting out the fire with
gasoline”) fits perfectly into this slow-burning shadowy movie’s twin moods.
Unlike the original, Schrader’s version shivers and seethes with brooding intensity
as its builds from an ominous beginning to erupt into electrifying supernatural
hostility. Cinematic visualisations of tribal mythology in CAT PEOPLE proved so
potent it was an obvious influence on after-life imagery in superhero movie Black Panther (2018).
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter’s masterwork THE THING succeeds where The Thing From Another World (1951) failed.
Although the old B&W picture is not a bad sci-fi classic of its era, it
never evokes grim SF-horrors built in our minds from reading John W. Campbell’s
original story Who Goes There?
(1938). Carpenter’s darkly brooding version explores the unique blending of Alien (1979), with Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), as identity crises merge
with alien monsters for a crucible of intense paranoia combined with the grotesque
and yet flamboyant shock of shape-shifting transformation scenes. Lovecraftian themes
explode into life-like menace when this ghastly monstrosity first appears.
Isolated by wilderness in their Antarctic research base, men working on this
frozen continent are confronted by howling sled dogs turning inside-out, so the
weird beast of deep space can escape from its cage of mewling flesh. It
develops strangeness enough to present viewers with something only imagined
before in baroque surrealist artwork.
Much more than just another live-action
cartoon-creature, the changeling of Otherness easily becomes whatever ‘it’ can
absorb. Proving human ID gets reduced to a crude test when blood samples evade
burning. Characters are skilfully written, and memorably performed by a varied
ensemble cast, staged as a microcosm of American culture. Kurt Russell as pilot
‘Mac’ MacReady, and the radio expert named Windows (Thomas Waites), forms a witty
yet thinly-veiled critique of human dependency upon computers, or machines in
general. The scenario puts strong individualism at its core but this body-horror
theme embraces a weird conformity, so diversity means nothing. I remember
seeing it first on a pan-and-scan (4:3) VHS release, only later discovering
that The Thing seemed like an
entirely different picture in widescreen on DVD or Blu-ray. Prequel, The Thing (2011), was just a satisfactory
monster-movie, quite unable to mimic the ground-breaking intensity or cross-genre
impact of Carpenter’s version. At the end of 1951’s picture there’s an iconic
line about “keep watching the skies” but, for 2011’s drama, the star-gazing
heroine says (perhaps, in a comment about 1982’s film) “we’ll never look at
them the same again.” Insist on the best, accept no imitations.
Never Say Never Again
(1983)
Updating 007 spy-fi, two decades after Thunderball (1965), this unofficial re-vision is quite dramatically
superior to Terence Young’s humdrum adaptation of Ian Fleming’s 1961 novel, later
co-credited to producer Kevin McClory who claimed film rights after a legal
battle. Origins aside, this movie’s linchpin was Sean Connery’s welcome return as
James Bond, bringing some much needed self-parody to a sprawling franchise
already in clear danger of descending into campy farce starring Roger Moore.
NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN wins its place as second-best 1980s’ Bond movie (Licence To Kill gets my vote as #1 of
007’s decade), because of its astute casting and well-paced story.
Traditionally, the Bond girls are usually talented newcomers, but Kim
Basinger’s role, as the villain’s girlfriend, Domino, was just a break-through
that established her as an international star. However, Basinger is almost over-shadowed
by Barbara Carrera as the SPECTRE agent, Fatima Blush, whose attempts to
assassinate Connery’s hero are equally menacing and playful. As a violent psycho
that Bond cannot resist, she proves to be his perfect rival. Humour is an
essential part of all 20th century 007 movies and the character of ‘Q’
(Quartermaster of gadgets), played by Alec McCowen, delivers the ultimate
meta-fictional quip, a wry critique of how Roger Moore had made Bond soft: “Now
you’re on this, I hope we’re going to have some gratuitous sex and violence!”
In the field, Bond meets Foreign Office rep. Nigel Small-Fawcett, a blatantly
comic-relief role for Rowan Atkinson, who later won his own brand of stardom in
the obvious 007 parody, Johnny English
(2003), and its two franchised sequels.
