A Nightmare on Elm Street, No. 9 - A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)

One, two, Freddy’s made anew.
Three, four, it’s a giant bore.
Five, six, who greenlights these flicks?
Seven, eight, for these films I hate.
Nine, ten, never remake again.

There’s usually an expected period of let’s say mourning before a remake may occur. We’re talking slightly under three decades typically, which is about the gap separating The Thing (From Another World) and The Thing – and The Thing is always any argument’s default “good remake!” Likewise, the ‘00s systematically remade horror classics 29 years later. It’s the same, from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Halloween (1978) to Halloween (2007), Friday the 13th (1980) to Friday the 13th (2009). That’s all thrown off by 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which follows Friday by a mere year rather than four. If this indicates general remake acceleration, we should’ve already gotten remixes of Hellraiser and Child’s Play and so on until remakes come out in the same year as the originals.

Rather, it’s perhaps an anomaly. Because A Nightmare on Elm Street is now forever associated with Friday the 13th (officially, ever since Freddy vs. Jason), doing one simply makes the other an inevitability – the most inescapably needless remake yet. Might as well get it over with. But for a movie to exist simply to satisfy an unwanted pattern, creating something remotely useful out of it would stymie even the most caring remaker…or Platinum Dunes.


At least Platinum Dunes’ Friday the 13th took some liberties with the property, as that franchise holds no one film worthy of remaking in the first place. The Elm Street franchise has a good movie – the original Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). So instead of that Friday franchise collage, Elm Street’s gravediggers go the dispiritingly uncreative route, and simple remake A Nightmare on Elm Street. Which wasn’t so riddled with flaws as to warrant an updating anyway (the eternal remake dilemma: bad movies with good premises most warrant reworking, but good movies are usually redone because people recognize them). The only really apparent issue with the original is its 1984 timestamp; giving it an equally blatant 2010 timestamp (complete with the same damn color filters as always) doesn’t really fix matters.

We know this project is a shameless bid for idiotic youngsters’ cash, but still asinine producer Michael Bay attempts some justification: It’s for “a new generation.” What is that shit?! Are you to suggest that modern audiences simply cannot, or should not, expose themselves to movies that are too old? That short-sighted, unseasoned moviegoers (i.e. today’s teens, though I’m ashamed to say I was equally narrow-minded in my youth) demand newness as a virtue above all else? This is reductive to cinema as a whole! It speaks to the most common concern about our modern remakes – that they undermine the power of the originals – which isn’t true for an older viewer (I’ll still watch and enjoy Wes Craven’s Elm Street once video director Samuel Bayer’s grotesque abomination is long gone), but who knows how it’s stunting the evolution of the youth. It creates superficial viewers, more concerned with a movie’s surface gloss than the more timeless craftsmanship underneath it.

So as a filmmaker, presented with a structure as arguably perfect as A Nightmare on Elm Street’s, this is your challenge: Change nothing, like Gus Van Sant’s Psycho (an interesting movie, in hindsight, because of its intended purposelessness), and you’ve just masturbated with Michael Bay’s money (which is pretty grody to begin with). Make changes, and they’ll simply make things worse. Hence why something like A Nightmare on Elm Street shouldn’t be remade – and Wes Craven would agree with me, and offer up his New Nightmare as the cleverer alternative to the same.


But a remake they made (obviously), so we mostly have a cavalcade of arbitrary, ornamental details shifted around. The story’s the same: A small group of high schoolers shares the same dream of a burnt boogeyman with knives, who kills them in their sleep. Actually, that’s just the premise; even the structural details are mostly unaltered, which makes the film a phenomenally tedious slog when events happen slower than they did under Craven. Seriously, the Tina analog ain’t even dead yet by the time the original already had Nancy fully aware of Freddy Kreuger and fighting him.

Yeah, it’s all analogues, technically “new” characters so underwritten, they’re only power is as stand-ins for the original cast. So for Tina we have Kris (the CW’s Katie Cassidy, who loves horror remakes – When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas), reduced to the role of “blonde and has sex.” There’s some effort to make her a decoy heroine as before, but less successful (the operating term for the day) because it doesn’t even register…not unless recalling the first.

Rod is now Jesse (Thomas Dekker, who’s voiced Fievel and Littlefoot [!]). It’s clear he’s Rod because he is sent to prison over Tina’s – er, Kris’ murder, and himself dies there. It isn’t obvious until that point, because Jesse lacks any identity, let alone Rod’s hooliganism.

Glen analog Quentin (the CW’s Kyle Gallner), identifiable as such simply because he’s Nancy’s boyfriend. That’s the only connection. Gallner sure ain’t no Johnny Depp, and they’ve specifically removed many of the best portions of the first by altering him.

Then there’s Nancy Thompson (Rooney Mara – Zuckerberg’s ex-girlfriend in The Social Network), who – no, wait, Nancy Holbrook. Ooh, changes! So she’s our Final Girl, which the movie makes obvious right out of the bat by giving her the longest (content-free) character scenes. They then do nothing with her until the hour mark, which is damnably counterproductive. Once she’s finally experiencing bad dreams (around minute 60, versus Craven’s minute 25), we’re totally beyond caring.


On paper, the cast appears promising, in that sense that every fucking slasher movie after Scream randomly, heedlessly casts flavor-of-the-month TV actors – in other words, not promising at all. Still, the actors are better than they give here, credit to Bayer’s Lucas-esque anti-concern with performers, and credit to a stuffy script by people I’m not even going to look up. And when characters don’t work in an Elm Street, that’s a pretty fundamental problem, because you don’t have that Friday nicety of blood and boobs and excess to fall back on.

So far, I could’ve written most of this before 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street even existed, so slavishly does it follow the common remake problems. The X-factor is Freddy Kreuger himself, a more interesting problem. In the name of pointless change done for the sake of itself, Kreuger is recast, not because Robert England wasn’t anything but the best aspect of the series, but because it’s “for a new generation.” AKA, it’s arbitrary.

I’ll hold off on revealing the actor until after the bombshell is dropped. There’s more to discuss first. Namely, they’ve changed Freddy. Just because. So his makeup now resembles an actual burn victim, ala The English Patient (ooh, scary!), though adding so-called realism to A Nightmare on Elm Street seems to completely miss the dream point to begin with. Freddy’s makeup is unexpressive and lacking in mythic grandeur. And why redesign Freddy?! He’s not something generic, like a vampire of a werewolf. Freddy is his first cinematic incarnation, complete with many specific details – that red-and-sweat sweater, the fedora, knife-glove…Any alteration screams of redundancy, because there’s no getting to the truth of a character who was already at his truest!

This goes the same for all minor changes, which don’t do a lot to explain why a remake exists. Given how scrupulously the 2010 version apes the 1984 version, there’s room for only one substantive change, to really make a difference. And because it’s the only major alteration, the filmmakers hug it oh so tight, making it the movie’s theme more than even dreams. It’s the bombshell, and here it comes…

Freddy Kreuger, once a child murderer, is now a child molester.


