The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Remakes are previous cinematic works that are given a new interpretation. Almost always the works being remade are popular works in a previous era that have stayed in the public imagination. A remake is an attempt to revitalise the property for a new era.
A remake will update an older work, changing many of the references for a contemporary relevance. It will offer more sophisticated effects and contemporary stars. It is common in films of the late 2010s/2020s for older works to be remade with some of the leading roles gender-flipped or raceswapped. In the majority of cases, the remake fails to have the effect the original had on audiences in that the earlier work was very much a phenomenon that belonged to its era, although there are some exceptions.
It is also worth discussing a remake vs an adaptation. We usually talk about remakes applying to previous successful cinematic works. However, when we refer to a work that was popular before becoming a film or there have been multiple film versions, a new film version is simply referred to as a new adaptation. Nobody ever talks about a remake of Hamlet (1603) or Pride and Prejudice (1813), for instance.
Variants include popular tv series being given film remakes – see Based on TV, or popular foreign-language films being given English-language remakes – see English-Language Remakes. Other types of remakes include animated films and tv being remade in live-action – see Animation in Live-Action.
A side piece of terminology that has come into use in the 2000s is the idea of a reboot where a popular ongoing series is usually revived and reworked in some way or simply an ongoing series is given a new actor and/or a continuity reset.
Classic of the 1950s alien invader genre in which a young boy discovers that the adults around him are being taken over by Martian invaders. Director William Cameron Menzies makes striking use of sets to further a sense of alienation
Classic bad movie in which astronauts land on The Moon and encounter an all-female society. Some really datedly war of the sexes politics play out amid the laughably impoverished sets and effects
The fourth film version of The Lodger with Jack Palance as a new tenant that a family believe might be Jack the Ripper This has neither the style or the melodrama that the previous versions did
Remake of the earlier Bob Hope Old Dark House comedy The Ghost Breakers now made as a vehicle for the duo of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Probably overly long and takes forever to arrive at the haunted house but has some occasionally amiable comedic moments
The Hollywood remake of Fritz Lang’s film about how the criminal underworld hunts a child killer. Lang’s film is a classic but this comes with visuals maybe even superior to Lang’s version
A classic of the 1950s Golden Age of SF, featuring Michael Rennie as an alien visitor film who comes to make a warning about the need to make peace. This stands at the start of the Atomic Age with a stark urgency
The very first alien invader film of the 1950s. Maybe or maybe not directed by Howard Hawks, this has a dramatic urgency and tight tension that makes it stand head and shoulders above most of the films that came after
An amiable venture into the light fantasy films that were popular during this era., Here angels come down and intervene to aid a baseball team on a losing streak
Many of the people involved in the 1933 King Kong came back together to create another giant ape film. Much overlooked, this is one of the masterpieces of stop-motion animation
A typical entry in the 1940s fad for light fantasy films in which Cary Grant plays an angel who comes down to Earth to assist poor overworked bishop David Niven
A light whimsical short story about a daydreamer is turned into a bloated and ponderous vehicle for the musical and comedy set-pieces of the perpetually wet-eared Danny Kaye
One of the films from the 1940s fad for light afterlife fantasies in which mobster Paul Muni is sent back from Hell by The Devil in the body of a respectable judge to create mischief
Sentimental Frank Capra film that had become a Christmas classic where an angel shows depressed everyman James Stewart the alternate world that would happen if he had never been born
Effort from the heyday of mad science cinema about a scientist who has perfected an immortality treatment. Better budgeted than most of the other cheapies of the era and better written, although suffers from a slow talkiness
Sound remake of the silent Alfred Hitchcock film, starring big man Laird Cregar as the new lodger that a family believe might be Jack the Ripper. Cregar gives a wonderfully melodramatic performance
Classic 1940s afterlife fantasy with Spencer Tracy as a pilot killed in action who is sent back as a guardian angel. This works fantastically well due to a great character arc and a sharp Dalton Trumbo script
The second film version of the story, lavishly remaking the classic 1925 Lon Chaney version in sound and colour. Alas, all this serves to do is stuff and mount the story. With the addition of a sympathetic backstory and cast with a wimpily diminutive Claude Rains, Chaney’s magnificently mad Phantom comes across like an indignant fox terrier
Val Lewton’s classic work of psychological ambiguity about a woman who believes she is turning into a panther. Lewton’s ingenuity was to leave the actuality of the monster one that was merely suggested
Although it wasn’t the first werewolf film, this is the one the created all the mythology of the werewolf film – full moons, silver bullets etc – while the wolfman went on to join the pantheon of Universal Famous Monsters.