Twilight Zone: The
Movie (1983)
“Wanna see something really scary?” It’s the Midnight
Special and you’ve just crossed over into the TWILIGHT ZONE. Transforming the
greatest TV anthology series into a portmanteau movie was not easy. What makes
it work is the producers decision to get four genre directors to contribute,
with remakes of episodes chosen for their balanced diversity of socio-political
themes. One strange night, ranting racist Bill (Vic Morrow) suddenly finds he’s
living under Nazi occupation, and hunted by the Ku Klux Klan, so he gets his
comeuppance, repeatedly. John Landis’ quite vividly composed shocker, A Quality Of Mercy, was eclipsed by
real-life tragedy after a helicopter crash during the filming of its Vietnam
sequence. Starring Scatman Crothers as Mr Bloom, Spielberg’s Kick The Can should have been a lively
and compassionate drama of reminiscence, in a retirement home, but the
director’s tendency here drowns elderly sorrows in grossly absurd
sentimentalism. KTC is most
entertaining for its young cast playing amusingly juvenile versions of their
adult characters.
This movie improves with It’s
A Good Life. Joe Dante directs Kathleen Quinlan as teacher Helen, who meets
a bizarrely eccentric ‘family’ cringingly tormented by wishes of magical boy
Anthony. Whimsy turns nasty for their creepy cartoon lifestyle where
“everything’s okay” at home, or else. Monster-effects are prompted by exploring
the crazily violent horrors that underlie all childish fantasy and slapstick
mayhem. George Miller’s revision of Nightmare
At 20,000 Feet is the best segment and it improves on the TV original
starring William Shatner. John Lithgow is the ultimate paranoid passenger on a
jet-plane caught in a stormy sky, as a gremlin on the wing smashes an engine. A
white-knuckle ride, with fears of flying that become sweaty panic, this flits
along a knife-edge between extreme psycho-terror and black comedy. Of course,
it’s always the safest way to travel... but never in the movies. This
exploration of that artistic realm where imagination meets anxiety remains,
very much, a classic of its format, despite some flaws. If only they’d got
Carpenter, instead of Spielberg to direct a remake (of The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street perhaps?), this could have
been the greatest genre anthology movie of them all.
Enemy Mine (1985)
Although it’s based on Barry Longyear’s novella (1979), this
sci-fi adventure has most of the development criteria for viewing as a genre
switched remake of war-movie Hell In The
Pacific (1968), John Boorman’s drama of American and Japanese servicemen,
stuck together on a remote island. It’s a co-operate or die story that
perfectly suits SF themes of isolationism and Otherness. ENEMY MINE has spacer
pilots crashing on a planet, where they are forced to abandon hostility,
overcome mutual intolerance, and share to just survive. Dennis Quaid plays
human, Will Davidge, well enough, but here it’s Louis Gossett Jr, as the weird alien
Jeriba ‘Jerry’ Shigan, who steals the show. His amazing performance as
reptilian ‘Drac’ is one of the finest in all 1980s’ SF movies or TV. Besieged
by environment, misfortunes, and misinterpretation, the desperate duo
eventually learn that willing co-operation instead of hate and opposition is
their only chance to live, for them as individuals, and for rival species to
exist in our indifferent universe. Their hard lessons mean questioning all
political propaganda, and personal prejudices, and it’s most difficult for the
blinkered human to understand Drac culture and philosophy, and never mind
comprehending the alien’s hermaphrodite life-cycle. Moving away from their
antagonisms, with taunts of ‘toadface’ and ‘irkman’, the foes wholly unlikely
friendship wins an unearthly peace, after their meeting of minds, and this
movie evades the blatantly racist overtones of Byron Haskin’s flawed space
opera Robinson Crusoe On Mars (1964).
When its castaway story avoids
sentimentality, or melodrama, with an approach to sci-fi adopted by
later Star Trek TV shows and Star Wars sequels, Enemy Mine is extraordinary for masterly designs and stunningly
rich images, that together create the fabulous milieu for an engaging and
compelling tale.