Okay, so Craven toyed with this very same notion, before wisely rejecting it. Grossness and terror are two different things. Besides, Freddy’s backstory is simply a detail, unsubstantial in the greater dream scheme. But Platinum Dunes loves to overemphasize the past, because they fundamentally do not understand that fear comes from the unknown. So where 2010’s A Nightmare on Elm Street comes off the rails and abandons the original is in the second half, when Freddy’s former molestation comes into play.

And knowing that, it warrants mentioning Freddy’s actor: Jackie Earle Haley. In Little Children, he played a child molester. In Watchmen, he played a psychotic killer. In The Bad News Bears, he played a baseball-playing punk kid, which has nothing to do with anything. Reprising your old roles, in the shadow of Robert Englund, under inexpressive latex…this cannot be the most rewarding acting experience. It’s no wonder Haley’s Freddy doesn’t register, leaving us with a vague glob instead of a wholly defined nightmare entity.

Paradoxically, the original Elm Street was all about puberty, about the metaphorical movement into adulthood, represented by Freddy’s sexualized attacks. Freddy resembles a vampire in his subtext. But under Bayer, and a specifically sexual Freddy, the blatant sexual imagery is gone. Kris gets the ceiling dance same as Tina, but the new movie is so preoccupied with jazzing the moment up with CGI show-offery (often so lousy, the cheap, practical 1984 effects are more convincing), it forgets the original point entirely. This is what A Nightmare on Elm Street would’ve looked like, had it been done by a hack and not a writer/director with a point to prove.

That extends to the wasteful moments which completely mimic the original. When Nancy takes her bath, we all anticipate this moment:


And then get this moment:


Since you know it’s coming, playing it as a shock wouldn’t work. Not that Craven did that anyway; it was a suspense moment from the get go (and more highly sexualized, to do the grotesque thing and compare angle of spread and such). Naturally, commercial director, ADD editing-obsessed Bayer goes with the jump scare. It highlights where this Elm Street falls short, when a keen remake would’ve twisted the moment to use our expectations against us. (Of all the times when Bayer’s film eschews change!)

Actually, jump scares are the name of the game, something which doesn’t befit the in-and-out dream logic of an Elm Street as well as it does a standard horror flick. We’re generally assured of certain “safe” non-dream scenes, for all these movies blur that distinction. Like a later Elm Street sequel, the remake struggles to find a new form of sleep to capitalize upon. It trumps up a totally fictional thing, the “micro-nap,” simply to engender a progression of Freddy shocks while our characters are awake for days later on. Without having earned dread to begin with, this isn’t functional.

Further hurting A Nightmare on Elm Street, it adds other arbitrary, non-real sleep rules. Did you know if you’re awake for three straight days, you suddenly fall into a permanent, irreversible coma? Tell that to my fellow grad students! And permanent comas can be overcome with shots of adrenaline. Inception made up its own dream rules too, but in an appropriate context; you can’t make Freddy more “real” while completely misrepresenting slumber at the same time.

But getting back to that central issue, which I’ve been circling around: Child molestation! (Blogger is so going to flag me for this post.) Dreams double as flashbacks, and we get an overdose of Freddy’s time as a mortal – And anyone else think this franchise could’ve sustained a Rob Zombie-style prequel far better than Halloween? Fulfilling the almighty God of the Arbitrary Alteration, Freddy was now once a school janitor and – Wait, I’ve seen this before.


“Simpsons” did it!

Anyway, Freddy worked at the Badham Preschool – so named by administrators totally unschooled in the ways of irony. (The day care in Toy Story 3 is still creepier.) Freddy serially [CENSORED] his way through a never ending roster of five-year-olds – damn you, movie, for forcing me to write that sentence! So the parents of Springwood came for him, and torched him in a boiler room basement.


See what a problem this little murderer/molester change makes? Vigilante justice against a known serial killer is sensible, though regrettable. Intentionally murdering a pedophile instead of taking him to trail in the first place…you can understand the rage, sure, but the parents’ effort to justify their lynch mob one decade later doesn’t really work. (Though adults remain a presence in the new Nightmare, thematically the movie is far beyond actually considering the generation gap, or any such nicety.) It’s all an attempt to keep the children from remembering what happened – and present day repressed memories work with the same narrative whateverness as standard-grade amnesia.

The movie really and truly dwells upon this particular version of Freddy’s past as it nears the climax. Though the solution – pulls Freddy out of dreams, kill him here – is the same as always, somehow the heroes get it into their heads to track down Freddy’s sex dungeon first. And isn’t it just lovely, a horror movie whose final half hour occurs in a sex dungeon? Actually, many of the more sordid ‘70s exploitation epics commit similar lapses of taste, but things like Cannibal Holocaust have a genuine concern with disgust, and are valuable in their excess, whereas the new Elm Street is a mainstream effort that can never fully commit. So moments where Nancy scrolls through Polaroids of her unwanted sexual past are hidden from our view, but fully present to the characters – this is mean-spirited, to me, in ways Hostel and its ilk never dared. But never constructively off-putting, either, simply calculated and wrong.


Freddy was originally a personification of the boogeyman. Falling asleep meant death, pure and simple, an existentialist cosmic terror given universality and flesh at once. Freddy is now an agent of perversion, whose ultimate goal is to trick Nancy into a coma for an eternity of dream rape. Tasteful! Again, icky ≠ scary. Not to mention, little innocuous details like the finger-knives become arbitrary in this new setup. Freddy wasn’t a murderer in life (though still an awful, awful, awful, awful man), so the knives are now just a kewl weapon, nothing more. So many of Freddy’s attributes, the boiler room and sweater and whatnot, lose meaning by how heavily Michael Bay’s minions embrace child molestation for all it’s worth. (Again, this is the same juvenile producer who was off-put by the heterosexual fornication which permeated the Friday remake.)

I’m about done with this movie, which makes a mockery of the original and is distasteful in its own right. It doesn’t even leave the room for sequels as the first did (at Robert Shaye’s insistence – how I miss him). Freddy circa 2010 has a limited victim pool – the kids that he, well, you know – but so did 1984 Freddy, and he branched out eventually to just target teens at random. This was acceptable, as that Freddy was a personification of evil in general. I can’t see Haley’s Freddy stalking new dreamers, not without that personal past to fuel him.

But making sequels isn’t necessarily a good thing – I’m in favor of them now, for the stupid reason that my movie diet has become almost nothing but sequels (damn blog). But in the case of Platinum Dunes and their habitual franchise assassination, sequels don’t matter. Nor do the originals. This company is itself akin to a franchise, only they can just acquire new properties to lambast instead of stretching out a single movie ad nauseum. (Next up: Christine. Thankfully abandoned: The Birds.) They don’t care about making sequels to their Nightmare on Elm Street (good riddance!), nor do they care about doing it right anyway. They’re a cold and cynical company; take solace at least that the original Elm Street still exists, and is good, and shall endure while this one has certainly already faded away.


RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• No. 2 A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
• No. 3 A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
• No. 4 A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
• No. 5 A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
• No. 6 Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991)
• No. 7 Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
• No. 8 Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Friday the 13th, No. 12 - Friday the 13th (2009)

Remakes have always been with us, but the horror remake trend has only really taken off in the past ten years. Conceivably nearly every classic (and many never-classics) from the ‘70s and ‘80s has recently been redone: The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, I Spit On Your Grave, Black Christmas, The Fog, Halloween, My Bloody Valentine, Piranha, Prom Night, The Wicker Man, Dawn of the Dead, When a Stranger Calls, The Crazies, The Omen, Sorority Row…(to wit). To say nothing of those not yet made. (I’m not counting something like House of Wax simply because it steals from the ‘50s.) What caused this influx?! I don’t fully know, but I’d wager it’s a mentality similar to sequel production – A brand name guarantees a built-in audience, however niche, ensuring profits. When trying to make your name in the horror field, it’s easier to sell producers on anything even remotely known (I mean, come on, The House on Sorority Row?!).

The poster child for this trend is Platinum Dunes, whose Texas Chainsaw Massacre redo is the golden standard of modern remakes, profitability-wise. The company has since then specialized in further cinematic grave-robbing like The Amityville Horror and The Hitcher. Their in-house style emphasizes budget and slickness – idealized, horridly, by orange and teal to no end – over the slightest creativity (never a driving force in this remake circus). If studio head Michael Bay represents the fullest devolution of film into market-driven pap, this is him as producer: Financing sure thing properties based on his astounding ability to have already seen popular old movies, against even his own doubtful sense of taste.

In such a climate, it wasn’t a question of if Friday the 13th was going to get remade, but when. The answer: 2009. Given this inevitability – and the further inevitability that Platinum Dunes would do the deed, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s Marcus Nispel directing – it’s just a question of what remaking Friday the 13th entails. A legitimate remake would be an utterly foolish notion, as modern audiences would be put off by the complete lack of Jason – recall, he didn’t become the villain until Part 2. Indeed, the masses demand a Jason complete with hockey mask – leading us all the way to Part III. Really, Friday the 13th more than most franchises is driven by a sort of idealized movie than any one actual film. We picture teens partying in the woods, possibly counselors, randomly butchered by Mr. Voorhees for our amusement.

In fact, there is a fair argument that 2009’s Friday the 13th is actually a reboot – screenwriters Damian Shannon and Mark Swift (also of Freddy vs. Jason) would surely have it that way. Between their former film, Jason X and Jason Goes to Hell, continuity has taken a cleaver to the face, Jason turned from a simple forest-dwelling psychopath into a zombie-demon-cyborg-something. So their concept is to remake not one entry from the franchise, but a generic amalgamation of everything through The Final Chapter (i.e. Part IV). This cuts to the core. The remake’s focus is on self-conscious retro-exploitation, rejecting the horror-comedy shenanigans which forever struggled to redefine the franchise.


What is curious about this remake (as written by longtime franchise fans) is that it seems designed primarily to appeal to preexisting series fans – people who intimately know the first films’ structures and details. That is, people who’ve blogged about the series. Intentionally rejecting the self-parody of 1996’s Scream (oh, how novel!), Friday the 13th redux only informs the slasher genre if you know it too well, and appreciate formal structural play. So, no, it’s not terribly deep (making it a perfect Friday the 13th), and it at least aims for that same nebulous roller coaster horror-bubblegum feel the sequels were originally founded upon.

In loosely replaying the first four movies, Shannon and Swift opt to split them in twain, and do each in isolation. Mostly. Interestingly, each nominally-related section is exponentially longer than the last, which becomes fatiguing with time. For instance, Part 1 is glanced over in a wretchedly edited attempt at the Casino Royale pre-titles, letting barely two minutes replay the original’s decapitation-filled climax.

Maybe you know this: Jason’s mother, Pamela, eviscerates an entire campground in misdirected vengeance against her son’s supposed drowning. She dies. This time, we see Jason witnessing her murder, even if the same questions remain as in Part 2: What conditions led to Jason’s survival, and why didn’t he then tell his Mama, but rather kill for her later? All this backstory is left under-explored – lessons learned all too well from Freddy vs. Jason – so hopefully you don’t care too much, as you’re just here to see Jason do the machete Macarena.

Now it’s on to arguably the Part 2 parallel, which lasts about 20 minutes. A quintet of teens camps in the woods – filmed in Texas, so insufficiently woodsy, and the degree of isolation always unclear. Because Friday the 13th ushers back to an archaic, outdated form of the slasher, it wholeheartedly keeps the kids the focus, forever unaware of Jason’s presence until nanoseconds before their individual slashings. Compare this to how something like Jason X makes Jason immediately known, and is forced to stupidify its cast even more than usual to compensate.

So for now we have five teens a-campin’ – five teens of unnecessary identity, except for Whitney Miller (Amanda Righetti, of “The O.C.” and “North Shore”), whose last name and ill-defined longing are classic Final Girl characteristics. Five teens a-campin’ – and also looking for a hidden weed patch – um…gotta address this…Is Jason a pothead now?! An agro, agro pothead? Questionable, arguable…motive-wise, he’s mostly just defending his forest turf (and quite demonstrably living off the land in a Unabomber sort of way,). The cannabis sativa plant might have rooted there on its own…or have been planted there by some other dude, whom Jason promptly dispatched.


We know where this is going – Jason kills everybody, with the possible exception of Whitney. More so than usual, it behooves us to examine Jason himself (Derek Mears). First, he wears a bag – ala Part 2, and it’s amazing the controversy this ignited amongst the series ignorant wishing to think themselves informed. Also, he runs – something else familiar from the early days, but bracing once you’ve gotten used to the old stroll ‘n’ slash. Less familiarly, now Jason plots, plans, schemes. He uses a bear trap to immobilize one jerk before eventually finishing the job. This and Jason’s subsequent treatment of Whitney leads some to hypothesize there’s a bit of the Saw-esque torture pornography lurking. Well…yes and no. Jason is still a pragmatist who prefers a quick dispatch over any sort of cruelty, so his deviations are simply ways to best corral his victims for efficient killification.

Among his kills, here and elsewhere, Jason is sticking pretty old school, and sticking (in all senses) with his machete. There are no new ways for that thing to enter a human body now. I rather respect the attempt, to play classical and simple, though the counter argument – that the creativity is gone, and the kills underwhelming – is certainly valid. One doubtless thing: 2009’s Friday the 13th isn’t remotely close to the original’s Tom Savini effects in its impact upon cinematic violence. To know only this movie, you wouldn’t even think that the franchise’s legacy. It’s all pretty subservient to the past, even doing variations on moments like The New Blood’s sleeping bag execution. If you recognize that, this Friday the 13th works as it should; be unable to identify one of the hundreds of former murders, and this is simply a slick, generic slasher.