One of the original Hollywood afterlife films of the 1940s light fantasy boom, twice remade, most notedly as Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait. Amiable and likeable while avoiding any deeper issues
Classic caveman vs dinosaurs prehistoric drama later to be remade as the more famous version with Raquel Welch. This plays as fairly creaky today but gains an undeniable vividness with the raw ferocity of its dinosaur scenes (played by optically enlarged lizards)
The 1939 Bob Hope comedy remake of The Cat and the Canary was a big hit; here he and Paulette Goddard are put through the same in what is all but a sequel. Hope is on top form again
The third of the Flash Gordon serials, not quite at the heights of the previous two but with a colour and exoticism that was head and shoulders above the other serials of the era
An Arabian Nights adventure that offers up one of the purest blends of fantasy and romance of its era. Filled with stunning directorial set-pieces and magnificent sets and all shot in colour.
The Old Dark House film hit a peak in the late 1930s. This was a comedy variant featuring the entirely forgotten comedy act The Ritz Brothers stumbling around an old mansion
The classic Bob Hope comedy version of the Old Dark House play. Probably overrated, this has a creaky affected atmosphere and laughs but fails to hold a candle to the far superior and more stylish silent version
Gripping psychological thriller in which a niece suspects that Robert Montgomery who has charmed her aunt may be a psychopathic killer
Hugely successful and probably overrated classic from Frank Capra about the discovery of a lost valley in the Himalayas that offers the secret of immortality
The original and greatest of all SF serial adventures and a huge influence on George Lucas. Despite the primitive effects, this still has a marvellously rousing imagination that stands up today. Two serial sequels followed
The Hollywood remake of The Hands of Orlac, a classic with Colin Clive as a pianist who believes he is possessed after receiving hands transplanted from a killer. With a fascinatingly demented performance from Peter Lorre
Dracula director Tod Browning reteams with Bela Lugosi in a remake of the silent London After Midnight. A vampire film that has much atmosphere but is ruined by a ridiculous ending
Classic fantasy film in which Death takes human form to visit a party and experience the human condition. Frederic March gives us Death as a comically eccentric outsider and the film has some great moments of imagination
Classic horror film, later remade as House of Wax, with Lionel Atwill giving a wonderfully mad performance as a waxworks curator who covers murdered bodies in wax
Perhaps the greatest of all monster movies, one that has attained iconic status. A masterpiece of stop-motion animation, it imbues Kong with character and attains a delicate fairytale-like atmosphere
A classic Old Dark House thriller from director James Whale, a droll comedy of wonderfully stylised Gothic mood and featuring a near-perfectly cast line-up of eccentrics creeping about
The original mummy film starring Boris Karloff. Unlike the sequels where the mummy became a slow, shuffling creature, this is a subtle classic with haunted mood.
The first and best version of the oft-told story in which shipwreck survivors are forced to survive with their bare hands while being hunted by a mad Russian aristocrat
The first and best screen adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel The Island of Dr Moreau. Wells was not happy but Charles Laughton is a great Moreau and the film develops a remarkable sexual undertow
Fritz Lang was an extraordinary director of the silent era and this was his first sound film. Peter Lorre gives an amazingly craven performance as a child murderer who becomes hunted by the criminal underworld
Sound remake of the silent Old Dark House classic The Bat. This retains the original’s extraordinary visuals, including use of a mobile camera, something that was groundbreaking technology for the time in ways that still astonish today
The film that defined the Old Dark House genre with spooky thrills as people are stalked around a big mansion. Expatriate German director Paul Leni brings an extraordinarily sophisticated arsenal of visual tricks to bear
Fritz Lang’s visionary work was something way ahead of it time and is one of the few silent films still screened today. The film’s politics are naive but Lang’s visions of the city of the future and the first screen robot are vivid.
Alfred Hitchcock’s third film about a family who believe their lodger might be a killer. This was made during the silent era but Hitchcock uses extraordinary visual tricks that blow you away
A lost film from the great silent actor Lon Chaney [Sr] who would undergo great physical makeup transformations for his role. This also has the distinction of being the first Hollywood-made vampire film
The first of the screen’s Old Dark House thrillers set around large mansions with the cast stalked by a masked killer. None of this prepares you for the utterly sensational visuals of this film, which leap off the screen with vivid effect
The first and still the best version of the story. Made when The Phantom was a horror story rather than a weepie romance, everything from Lon Chaney’s performance to the amazing Gothic design and directorial set-pieces is classic
Classic German silent film about a pianist who receives hand transplants and believes they are possessed. Superbly stylised direction from The Cabinet of Dr Caligari director Robert Wiene and with Conrad Veidt putting his all into the contorted mime work
The first screen adaptation of Dracula and one of the most amazing of all vampire films, a German Expressionist fairytale that exists in haunted netherworld through which stalks the crepuscular figure of Max Schreck
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
Classic film that was groundbreaking for its designs – all distorted and angular sets, exaggerated shadows – that became defined as German Expressionism and its tale of a sinister hypnotist
Classic German silent film where a man sells his shadow, which then becomes a malevolent doppelganger that torments his life