The Fly (1986)
“I’m working on something that’ll change the world... and
human life, as we know it.” David Cronenberg updated 1958's sci-fi
monster-movie with explicitly modern body-horror tropes and all the shocking impact of
genre drama, including a cancer allegory. As the original B&W cult film was
set in Montreal it seemed appropriate for Canadian auteur Cronenberg to write
(with Charles Edward Pogue), and direct, a new visionary intelligent-SF adaptation
of this cautionary tale. Cronenberg’s THE FLY has superior qualities, dropping
the flashback structure of Kurt Neumann’s likeably cheesy original, and opting for
a linear approach to George Langelaan’s story. It’s also a weird romantic
triangle, that can only end in tragic death, with an extraordinary star performance
by Jeff Goldblum as reclusive scientist Seth Brundle. He’s involved with
journalist Veronica (Geena Davis) after she agrees to document his work. Instead
of the silly effects seen in previous Fly
movies, the new script is focused on Cronenberg’s familiar themes of biological
mutation, so the transformation here of man into monster (Brundle-fly) is accomplished
slowly, mimicking the grotesque symptoms of a grimly leprous disease, later explained
as changes made at genetic-hybrid levels during a teleportation procedure.
The
instantaneous jump from one ‘tele-pod’ to another has spliced human DNA with
that of a housefly. At first, Seth appears to have been improved by his human experiment,
but, soon enough, his newfound athleticism is found to be only the initial
stage of his disturbing mental and physical degeneration. Cronenberg also
explores the stages of a psychosis that frightens poor Veronica, especially after
discovering her pregnancy. Apart from addressing pro-choice issues for
abortion, The Fly also tackles irrational
fears about HIV, in a memorably poignant scene where sympathetic heroine Ronnie
unhesitatingly embraces Seth’s decaying body and comforts him. Goldblum
delivers his tour-de-force monologue on the hitherto unexplored subject of
insect politics, as Brundle’s conscience and compassion slip away, and it’s
powerfully affecting because he knows what’s happening to him. It’s a stunning
sequence of psychological horror, that ranks highly among the best genre movie roles
of all time and yet Goldblum was shamefully overlooked at the Oscars. Despite
some impressive effects, and seemingly higher production values, Chris Wallas’ The Fly 2 (1989) simply lacks the impressive
imagination of Cronenberg’s remake.
Invaders From Mars
(1986)
Tobe Hooper’s take on War
Of The Worlds derivative, Invaders
From Mars (1953), a movie for “scientists of all ages”, has aliens arrive,
like nocturnal thieves, with remote control of humans and the very ground that
people walk on. Designer turned director William Cameron Menzies presented his
picture’s core message as - ‘always question authority’, even if it means
breaking any rules, and it seems likely to have a profound effect upon young SF
fans. But what if a dream was a premonition? This mad remake delivers an epic
nightmare of impressive set-pieces with a magnificent upgrade of the special effects.
Hooper’s genius for INVADERS FROM MARS offers cult-worthy pulp sci-fi
revivalism, with a full-scale cosmic-horror story all wrapped up in 100
minutes. The 1953 version appeared between Heinlein’s novel The Puppet Masters (1951), and The Body Snatchers (1954) by Jack
Finney. Clearly, all this SF about UFOs and aliens inspired Larry Cohen’s TV
series The Invaders (1967-8), so
Hooper’s remake had plenty of genre influences drawn from SF themes already toyed
with, and practically exhausted.
“Everything is fine, now,” assures nodding dad George, but
his anxious son knows it’s a lie. Louise Fletcher plays an evil biology teacher.