With that, the movie seems to reset to “6 weeks later” – having already taken place in “the present,” so presumably this bit is permanently in the future – with a new, slightly larger batch of teens entering Crystal Lake. We’re to be in their company for the remainder of the flick, which also means (lamentably) an increased period of directionless partying before the genre hijinks can resume. Rather than split up Parts III and IV, Friday the 13th combines them into one at this point, for as much as those movies are even distinct to begin with. This means we see elements from those movies – the hockey mask is found, replacing Jason’s beloved bag. There is a barn. And the kids have sequestered themselves in a cabin-mansion in a move which has absolutely nothing to do with what we’ve already seen.

The former sequels are notably standalone anyway, but it’s weirder in the context of a single movie. Correcting that issue, Whitney’s brother Clay (Jared Padalecki, trading in “Supernatural’s” Studebaker for a moped) is out searching for her. This parallels that fellow Rob from The Final Chapter, except Clay isn’t ushered in simply to exposit and die. Nope, he’s an actual protagonist, proactive, which is an impressive feat considering how Friday the 13th must remain old school, and preserve his ignorance of Jason for much of the film. Still, Clay is (unintentionally) responding to Jason’s actions, which is something.

Though we still spend beaucoup time at the party cabin, which updates the debauchery of former Fridays for the new millennium. Sex, drinking and smoking are seen in newer guises, invoking beer pong, YouTube and high-tech bongs. They even awkwardly announce all cell phones are dead, because horror movies haven’t found a more elegant way around that problem yet. It’s the same basic nonsense as ever, so I (begrudgingly) return to summarizing the cast:

Trent (Travis Van Winkle, which is frankly a better name for the character): The rich prick who owns the cabin (at least, his old money parents do), and the asshole who will inevitably die last, because we want to see him die first.

Jenna (Danielle Panabaker): Trent’s girlfriend, which is the one distracting detail for someone who is otherwise a prime Final Girl suspect – she even has the good instincts to side with Clay early. Naturally, she’s boring. Her survival, in genre terms, depends upon whether Whitney is still alive. I’ll say it now (SPOILER): The False Final Girl is kind of a novel idea.

Bree (Julianna Guill): The sexpot, who most admirably fulfills the needed tit quotient, even while many other actresses are equally topless. One hilarious thing about Friday the 13th is how uncomfortable producer Michael Bay was with the film’s sexual content, better proof than even Transformers 2 that the man has the maturity of a prepubescent.

Chewie (Aaron Yoo): On paper, the Stoner (named after III’s Chuck and Chili), and the Asian. Though that second one’s pretty new. In practice, Chewie is perhaps the single funniest character in the franchise (unless Freddy from Freddy vs. Jason counts), and all that credit goes to Yoo himself. One senses he’d fit perfectly into a Harold & Kumar movie.

Lawrence (Arien Escarpeta): In contrast, he’s the Black One, and that’s his whole persona. Yup, because we don’t actually care about race any more, Lawrence takes every opportunity possible to point out his blackness to us. I think there was an intended joke someplace in here which got lost.

Also Nolan (Ryan Hansen): The Surfer Dude.

And Chelsea (Willa Ford): His girlfriend.


That out of the way, Jason can go and kill…some random tertiary character, a barn-dwelling, mannequin-raping, drug-dealing redneck (Kyle Davis). It’s in this bric-a-brac barn that Jason randomly uncovers his hockey mask, and dons it on screen. To hear the filmmakers, that act alone makes the moment substantial, though…Well, the mask is iconic. Still, it doesn’t mean anything; never has. It’s weird then that the mask starts getting these long, loving shots towards the end, like the Jewel of the Sea or whatever in Titanic, given Jason’s been wearing it for only one day. This is the issue with remakes – iconography is simply assumed, but never justified within the context of the remake.

Now…that redneck got his for stealing marijuana from the woods – evidence in favor of “Jason the dope fiend.” The only awkward thing is, this redneck was a local. As per Clay’s former run-in with an ersatz female Crazy Ralph, we’re assured the locals are well aware of Jason’s murderous habits, and simply know well enough to give his woods a wide berth. Actually, the nature of Jason’s residence within the wider Crystal Lake community is a serious issue in Friday the 13th, and worthy of exploration…


Okay, so the cops never found any evidence of Whitney and her friends, not even a car – and it’s hard to picture Jason disposing of whole automobiles (or the god damned speed boat he disables later on). Nonetheless, his lair in the abandoned Crystal Lake campgrounds is evidently occupied – obvious enough to pot-addled teens upon immediate observation. Either the region’s cops are tremendously incompetent (which is in keeping with series lore), or they’re actively covering up Jason’s antics. Further evidence suggests this Jason’s overall body count exceeds those we see on screen, partly because they want to suggest a Texas Chainsaw Massacre mythos (Nispel and all). So why no action’s ever been taken against a clearly mortal psychopath, who’s to say?

Not to mention, Trent’s house is well within the greater Crystal Lake environs, and has been occupied by generations of Van Winkles (or whatever the family name is). Oh, and Jason’s been a local presence since 1980, the date given in the opening. So no doubt Trent’s been in town before, while Jason was a grown, lethal threat. And yet, Trent knows nothing of the guy. And neither does he do anything to incur Mr. Voorhees’ wrath, making Jason’s eventual party crashing a little hard to square away, except in genre terms. Besides, there’s no way spending one day butchering a cop, a local, and an entire occupied mansion won’t be uncovered.

Okay, so before Jason invades Trent’s property and commits various more serious crimes, we first see Clay and Jenna sneak onto his property. They rush back to Trent and the gang to warn them (oh so unsuccessfully!), but perhaps Jason was simply tailing them – good one, Clay! Except…a couple of the group have already been knocked off, during a guileless boat trip upon Crystal Lake. What was their offence? If merely being on the lake offends Jason now, why does Trent have a multi-million dollar boat already upon it? Perhaps Jason just one day became too big for his britches, because it’s hard to picture this being is his daily habit.


So Jason goes over to Trent’s house uninvited and, in time, kills everybody except for Clay and Jenna. Trent is the last to go, exactly per formula. And by 2009, they’re still so consciously trying to destroy that outdated “black guy dies first” rule, making “black guy dies midway” the new cliché – which is exactly what befalls Lawrence. Jason’s swath of murder differs from those from the ‘80s in one crucial detail, however, for all of Friday the 13th’s classicism: Most of the kids know Jason lurks well in advance of their deaths. Again, thanks be to Clay that they know. But it seems a structural oddity to push so many characters into the climax, and not an effective one.

Oh, and meanwhile…Whitney lives! Jason has her chained up in his extensive Viet Cong tunnel system (tunnels near a lake? Suuuuure), and here they go Saw a little more. This flavor-of-the-month addition distracts from the chance this is a variation on that old Part 2 moment where the Final Girl impersonates Jason’s mother. Whitney does this too, but unintentionally. It’s claimed she resembled a young Pamela Voorhees (I just have to take the movie’s word for it). Odd that a Final Girl’s survival (and Whitney does survive; the only true question mark is Clay) should hinge upon her genetically-given appearance, more than anything behavioral on her part. To give Friday the 13th the benefit of the doubt, maybe that’s “scarier” in its randomness. Except this movie doesn’t try for “scary,” but “fun,” so this is just another example of the moviemakers discovering areas where the rigid slasher formula doesn’t freely give.


