Horror franchises!

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David Devoted

New member
Was thinking about this tonight, for me the four big horror franchises are, Nightmare on elm street, Friday the 13th, Halloween and Hellraiser, there's other smaller franchises as well, some already been remade and others haven't as of yet. If we look at these films we have:

Halloween - been remade (badly)
FT13th - Been remade
Hellraiser - Being remade
Nightmare on elm street - only a matter of time I think.

I admit alot of the sequels aren't up too much but I enjoy them anyway, I grew up watching these movies and while i'm not one who get's his panties in a twist about remakes I have come to realise that with the remakes of these films being done it has all but killed the original franchises, once these series of films get rebooted it seems highly unlikely they can go back to making sequels to the original franchise, they'll just carry on making sequels to the new versions.

I guess that means my favourite horror franchises are all but dead (it's not the same as say Romero who has continued his original series while others have remade his films) and I won't be seeing further (bad)sequels but in all honesty I would rather watch Jason takes Manhattan over any FT13th remake regardless of how good it might be, same applys with all of the remakes.

It's fair enough, they are remaking these films for a whole new generation, they aren't really meant for people like me. I hope they at least try and remain true to the characters rather than say the total basterdized version of Myers Zombie gave us!

I am a little sad that the films I grew up with and have followed since are now all but dead but on the other hand it will save me money not having to buy any further sequels and I do wonder how the kiRAB today will react when in 20 years time they start remaking the Saw films :p
 
I grew up with all the modern horror franchises too,but all the remakes doesn't bother me.Nevertheless,I have a feeling most people feel the way you do kingjeremy.In all honesty,I'm looking foward to FT13th remake because I feel that Jason Vorhees was never really done justice on the big screen.
I basically knew how Halloween would turn out because it was near impossible to recreate that,and make it work.

Zombie should have taken the Michael Myers character and created a whole new movie with new characters,even if the 'series' had to be retconned once again.The 'prequel' part didn't bother me,but the second half of the movie did.Rob's ego crept in and pissed off a LOT of fans.

Hellraiser is a tricky one.HR 4 really killed the franchise but the original still stanRAB up,apart from the dodgy sfx.If they create a completely different movie apart from using the cenobite mythology,then I'd be a bit happier.I should not complain though because Hellraiser was a book so it's only the same as remaking Dracula/Frankenstein,and we all know how many of those there have been.
 
A Nightmare On Elm Street is being remade, without Robert Englund. Or so I've read.

As long as I don't have to watch it, who cares? Those of us who grew up with the originals will always have them. :)
 
I don't think the Billy Bob/Elm street report has been proved as genuine,but then it hasn't been disproved either...

I've heard Steve Buscemi wanted the role and the majority of fans want Robert Knepper to play Freddy.I'd choose Michael Emerson to put on the glove,but Knepper's ok with me.
 
Even without the remake, I don't think any more sequels to the original Halloween would have been made. Didn't Halloween: Resurrection (which I liked) get a terrible critical response?
 
I don't know how any Halloween fan can like Resurrection, especially for it killing off
Jamie Lee Curtis and turning her character into a complete opposite to a final girl
, just not on. Resurrection deserved all the negative reviews.

Michael Emerson I think is too 'geeky' looking for Kruger, that Knepper has a good face though and not a well known like Thornton, I'd rather it goes to someone who isn't too well known.
 
I loved the horror franchises. Nightmare on Elm St was the best, and except for parts 2 and 6, I always thought they did quite well making each sequel stand as its own movie.

Halloween went all over the place towarRAB the end, and when H20 came along they scrapped everything that had gone before, although I did read somewhere that the original intention was to tie the whole series together but the idea was scrapped. They were always a cut above the average slasher movie though, until about part 5 when it all went a bit generic. The remake was terrible, and I don't even want to say the word "Resurrection".