Karen Black makes a great heroine as the school nurse Linda while the actress’
own son Hunter Carson plays 10-year-old radical David. As in the original, blank-faced
people stroll around like puppet-drones. However, now the back of that wicked teacher’s
van resembles the serial killer’s house in The
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). Indeed, witty in-jokes are everywhere,
like any Joe Dante adventure. The mega-brain of the Martian supreme
intelligence is only one image from a kid’s worst dreamscape. “Hope you know
what we’re doing,” says a US marine to a SETI scientist. When troops enter the
tunnels under the sand-pit, this scary mystery wholly becomes a black-comedy, and
bonkers menace appears at every twist. During a military evacuation, the slot-machine
ray-gun is hilarious. Finally, the plot switches to, oh no, not again! If
nothing else, this grisly amusement is a far better boy-meets-alien thriller
than Spielberg’s corny fairy-tale E.T. -
The Extra-Terrestrial (1982). Ray Garton’s witty novelisation revels in taking
some literary inspiration from The Wizard
Of Oz and Alice In Wonderland. Amusingly,
21 years later, Hooper’s IFM was a
clear influence on Body Snatchers remake
and zombie nightmare The Invasion
(2007).
Dead Of Winter
(1987)
The original version for this mystery-thriller was melodrama
My Name Is Julia Ross (1945), based
on Anthony Gilbert’s crime novel The
Woman In Red (1941). That B&W gothic that starred Nina Foch as a
secretary kidnapped from London to Cornwall. She is cruelly treated for
hysteria, but escapes from her captors in the cliff-top mansion, discovers an unsolved murder, and turns the tables after
a showdown on the beach. This remake benefits from North American settings (but
filmed in Canada), where an opening cloak-and-dagger sequence has fatal
results. Struggling NYC actress Katie (Mary Steenburgen) is invited to video
auditions for a mysterious director. Roddy McDowell plays Murray, a
talent-scout (actually a kidnap accomplice) for a ‘leading lady’ as look-alike
replacement for movie star Julie Rose in a supposed thriller script.
Trapped in an isolated house where her resident host is
creepy wheelchair-bound Dr Lewis, unwary Katie soon learns that there is no acting
role, and Murray’s deception covers up a blackmail plot. After losing a finger,
Katie - as Julie - discovers the house has a secret passage hidden behind her
bedroom’s mirror. Suffering through drug-induced hallucinations, she switches from
morbid submission to frantic desperation when local cops arrive. Another woman
appears, Julie’s sister Evelyn (also portrayed by Steenburgen), and the resourceful
actress fights her double. Arthur Penn (Euro actioner Target) directs with Kubrickian precision and Carpenterish scares,
and so DEAD OF WINTER offers a witty blend of subgenre themes on identity
crisis with clever twists, a frozen landscape as metaphorical claustrophobia,
and black comedy from various moral panics. Climactic violence is a clearly
decisive action that re-sets disturbances in this distorted reality in favour
of our tragic heroine, but DOW has no
happy ending. It’s only the case of a survivor of psycho horrors and physical trauma.
No Way Out (1987)
Originally filmed as The
Big Clock (1948), then a French version, Police Python 357 (1976), both based on a post-war novel, NO WAY
OUT is a Pentagon spy-thriller that begins as a romantic drama before it becomes
a criminal conspiracy about the secret manhunt for suspected KGB agent code-named
‘Yuri’. Roger Donaldson directs, with escalating tensions, while US navy
officer Tom Farrell (Kevin Costner) is “trying to be subtle”, when the target of
an investigation is actually himself. The real villain here is US Defence
Secretary David Price (Gene Hackman) whose mistress, cynical party-girl Susan
Atwell (Sean Young), is killed in a jealous rage. With the help of a slimy lawyer,
Pritchard (Will Patton), the increasingly desperate Price manages to circumvent
CIA and FBI inquires with a political cover-up. “You have no idea what men of
power can do!” Crucial to generating the pressure of suspense, in developments
of this neo-noir plot, is an image-enhancement program that works (oh so slowly!)
on photo evidence that’s expected to identify the killer. A clever Cold War twist-ending
is also very witty. Not only was this movie a career milestone for actor
Costner, boosting the Hollywood high-flyer into a superstar orbit, but its themes
and unusual setting proved influential enough to kick-start the modern subgenre
of ‘military justice’ - when it was followed by Peter Hyams’ The Presidio (1988), legal drama A Few Good Men (1992), murder mystery The General’s Daughter (1999), popular TV
series JAG (1995 - 2005), and a
spin-off NCIS franchise.