That mostly covers Friday the 13th. The climax is a little underwhelming, because preserving so many victims for so long cuts into the fun Final Girl sequence. Besides, both Clay and Whitney are operating under a gigantic hero immunity clause (Whitney’s is literal – Jason doesn’t dare off her). I appreciate this remake for its attempts to return to the earlier Fridays, which are mostly when the series was in top form (though Jason Lives is, methinks, the best of the lot, it didn’t leave yield decent sequels, somehow). It’s ultimately middling, among Jason’s adventures, mostly because many of the things it does intentionally are miscalculations. Efforts to upend slasher formula do not work, and weaken the otherwise staunch normalcy of this movie. Though it could be my knowledge of all the earlier movies is preventing me from seeing this anew – I pick up on things like Jason’s mother complex because I already know about it. To discover it through this movie, maybe that works, or maybe it’s underplayed. It’s hard for me to say, and frankly I doubt the moviemakers (over-familiar with the series as they too are) can say either.

And while rebooting is often a useful way to restore life to an ailing franchise, remakes are not. Since they rarely escape from their former’s shadow in a way sequels are not beholden to, one doesn’t see remakes sequelized often. Within this particular movement, there are exceptions: The Hills Have Eyes Part II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, Halloween II. Indeed, Friday the 13th was successful enough (behind only Freddy vs. Jason – ah, inflation), and a sequel was contemplated. Shannon and Swift are still anxious to do one, but at present it is not happening. Thank movie studios – as the remake was only possible by a joint agreement between New Line, Platinum Dunes and Paramount, for this series’ inbred history. Too bad too, that moneymen dictate boogeymen, because we were just one way from the fabled thirteenth 13th.


But to tide us all over until then, I give you, to wit…

EVERY MURDER WEAPON USED IN THE SERIES:

Knife, knife, knife, knife, arrow, axe, knife, arrows, machete, ice pick, barbed wire, hammer claw, knife, unknown, machete, spear, spear, knife, unknown, cleaver, knitting needle, pitchfork, pitchfork, spear, machete, knife, electricity, knife, fireplace poker, hands, machete, surgical saw, scalpel, knife, knife, spear, spear, unknown, cleaver, window, knife, hands, axe, harrow, machete, machete, spike, axe, road flare, knife, axe, axe, machete, shears, belt, knife, pole, cleaver, cleaver, knife, machete, knife, knife, knife, bed of spikes, machete, hands, pole, pole, tree branch, machete, machete, machete, machete, bottle, machete, machete, mirror, knife, hands, machete, dart, hands, hands, drowning, spike, spike, hands, sleeping bag, machete, drowning, scythe, hands, noise maker, machete, window, shear, gas-powered branch lopper, axe, spear gun, spear, guitar, sauna rock, mirror shard, spear, knife, hands, spear, electricity, antenna, drowning, axe, syringe, pipe, hands, unknown, explosion, toxic waste, mirror, wrench…

INTERMISSION

Possession, probe, unknown, unknown, unknown, unknown, razor, tent pole, unknown, car door, possession, knife, possession, hands, hands, hands, hands, hands, gun, deep fryer, hands, pole, knife, hands, possession, unknown, chain, pole, pole, pole, liquid nitrogen, space machete, hands, hands, hands, space machete, gigantic screw, space machete, loading winch, non-space machete, explosion, unknown, electricity, explosion, explosion, decompression, sleeping bag, sleeping bag, atmosphere reentry, machete, machete, machete, machete, pole, pole, hands, machete, machete, machete, machete, machete, machete, Freddy’s razor glove, door, electricity, machete, shelf support, machete, machete, machete, campfire, machete, machete, machete, arrow, machete, screwdriver, axe, deer antlers, machete, tow truck winch, machete.


RELATED POSTS
• No. 1 Friday the 13th (1980)
• No. 2 Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
• No. 3 Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
• No. 4 Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
• No. 5 Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
• No. 6 Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986)
• No. 7 Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
• No. 8 Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
• No. 9 Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)
• No. 10 Jason X (2002)
• No. 11 Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Seven Samurai, No. 9 - China Gate (1998)

The last stop in our Seven Samurai remake extravaganza marks yet another facet of international cinema. China Gate, unlike the name’s suggestion, hails from Bollywood, those most prolific of all moviemakers. Indian film is an enormous question mark to me, despite this prolificacy, as it plays almost entirely to a homegrown audience, populist entertainments which do not travel well abroad. There is little of the self-serious pretension which caters to the art house circuits which usually champion foreign language film.

Most Bollywood films inhabit the musical genre, almost wholly forgotten elsewhere. For all my ignorance of this field, I have evidence enough of this fact, as my best exposure to Mumbai movies comes of trolling dance numbers on YouTube. Eh, that, plus some old Sanjarit Ray, and Slumdog Millionaire, which really doesn’t count. So China Gate is for me an immersion into an almost totally alien filmic style, made easier by a familiar narrative.

“Our humble tribute to late Akira Kurosawa.”

Director Rajkumar Santoshi is undoubtedly aware of the Japanese masterpiece which informs China Gate. As this version is basically a contemporary-set Indian western – a Curry Western, the term goes – there is also, unacknowledged, as much relationship to The Magnificent Seven. Oh, and reading a little about Indian film history, one discovers the original Indian western, Sholay, from 1975, which also borrowed from those previous sources. It is not, however, a Seven Samurai remake, as it is equally influenced by unrelated westerns such as Once Upon a Time in the West and The Wild Bunch. So when China Gate premiered in 1998, Indian critics were somewhat harsh on it for being an antiquated copy of Sholay, stylistically, with little to say on its own. I’m at a loss here, but I’ve got something new for my Netflix queue.

Directorially, one can still recognize certain overused tricks, which lose their value with repetition – tricks like silhouetted horsemen, Peckinpah-esque slow motion, ham-fisted symbolic reference to vultures again and again.


But there’s a world of conversation in picking apart China Gate’s tone and style, and let’s first set the stage. The village of Devdurg, out in a desert region of India I cannot identify, is under repeated violent assault from the bandit Jagira (Mukesh Tiwari). As we are talkin’ violent, a celebration of decapitations and eviscerations to rival Vlad the Impaler. Not that China Gate shall be persistently vicious, for its tonal strangeness.

A woman from the village seeks aid from Colonel Krishnakant Puri (Om Puri, seemingly one of the major Bollywood stars). Actually, we see this first, before even a narrated flashback reveals Jagira’s villainies. China Gate is equally efficient in assembling the team of heroes Krishnakant shall lead, as it’s done with a single nigh incomprehensible montage, and suddenly we’re beset with eleven – eleven – leads all at once. Also a dog.

