Are there too many horror remakes? Movies in general seem to suffer from this remake fever we’re experiencing. But no genre faces this the most than Horror. Every iconic or distinct horror movie franchise I can recollect has been remade. Whether it is a Nightmare on Elm Street or the Friday the 13th series has been remade. Often times these movies do poorly both critically and in the box office. It seems as though many of these movies rely on cheap jump scares and gore to scare the audience rather than using more methodical techniques such as suspense and tension to illicit dread into viewers and then releasing it with a horrifying reveal. The art of horror seems to have been bastardized within years in order to produce lackluster horror movies with simple gimmicks to sell tickets to impressionable millennials. No movie franchise better embodies this than The Paranormal Activity series. Personally, I found footage as a whole is a lazy subgenre of horror that excuses poor cinematography as an Avant grade form of storytelling. Honestly, the impression I get is that companies want to use people’s nostalgia for profit gain.
The 2017 Mummy remake is a prime example of this. I was in love with the first two Mummy movies starring Brendan Fraser. Despite some problems with the early CGI and hammy over acting, I enjoyed Fraser’s witty/chest one liners, the cinematography in the Egyptian backgrounds was pleasant to look at and the action scenes where very engaging. I especially loved the scene where Imhotep was controlling a large sandstorm trying to engulf the main characters while they were piloting a small plain. As a child, I had never seen special effects done to create such exciting action sequences. So, I was interested when I discovered there was a new action oriented movie starring Tom Cruise. I was not the biggest fan of Cruise but I do acknowledge he was phenomenal in action movies like the Mission Impossible series. I was disappointed to discover it bombed. I would like to see more directors especially up and coming ones create new distinct horror movies that were more intellectually crafted like Get Out or be passionate about their work like the new It remake.