The Adventures Of
Baron Munchausen (1988)
Terry Gilliam’s lavishly staged production remains one of
the top five greatest fantasy movies of all time. Its earlier versions include
Josef von Baky’s Munchhausen (1948),
intended as German propaganda, and Karel Zeman’s partly-animated Czech film The Fabulous Baron Munchausen (1962).
This updated tale is quite suitably Pythonesque and features Eric Idle, playing
a supporting role, one of the powerful characters in the Baron’s own motley
super-team of comic-book heroes wearing period costumes. This remake isn’t,
however, a typical superhero movie, despite adventures that resemble a mission
where success is rarely in doubt. The unstoppable Baron routinely defeats an
army of invading Turks, saves a besieged kingdom, and magically defies ‘Death’
itself. Oliver Reed and Uma Thurman are great fun as the Roman deities Vulcan
and Venus. What makes this especially notable is how easily it forms Gilliam’s
auteur trilogy after the seemingly-unrelated genre adventures of Time Bandits (1981), and Brazil (1985).
THE ADVENTURES OF BARON
MUNCHAUSEN is an emboldened fairytale of sorts, about a crazy hero who’s
boastful enough to outrage historians or any logical thinkers with his archly
conceited claims of possessing a convincing superiority over mundane reality. To
reiterate and clarify, the Baron (winningly played by John Neville) is never an
offensive rebel, because his formidably absurd dreaming simply challenges formal
authority and entirely rational thought. His charming antagonism just rejects
the Age of Reason completely, and in favour of imagination... “You do believe
me, don’t you?” asks the Baron. “I’m doing my best” replies the confused little
stowaway Sally (Sarah Polley). Each time his wishing triumphs over trouble,
deadly adversity, or failure, the geriatric Baron regains his youthful
appearance, with a sparkling, renewed vigour, as if his life-force is magically
refuelled by hope. This expression of whimsy as creativity forms the heart of
Gilliam’s artistry, and here the director achieves his most fantastic level of
inventive novelty. The sing-along chorus (as commentary) “What will become of
the Baron? Surely this time, he will not escape” just prompts bigger unruly
evasion tactics so that a surprisingly indomitable willpower avoids undesirable
consequences. “Those were the days, eh?” Inspirational storytelling with a pair
of by-his-boot-straps twist-endings, Baron
Munchausen is the essence of what ‘legendary’ really means.
The Blob (1988)
Jim Wynorski’s trashy 1988 remake of Roger Corman’s
space-vampire movie, Not Of This Earth
(1957), is a typical example of how to update venerable B&W sci-fi without
adding even a moment of modern genre creativity, yet displaying witless
contempt for Corman’s fans. Yet another ‘first contact’ scenario, Chuck
Russell’s horror movie THE BLOB marks a genuine progression from its 1958 original,
directed by Irvin Yeaworth as an obviously cheesy B-movie, and best remembered
as the star debut of Hollywood legend Steve McQueen. Thirty years on, it’s local
bad-boy Brian (Kevin Dillon) who is the first to comprehend the big scale of new
danger for his town and the unsuspecting world. To nobody’s surprise he acts
irresponsibly, and only turns all heroically selfless just before the end. Before
his change of heart, Shawnee Smith makes a gutsy heroine as sensible
cheerleader Meg, clearly framing this remake as a ‘rebel youth’ adventure.