These are some major upsets to the standard Seven Samurai scenario, as seen in basically all other variations. The speed of team assembly, which eliminates the recruiting section – usually the most fun portion of these remakes. (Upping the count from 7 to 11 makes little never mind, other than losing many, many characters in the mix.) That’s because China Gate has an agenda far different from its fellows. See, these ten + Krishnakant are all former soldiers, of the Indian army, who were all disgraced and court marshaled over a bungled mission 17 years ago called China Gate – making the inevitable controversy “China Gate Gate.” Ah hah! So the China Gate focus is on their past, their present relationship, with this mission to defend Devdurg an attempt to restore honor.


Now…China Gate is over 3 hours long – it’s the longest of all such exercises, excepting Seven Samurai itself. Having glossed over the first hour and change in under 20 minutes, it expends far more time upon the act of defending the village itself. And unlike Seven Samurai, there really isn’t enough content to justify this length, except for the notion that Bollywood films need length by audience expectations, as film-going in India holds a different social position than it does elsewhere.

The remaining – yikes! – two and a half hours are made up partly of repetitive desert shootout clashes between the Eleven and the bandits. These are never conclusive in any way, and there is no real strategy to it. Never once is defense of the village a true concern. Instead, the Eleven just occasionally shoot at the bandits, and vice versa, with the Eleven always triumphing (and bandits riding off) entirely due to their status as good guys. This fits in with the broad populist notions India apparently employs, but it renders China Gate a rather mindless adventure film with certain aims at Indiana Jones-style greatness.


As long as I’m critiquing the action styling of China Gate, let’s talk the heroes. I’ve not yet distinguished them – the only one who stands out to a Westerner’s eyes is second-in-command Colonel Kewal Krishan Puri (yeah, they’re all called Puri, which probably means something). He is officially the greatest badass in the bunch, because actor Amrish Puri (Puri!!!) is a known entity – he played Mola Ram in Temple of Doom! Whoo! Hence, I only thought of his chubby, mustachioed soldier as “Mola Ram” throughout the pic, hopelessly awaiting an eventual heart removal which never came.

Anyway, this particular Puri has fattened up a bit since his days of ‘80s villainy. All the heroes are little chubsters, which is perhaps appropriate as they’re all aging men seeking redemption. Eh, except apparently all Indian action heroes are the same – the nation seems to celebrate the pudgy, slow, middle-aged man above all else, something noted in this marvelous Cracked article. (Also this one.) My various Indian friends (I go to a tech school) attest this is true, yet the female Bollywood starlets are basically all the Hindi equivalent of Megan Fox – i.e. young, hot, but dumb as gerbils. Apparently, one may only attain celebrity in India by dancing all good like, and Indian dances apparently favor female voluptuousness and male rotundness. Ah, the double standard!

Not that China Gate’s action should all be a shallow, misread aping of old Spaghetti Westerns and early Michael Bay…as that same Cracked article proves.

Getting back to topic, I’m not wholly sure what China Gate is going for. It seems intent to replicate the mood of Seven Samurai, despite the changes. And that mood is one of utmost seriousness, even in an adventure tale populated with successful moments of comedy and levity. Actually, Seven Samurai is a brilliant example of how comic relief can work in a non-comic work. China Gate doesn’t understand that balance. It attempts, for all its seriousness, as much tonal variety as any great epic, yet…each tone is conveyed as obviously as possible.


For China Gate’s comic relief: If something “funny” is happening, the soundtrack will over insist, with “wacky,” “zany,” “lunatic” noises and splats, done with unsubtlety even Benny Hill would scoff at. This is helpful, as nothing on screen is ever apparently a joke, at least not legible as such abroad…Except for the moment where I inappropriately laughed at a cow, which was probably wrong.

As for the drama: Eh, let’s call it melodrama instead. Again, the soundtrack is responsible for overselling this too, but let’s give some credit to the actors. Many beat their chests, quiver their voices, and let the tears flow freely, any time something remotely dramatic/serious goes on. Hell, the first meeting between the Eleven has more hand-wringing forced sorrow than you’ll find in the whole of your average Oscar bait. They’re sort of peaking early, as they’re already at 11 (in the Spinal Tap sense, not the “eleven guys in this movie” sense), with nowhere to go but repeat this same thing every time dramatics return. And there is great disparity between a good performer like Mola Ram and the lesser players, apparently trained in the styles of bad silent cinema vaudeville.

As for action: Well…soundtrack! Really, that thing is damned manipulative. Imagine what Hans Zimmer was putting out in 1998; then imagine an Indian copycat of that. Not effective.


Moving off China Gate topic, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Indian genre fare is dominated by shallow imitations of more wholly competent filmic styles. Their popular film stories create utterly random mishmashes of (usually) American movies, with no real sense or art. So, I’m told, we have the movie where E.T. must defeat an evil Spider-Man (citation needed). What irks me about this, having chatted re: films with my Indian pals, is that they now cannot distinguish between the proper, well done Iron Man film, and something done on 1/50th the budget and with dance numbers.

I am acting protective of our blockbusters which I feel do have some value beyond profit. This creates an air of cinematic stagnation, where audiences genuinely disregard the value of, say, Star Wars because they’ve already seen their knockoff, so why bother? But these are the audiences which would never give a black & white, foreign language flick like Seven Samurai a chance in the first place, so it’s just as well they received their local version.


And, sadly, like many a remake of a foreign film, China Gate intends to replace Seven Samurai in local minds as much as The Ring was meant to completely supersede Ringu in the U.S. And back to that notion of seriousness. Santoshi wishes to fashion something as human, as grand, though it’s clear the competence is not wholly there – not Santoshi’s fault perhaps so much as local conditions. If the cast attests, the acting is not up to snuff, not enough for dramatic consistency amongst the players. Tone cannot be established genuinely, meaning China Gate rather oversells its hand to make a point. And for a viewer schooled to embrace the more subdued pleasures of the original Samurai, this makes China Gate a very interminable slog of never-changing scenes and techniques. Shootout, montage, dramatic argument, romantic interlude, shootout, montage, you follow.


But the surest evidence of serious intent, in a Bollywood pic, is a near refusal to kowtow to that holiest of Bollywood traditions – the musical. China Gate was conceived as that rarest of things: a Hindi picture completely without songs! That’d be like releasing a Batman movie without Batman. But as all but the first of my screen caps can attest (Indian DVDs do not agree with my computer), that is not what happened. There is a musical number in China Gate, one which starts shortly into the third hour, which totally catches you off guard. It is easily the best part of the movie.

And here it is, in full.



That’s “Chama Chama,” an Indian pop song performed by Urmila (at least she dances to it; the vocals are somebody else). She is another major celebrity in the Bollywood firmament, and her eleventh (as it were) hour addition to China Gate assured some box office success. That, for all this scene’s wonderfulness, is a testament to how compromised China Gate is, how no Indian film can surpass the local cheesy requirements. Still, most of China Gate’s fame comes from “Chama Chama,” which was even featured in Moulin Rouge! Here, proof.


