ALONE **** USA 2020 Dir: John Hyams. 98 mins An American remake of the Swedish thriller GONE from the same screenwriter, Mattias Olsson, this stripped-down cat-and-mouse thriller treads on highly familiar ground but does so in a fashion that feels unusually authentic while sustaining the suspense from start to finish.…
Browsing: Remake
IT’S ALIVE **** USA 1974 Dir: Larry Cohen. 87 mins Writer-director Larry Cohen’s first horror movie is a semi-satirical modern monster movie with a title cannily aping the most famous line from classic Universal horror: hero John Ryan anecdotally acknowledges this by recalling his high school realisation that the…
POLTERGEIST ***** USA 1982 Dir: Tobe Hooper. 114 mins While continuing the AMITYVILLE-era trend for mainstream paranormal movies, Tobe Hooper’s biggest Hollywood hit also reflected the various ways in which studio blockbusters aimed at family audiences embraced horror movie tropes and tricks. When the equally ghoulish and gruesome PG rated…
BLACK CHRISTMAS **** USA 2006 82 mins Dir: Glen Morgan. Although retaining certain narrative and visual aspects of Bob Clark’s 1974 classic (and, notably, dropping the line “Let me lick your big cunt”), the remake from FINAL DESTINATION writing / directing duo Glen Morgan & James Wong abandons the original’s…