Much
like Carpenter’s shape-shifter The Thing
(1982), and Larry Cohen’s sci-fi satire The
Stuff (1985), this alien-invader thriller has an element of Lovecraftian mythos
in its comedy make-up. Superbly designed and performed, various special effects
for the gloopy creature spread rapidly, with results often copied from typical
slasher shocks, but featuring an unstoppable killer that’s obviously... not
from around here. With its blend of popular trends, the rampaging space-monster
emerges from a cosmos where the Nightmare
On Elm Street franchise meets Aliens
(1986), for small-town mayhem and some Twilight
Zone weirdness, including a loony preacher who easily believes its appearance
on Earth is a sign of the Rapture. Eventually, the uncannily pink-plasmic
people-eater expands so quickly, along with busy dimensions of this shrewd remake’s
conspiracy plot, that it bursts up from street drains like a volcanic eruption
during the climactic sequence. Considered as a form of living pollution, the
Blob owes something to Hedorah from Godzilla
vs. The Smog Monster (1971), and it pre-empts Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989), where a plant mutation threatens
Japan. Metamorphic menace here lacks any obvious intelligence but its giant
amoebic form exhibits a ferocious brutality that’s compelling as grotesque
horror, if not always credible as SF.
D.O.A. (1988)
A man walks into a police station and reports a murder... his
own. This crime-story of 1950 unfolds in flashback. After he’s poisoned in some
booze at a San Francisco night club, the doomed protagonist runs for his life.
There’s a luminous toxin (iridium) that glows in darkness, during the
briskly-paced B&W mystery with a sadly melodramatic finale. Updated for
modern noir by Charles Edward Pogue (also writer of Psycho III, and Cronenberg’s The
Fly), an impressive remake was directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel,
best known as creators of cyberpunk TV icon Max
Headroom (1985). After an Xmas suicide on campus, Professor Dex Cornell
(Dennis Quaid) is caught off balance, especially after he’s unjustly suspected
of murdering of his wife. The toxicity of radium chloride displays luminous in a
blood sample, and his doctor explains Dex has 24 hours to live. Filmed in
sweaty Texas, locations add layers of cultural stress to already fraught
narrative complications, bolstered by a fine supporting cast.
Mystery is linked
to a tragedy of literary ambitions and crime scandals concerning rich widow
Fitzwaring (Charlotte Rampling). On his way to justice, or oblivion, Dex gets
himself super-glued to student Sydney (Meg Ryan) in her Freudian slip. Running
from cops, Dex finds Syd’s crush on him turning into a one-night fling. Witty
ideas and startling images abound in this fascinating whodunit, where the victim
investigates his death, lurching from psychological trauma and moral crisis to violent
danger as he confronts mortality like an “ever darkening dream”. Although people
keep dying all around him Dex manages to expose an earlier crime. There’s the first
use of a nail-gun as a deadly weapon in this non-horror movie, a mainstream match
for Miracle Mile with scenes of tar-pits
on a location, featured here as a historical time-sink metaphor. In the end, it’s
all about the graded ‘A’ homework of an unread novel manuscript. D.O.A. was not this era’s final remake
of a classic noir. These upgrades continued with Peter Hyams’ witness-protection
thriller, The Narrow Margin (1990), the
super-charged version of 1952’s train drama.
Always (1989)
An updated version of A
Guy Named Joe (1943), Steven Spielberg’s ALWAYS is about fire-fighting
pilots, who drop water bombs and foam on forest fires. Hot-shot air-man Pete
(Richard Dreyfuss) is reckless to impress fellow flyers but upsets feisty
girlfriend Dorinda (Holly Hunter). Pete saves pilot buddy Al (a garrulous John
Goodman) from a burning plane but then he dies in a mid-air explosion.
Wandering from his Afterlife, the reluctantly deceased Pete meets guiding angel
Hap, played by Audrey Hepburn in her last role. Although unfairly dismissed as
another silly romantic-fantasy, produced in Hollywood’s matinee mode, this
aerial action movie is considerably more than just strange adventures in
daredevil flying with archly feminist, albeit largely stereotyped, aspects
mostly centred on Hunter’s spirited transformation from tomboy to princess.
A seemingly awkward style of theatrical unreality is wholly
appropriate as time-worn tropes are explored in charmingly unfashionable circumstances.
Wittily, Always flits between rom-com
and aviation thriller, but Spielberg’s direction elevates the original film’s wartime
melodrama to superior mystery-movie with a quiet-ghost story (rarely depending
on special effects) for affecting episodes of tragedy and weighty mourning.