This dance has no place in China Gate, and isn’t even a substitute for a sex scene, as dances oft are. It just happens with a single edit totally out of the blue. And if my Indian chums are to be believed, this’d be the stage where theater audiences take to the aisles and themselves recklessly dance all about. Wow, it’s an entire nation of midnight Rocky Horror screenings!

My focus veers towards “Chama Chama,” as does everyone’s, because it is so much more successful than the rest of China Gate, done admittedly in a bit of a sub-MTV filmic style, but with a certain uncommon confidence. And China Gate wasn’t cheap! It’s sort of the Indian equivalent of its contemporary Titanic, in terms of running ridiculously over any previous industry budget. Ah, but China Gate went the way we thought Titanic would go, proving only mildly successful to a disinterested audience. It turns out Bollywood boosters were not ready for a relatively self-serious affair, even if it has that tonal lumpiness which seems to define the industry. And viewers outside of India had no need for a falsely artful movie, like if Dan Brown tried to write at the level of James Joyce.

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China Gate may be the final feature length film to officially remake Seven Samurai, but there’s more to this exploration even now. We travel back to Japan for the 50 year anniversary of Seven Samurai, 2004, to find among the celebrations the first Japanese reworking of what was originally a Japanese work. “Samurai 7” is an anime retelling of the Kurosawa story, and in certain ways it is the most respectful adaptation. Many scenes of dialogue appear directly out of the original, and the story follows the same beats quite faithfully…to a point. See, “Samurai 7” is a TV show (hence it falls outside of this blog’s primary purview), so it stretches the 3.5 hour narrative even further, into a mighty 26 episodes – we’re talkin’ one episode per member of the group, and then some. And owing to its animated status, “Samurai 7” takes advantage of its medium, filling feudal Japan with a steam punk mélange of robots, spaceships, whatever else an insane imagination can dream up. I am partway through this series, watching it even though it won’t get treated here.

It’d be nice to claim the final Seven Samurai effort as belonging to Japan, and for the immediate time being it is. Rather distressingly, the Weinstein Company has long been discussing the possibility of doing another American Seven Samurai remake. What’s enraging about this isn’t the concept, seeing as we’ve already seen The Magnificent Seven, Kill a Dragon, and about 7 other similar efforts. But all with enough decency to claim their own names. Weinstein’s villainous droogs seem intent to maintain the Seven Samurai name itself, in a complete lack of respect for the source material, same as the long-threatened Rashomon remake. (Which already got its own western remake, The Outrage, as nearly no Kurosawa samurai epic can avoid a western remake – See also Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars, and The Hidden Fortress as…Star Wars?! Wow! [Okay, I already knew that one.])

What’s especially idiotic about this looming possible remake isn’t just its mere existence, but some specifics. In order to “contemporalize” it (why why why?!), it’ll be set not in the past, and not in Japan, for who cares about that? Nah, it’ll be about modern mercenaries rescuing a village in war-torn Burma…Wait, I’ve seen this movie! It was called Rambo – the fourth Rambo, that is, the one actually named that. Which means, yes, Rambo is another example of the Seven Samurai template reappearing in action cinema. Rambo is not a remake, not officially (besides, I gotta save the Rambo franchise for another day). It just goes to show ya how hugely important Seven Samurai has been already, and how foolish it is to try co-opting that name.


RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 Seven Samurai (1954)
• No. 2 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
• No. 3 Kill a Dragon (1967)
• Nos. 4 - 8 (1979 - 1993)

Seven Samurai, Nos. 4 - 8 (1979 - 1993)

Seven Samurai remakes pepper the recent past like discarded underpants after a major shindig. Let us consider the many random, obscure efforts I have lamentably been unable to find…

The third Seven Samurai remake provides examples many things I severely wanted out of the unimpressive second, Kill a Dragon: It is a non-American take on the story. Furthermore, it is a genuine wuxia effort. It is Liu he gian shou (1979), itself an incredibly minor part of the overall ‘70s kung fu craze. What little info I can dredge up suggests it involves seven masters with seven different styles (well naturally!) banding together to defeat a greater single master with a greater single style. No word on if there is a village in need of defense, and “a multitude of fighters with unusual styles” is common enough in kung fu cinema (see Five Deadly Venoms).

Then we move ahead one year, to the ‘80s [dad dum dum!] and reach Battle Beyond the Stars…


You have no idea how much it pisses me off that I cannot find a copy of this movie! This is the one I most wanted to see! Consider, it’s the sci-fi version of Seven Samurai, meaning there’s a healthy dollop of Star Wars influence, the highest budget (at the time) motion picture ever produced by filmmaking uber-legend Roger Corman. That’s the same Roger Corman who practically invented independent cinema in the post-monopoly days of Hollywood, whose cheapo exploitation flicks paved the path indirectly for directors such as George Romero, and who more is directly responsible for creating the careers of (among many others) Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jack Nicholson, Jonathan Demme, John Sayles, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Hanson, Ron Howard, Jack Hill, etc. ad infinitum. The man whose no-budget productions include cult classics Piranha, Death Race 2000, Boxcar Bertha, Rock ‘N’ Roll High School, Galaxy of Terror, and about 500 other movies, including the recent trash that is Sharktopus! Damn I wanted to see his take on Seven Samurai!

I mean, we’re talking the movie which created James Cameron’s big break in film, doing special effects with almost zero money (a low budget, James Cameron?!), in service of a sci-fi pulp pastiche to rival Flash Gordon or Buckaroo Banzai. A mighty top drawer entertainment, by Corman standards, boasting a score by James “Aliens” Horner, a screenplay by John “Lone Star” Sayles.

The story is as purely Seven Samurai as possible…in space! Just replace “village” with “space planet,” “bandits” with “space mutants,” and “samurai” with “space mercenaries from beyond the moon.” Such a fantastical setting surely allows a playful approach to the set-in-stone scenario, as now every universal detail can be altered for maximum strangeness. So we have, apparently, a gruesome mishmash of robots, reptilians, alien clones, and a character actually called “Space Cowboy” (he’s a trucker)! And Robert Vaughn returns from The Magnificent Seven to play Gelt, a perfect updating of his old Lee character – an aging assassin looking to lie (Lee) low.

Reverence to its past doesn’t stop there. Battle Beyond the Stars christens its planet Akir, as in Akira Kurosawa. As a pulpy space opera, other names and concepts sound equally foreign: Shad, Sadodr, Malmori, Stellar Converter, Zed, Nell, Kalo, Tembo, Hephaestus, Nanelia, Planet Earth, Nestor, Mol, Cayman of the Lambda Zone, Saint-Exmin, Zymer, Quepeg. Sybil Danning’s in this, back when she was smokin’. John Saxon’s in it! George Peppard, the guy originally cast for Steve McQueen’s role in The Magnificent Seven, he’s in it!