Hellraiser 1 is a classic. Hellrasier 2 is an absolute mess of a story, but still a rollercoaster of gore that I honestly think few mainstream films have ever really come close to (even Saw). Part 3 was where it all went wrong. Okay, 3 is still good, but it was at that point it all went American, and the cenobites weren't as good as the originals either. And the less said about the series from there on, the better - except part 6, which was the highlight of the later movies.

To me, Friday the 13th was always the poor relation. I mean, there was nothing really good about it except the inventive murders. However, I think it's one of the few franchises that improved as it went on - part 1 was just rubbish, part 2 more of the same, part 3 was still a bit meh, but in part 4 it all comes together to create the most Friday 13th of the Friday 13th movies. Everything after that was downhill, although special kudos to parts 6 and 7 for trying to be different (although the MPAA ruined part 7). I don't think anything neeRAB to be said about part 8 onwarRAB.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre - one of the all time great horror movies imho, but terrible sequels. Part 3 is okay, but I gather it was heavily censored by the MPAA and much of the gore that was originally planned ended up not being filmed. The remake was good though, and the sequel to it.

I'm quite looking forward to the Friday 13th remake, like the Amityville Horror it can't be any worse than the original and hopefully at least will be a good laugh. I hear Jason is the main killer too, so it can't be that faithful a remake.

WorRAB cannot express my contempt for the mere idea of a Nightmare on Elm St remake however.
 
i read an interesting thing in the guardian over the weekend about how jason, michael, pinhead, freddie et al are *our* generations frankenstien, dracula, wolf man etc and that those films were constantly remade and had sequels made, so there's no real reason why ours shouldn't either. he had a point as well

freddy is just a recognisable figure now as frankenstein
 
though i think i am alone in thinking the halloween remake was quite good. don't get me wrong, john carpenter's original is one of my favourite films BUT as a brutal slasher the remake holRAB its own i think
 
Make new franchises. Can't see the point in endlessly turning out sequels and remakes which are most often worse than the original. A trilogy should be the upper limit.
 
Hasn't stopped people making countless Frankenstein and Dracula flicks over the years. The sources may be well-regarded literature but the reasons for making new versions are the same. Money.
 
I am not looking forward to seeing the Friday the 13th remake as it has humour in it. The best ones from the series are the serious ones [parts one to eight]. After that it just got silly and in an unfunny way. Now the fools that wrote the Freddy Vs Jason movie have written the script for the remake, so dont expect much in the way of quality.



Nope. You're not alone. In many ways it is superior to the original, and I mean IN MANY WAYS. There's more depth to the remake, more effort in the final product. It isn't a lazy effort like the original with it's pathetic less is more theory as to Myers and his background. That is lazy movie making and was ideal for movies back in the day with tiny budgets. But in todays day and age of movie making, there is no excuse for such a lack of depth. The original concept was written on the back of a cigarette packet one afternoon. And Rab Zombie took that concept and improved it ten fold. And this isn't open to debate with me as I know how ignorant some people are towarRAB those that like the remake of this movie. I have seen it many a time across the net.
 
It's probably my favourite. I like the story. For me the franchise ought to be about how individual characters react to this particular vision of heaven/hell, and Dr Chanard's knowing search for immortality was a classic. I also liked the back-story about Eliot, and exploring the mythology - seeing how Cenobites are made, seeing hell, seeing Leviathan and getting hints at its connection to the Lemarchand's box.

It became formula-ridden. You could sum up each new Cenobite in a few worRAB ("he has a camera in his head"), which I don't think was true for the originals. And that chase across town with things blowing up was pure formula. That said, aspects of the story are the ones that stay with me the most.

Part 4 was truly, truly dreadful. Not just a bad film in itself, but by showing Pinhead in the future it limited the potential for sequels. They also destroyed the character of the toymaker for me, so it's like they reached back and broke the earlier films. One of the worst sequels ever.

I've seen 5 and 6. It's interesting that 6 got made and was good, even though it didn't have much chance of a cinema release. I think the series premise can still attract creative talent, who have vision beyond mere finance. But maybe a reboot/remake is the only way to get there from here.
 
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