Dorinda’s dreaming opens communication with Pete, who learns to act as a
guardian angel for handsome Ted (Brad Johnson) and so, eventually, heroine
Dorinda falls for this new bloke at the flight school. A climactic mission is
coached by Pete but actually piloted by Dorinda, complete with the mysticism of
night flying. Like Warren Beatty’s Heaven
Can Wait (1978), a remake of Here
Comes Mr Jordan (1941), this examines a mixed-bag of supernatural themes,
focused on dead people not ready to cry ‘goodbye’. In its sentimentality, Always adopts the Capra-esque manner of It’s A Wonderful Life (1946), but playing
with opposites, when farewell means freedom. Peppering comedy with quirky
slapstick scenes among telepathic encounters, where love’s persistence in grief
enables a psychic link with the ghost, even if dancing alone. Certainly, Always is one of Spielberg’s most under-rated
efforts.
* * *
Runners-up...
AIRPLANE! (1980)
Excluded from the top 15 because it’s just a parody, not a
proper remake, this comedy about disaster movies nevertheless owes a
substantial debt to the story of Zero
Hour! (1957). Oddly enough, the follow-up to this spoofy success, sci-fi
comedy Airplane II: The Sequel
(1982), is much funnier, to me, partly because it features William Shatner.
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN (1981)
Another spoof, this colourful sit-com and critique of
American consumerism lacks the moral values and genre sincerity that ensured
Jack Arnold’s The Incredible Shrinking
Man (1957) became such a classic of B&W sci-fi horror.
SCARFACE (1983)
With his update of Howard Hawks’ original Scarface (1932), Brian De Palma proves that
nothing succeeds quite like bloody excess, offering gangster violence that’s
now so hysterically sensationalist, it has long since lapsed into hyper-violent
caricature.
THE BOUNTY (1984)
Roger Donaldson’s re-telling of Mutiny On The Bounty (1935, remade 1962) is glossy and stylish, but
hardly a great improvement as sea-faring entertainment, or historical drama,
despite a good cast led by Anthony Hopkins, and Mel Gibson.
LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)
Roger Corman’s horror comedy (1960) was adapted into a 1982
stage musical, before Frank Oz directed a movie version. It’s a peculiar
combination that never appealed to me, partly because I dislike any traditional
screen musicals, except for Singin’ In
The Rain (1952).
AND GOD CREATED WOMAN (1988)
It’s a rarity in new versions when a director recycles their
own movie. Roger Vadim’s And God Created
Woman (1956), was a French showcase for Brigitte Bardot, baiting censors
with liberated sexuality, then considered indecent. Vadim’s American remake had
a new storyline, a sexy comedy that stars Rebecca De Mornay as escaped convict
Robin, a flighty jailbird with ambitious designs on a state politician (Frank
Langella).
And finally...
In franchised media, some productions avoid easy
identification as remakes - and yet the label ‘reboot’ might seem appropriate.
Partly, if not mostly, this applies to various new versions of serial-films and
early TV shows about superheroes, fitting very neatly into the retroactive
continuity (ret-con) frameworks of comic-book alternative worlds and so Richard
Donner’s epic Superman: The Movie
(1978), is mirrored by TV-movie Captain
America (1979), as great examples of more imaginative adventures linked to
earlier screen adaptations without being just updated and obviously refreshed
origin-stories. Cleverly directed by Tim Burton, Batman (1989), never feels like a remake, so it’s not on my list,
but it deserves a mention here. Hugh Hudson’s magnificent picture Greystoke: The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The
Apes (1984) is another visionary film adaptation that was developed so differently
than any previous screen adventures it’s evolved far beyond any ‘remake’
status.
See also: Top 20 Live-Action Superhero Movies
Top 15 remakes in
alphabetical order -
The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen (1988)
Always (1989)
The Blob (1988)
Cat People (1982)
Dead Of Winter (1987)
D.O.A. (1988)
Enemy Mine (1985)
Flash Gordon (1980)
The Fly (1986)
Invaders From Mars (1986)
Never Say Never Again (1983)
No Way Out (1987)
Outland (1981)
The Thing (1982)
Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)