Damn, I really wanted to see this movie!

Sigh. Moving on…


Okay, now this is getting frightening. The next, 1983’s The Seven Magnificent Gladiators, is a part of the early ‘80s’ peplum revival, along with the same year’s Hercules (with Lou Ferrigno), or ‘84’s Hercules 2 (heh?!), ‘83’s Ator, the Fighting Eagle, and the mightiest and earliest of this set, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Conan the Barbarian. This is the Second Wave of the Italian-styled sword-and-sandals genre, like those movies I’m taking a break from. Movies from the ‘60s like Seven Slaves Against the World and Seven Rebel Gladiators – and no, those aren’t official remakes of Seven Samurai, so we get to ignore ‘em.

The Seven Magnificent Gladiators is an Italian movie, as evidenced by how awkwardly exploitative that title is. Story-wise, it’s the old village-bandits-warriors situation. As in any of these remakes, it must distinguish itself through specifics, notably the new setting: some generic sword-and-sorcery Neverland. All evidence suggests this is well in keeping with those damned pepla, celebrating lunkheaded brawny idiocy over any of the swifter, cleverer battling shown by the Magnificent Seven – who are undoubtedly being picked up on here, and it seems one could argue many of these Seven Samurai remakes are in fact Magnificent Seven remakes. Oh, and Lou Ferrigno stars in this one too (as “Han”), for he really couldn’t extricate himself from this bizarre little Italian pseudo-movement.

Even given The Seven Magnificent Gladiators’ status as an Italian second-generation peplum from the ‘80s, even then it sounds horrible. Credit, if it so may be called, goes to the directors, Claudio Fragasso and Bruno Mattei. Mattei is the “real” director here, a feared figure even amongst Italian genre makers (and I love a lot of Italian genre fare), a man whose car accident-style cult mostly focuses upon travesties such as Zombis 3 and 4, which ignores other equally terrifying works such as SS Girls, SS Extermination Love Camp (see a theme?), Mondo Erotico, Violence in a Women’s Prison, Caligula and Messalina, Virus: Hell of the Living Dead, Scalps, Robowar, Strike Commando, Strike Commando 2, Shocking Dark (aka Terminator 2 – whaaat?!), Killing Striptease, Killing Striptease 2, The Jail: A Woman’s Hell…you know, nothing but the classiest of cinematic masterpieces.

Oh, let us not discount Claudio Fragasso, who is perhaps a far greater contributor to the wonderful realm of the terrible Z-movie, who bested (or worsted) Mattei’s claim as the “Ed Wood of Italian filmmaking” in a single, stunning bound….Fragasso wrote and directed Troll 2. Haven’t seen that beast yet? Go get drunk, stoned, and surrounded by friends and watch that NOW.

And Sybil Danning is in this one too!


It’s amazing, seemingly once a property has entered the realm of cheapo, exploitative genre fare, it cannot extricate itself. The next remake comes from 1990, and filmmaker Ciro H. Santiago – who is somehow not Italian, though his filmography would suggest otherwise. Rather, here’s another erstwhile director/producer of any and all potentially profitable niche fare. Movies to his credit include Pistolero, T.N.T. Jackson, Vampire Hookers, Caged Fury, Naked Vengeance, Silk, Future Hunters, Demon of Paradise, The Expendables (no, not that one), Silk 2, Caged Heat II: Stripped of Freedom (but somehow not Caged Heat), and this year’s upcoming (surely on DVD) Road Raiders. It’s clear I just love picking out the most sensational titles, and listing ‘em. I could do likewise for the things Santiago has merely produced, but I’ll spare ya.

Dune Warriors takes the Seven Samurai routine and applies it to a Mad Max/Road Warrior rip-off, when in 1990 those things were surely on the way out. Well, seeing as these post-apocalyptic desert epics are really just redressed westerns (as is Seven Samurai, let us not forget), the new details are solely cosmetic. Again, bandits are now mutants. Some dreaded swords-and-sorcery nonsense somehow remains, as the solution to this problem (apart from the standardized seven warriors) involves a magical sword, once held by none other than mighty Achilles – No, wait, I’m actually thinking of The Seven Magnificent Gladiators here.

Either rate, the casts continue to showcase only the best that genre fare can afford. Headlining Dune Warriors is the late David Carradine, American martial artist spanning a career from TV’s “Kung Fu” to QT’S Kill Bill (he’s Bill). This means we can again add a certain wuxia flavor to the mix, surely the sort of desperate gambit a late-period Mad Max wannabe would tout.

No more Sybil Danning, sadly. But Luke Askew’s in it, and he was in The Magnificent Seven Ride! That’s how far we’ve fallen from Battle’s Robert Vaughn.


Dikiy vostok, the last remake I didn’t bother to watch (because I couldn’t) is another international epic, though you’d never guess which nation…

Kazakhstan!

In researching this one, brainchild of Soviet director Rashid Nugmanov, there is absolutely no way to improve upon the plot summary found on IMDb. So here it is:

“The Solar Children, a group of dwarves who left the circus, are trying to start a settlement in the Kyrgyzstan wilderness just after the breakup of the Soviet Union, but are harassed by a gang of bikers. With their meager savings, they hire a ragtag group of heroes to drive off the bikers.”

Midgets…er, dwarves? Mongolian biker gangs? Damn, here’s another one I’m pissed off I didn’t see!

…Hell, it sounds like an early Werner Herzog movie, specifically Even Dwarfs Started Small, with a bit of Kaspar Hauser, Fata Morgana and Aguirre for flavor. Apparently, all international distribution of Dikiy vostok (aka The Wild East) highlighted its status as a sheer oddity. And in the early years following the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., apparently this is how filmmakers lashed out against their overlords’ former stringent restrictions. The one other thing Dikiy vostok is apparently noted for follows that pattern. ‘Tis a quote, about the Soviet Union: “There is no sex in our country.” Hmm, today’s internet culture begs to differ (link not provided).

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That nearly wraps it up for Seven Samurai remakes. There is one more official remake, China Gate, which I will get to see. (There’s a little more to top off this tale, also to be seen tomorrow). In the meanwhile, I have intentionally neglected certain films which clearly use Seven Samurai and its ilk as inspiration, but are not direct enough to be counted as remakes. These are mostly comic efforts, as broad as ¡Three Amigos!, A Bug’s Life and Galaxy Quest. What’s interesting is how they all use the same comic conceit: The “warriors” are entertainers, mistaken for real heroes. This in itself would make for an interesting exploration, but that’s beyond this blog’s mission, so we’ll leave it be.

One final thought: In evidently every Seven Samurai updating, the bandits gain status as visible villains, with a leader to match wits with the head of the seven. Compare that to the unseen force of nature in Kurosawa’s version. Which approach is stronger? Draw your own conclusions.



RELATED POSTS:
• No. 1 Seven Samurai (1954)
• No. 2 The Magnificent Seven (1960)
• No. 3 Kill a Dragon (1967)
• No. 9 China Gate (1998)