Mongo Nation

In defense of the horror movie remake

By Jeremy Azevedo

Horror is a genre that lends itself to remakes more than any other. In fact, there are probably more studio remakes in development right now than there are original properties.

Why is this? Is it because they’re cheap to produce and don’t require an overpaid “A List” actor to get asses into seats at the theater? Or is it because they have the most doggedly loyal fan base in the entire entertainment industry? I’m sure that’s part of it, but more correctly, I think that it’s because scary stories are inherently timeless.

Take a movie like “My Bloody Valentine” for instance. It’s a story of a miner that was trapped in a collapsed mineshaft for weeks, surviving off of the flesh of his fellow victims, driving him mad. This was due to the negligence of his foremen, who had knocked off to attend a Valentine’s Day Dance. Of course the sole survivor, Harry Warden, emerges to take revenge on his supervisors and anyone that would dare celebrate Valentine’s Day ever again.

It’s the sort of story that you would tell over and over again at your yearly camping trip without ever losing what was great about it in the first place: That scary stories elicit an actual physical response from the receiver, a rare quickening of the pulse that comes more and more infrequently in this oversaturated age of entertainment.

To further prove this point, that there is always a place for horror remakes in our theaters and our homes, I’ve compiled a list of my top 10 favorite horror remakes of all time (in no particular order):

Cape Fear

Scorsese’s 1991 remake of “Cape Fear” is a textbook example of how to properly do a remake. Not only do you get a sense that the original subject matter is fully understood and honored, but the small changes and updates that were made actually improve upon the original. (In the world of horror/thriller remakes, you’d be surprised how seldom this is the case.) It certainly helps that Robert De Niro is as kinetically menacing and aggressive as he has ever been in this tightly wound revenge epic… Seriously, Max Cady even makes Travis Bickle look like a snuggly bunny in comparison. Additionally, Nick Nolte and his on-screen family are deeply flawed in ways that give much needed depth to this particular game of cat and mouse.

The Fly

Pretty much every one of David Cronenberg’s films deal with the themes of dysfunctional relationships and the fear of uncontrollable mental or bodily transformations (Videodrome, Scanners, Crash, Naked Lunch, etc.). Never was this strange union of ideas put to better use than it was in “The Fly”, the story of a man becoming less human in his stubborn attempt to take by force the love and glory that may not have ever been in the cards for him in the first place. Jeff Goldblum was at his finest as the “Brundlefly”, and the special effects hold up pretty well today, even though this film was made in 1986. Just be glad the producers didn’t let the originally slated director, Tim Burton, get his hands on it and turn “The Fly” into another Johnny Depp gothic-geek circle jerk.
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I just thwarted the resurrection of Dracula, and boy is my arm tired

By Jeremy Belmont

Earlier this year at the E3, I spoke briefly with Castlevania series creator Koji Igarashi about Castlevania Judgment. He explained that it was his goal to create a 3D Castlevania game for the Wii in which you could swing the wiimote like a whip, becoming more fully immersed in the series’ trademark vampire slaying.

The problem with this play mechanic, he said, was that your arm would get tired after a short amount of time, preventing you from playing as long as you would like. He then decided to make the game more like a fighting game, which would provide the same kind of action element, but with frequent pauses in-between rounds in which to rest your whip-swinging arm.

Knowing this, it was easy to enjoy Castlevania: Judgment when it finally arrived this week. A longtime fan of the flagship Konami series, it was great to be able to play as characters from all previous games, including pretty much the entire cast of “Castlevania 3: Dracula’s Curse”, Shanoa from this year’s “Order of Ecclesia” and even Cornell, from the shitty N64 “Legacy of Darkness”. I approached the game not as a contender to Soulcalibur, but as a fun action game with unique and easy controls. Really, Castlevania: Judgment really plays more like Devil May Cry then it does the traditional fighter. You can still string together some pretty sizeable combos, but it doesn’t require you to memorize hundreds of different button combinations to do so.

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A step forward, or more of the same?

By Jeremy Azevedo

Some people have been complaining for years now that every portable Castlevania title is no different than the last. Same enemies, same bosses, same combat system, same effeminate hero, same Metroid-vania collectathon…

…Honestly, It’s never bothered me. I look forward to each return to Castle Dracula, and have played every game since Symphony of the Night into oblivion. So you can imagine my surprise to find that “Order of Ecclesia” plays less like “Symphony of the Night” and more like “Simon’s Quest”.

For the first time in ages, Castlevania has moved out of it’s comfort zone into a whole new world, one that doesn’t involve Belmonts or a magically appearing castle for once. Instead of traditional weapons, you fight with an ever-replenishing pool of magic, not unlike the secret “sisters” characters from last years “Portrait of Ruin”. You even have NPCs to interact with in a central hub town, that help outfit you with items, armor and accessories in exchange for performing little fetch quests. Some might find the fetch quests annoying but I seem to find everything I’m looking for fairly easily, and it’s a hell of a lot better than fighting the same goddamn enemies a thousand times or resorting to cheats to come up with the obscene amount of money required in previous games.

The magic combat system works great, although it does pose some unique challenges. If you are out of magic, you must wait for it to replenish before you attack again. Also, each enemy type is particularly susceptible to certain attack types, others, not so much. You have to figure out what works best when, and fast, because the other new thing about this game is that it is bastard hard. Seriously, the last Castlevania game was a cakewalk compared to this. I have had my ass handed to me more times than I would like to admit; sometimes you walk into a new area, and the very first thing that happens is that you get totally pwned by some gnarly boss. But it’s never unfair; you just have to figure it out, and adjust our strategy in order to win. Defeating the bosses feels quite a bit more rewarding after carefully unraveling their attack patterns and weaknesses, and you can always head back to the safe haven of Wygol village to regroup if things get too hairy for you.

If you’re one of those people that has been crying about a lack of “hardcore” games on Nintendo systems… you still won’t find one on the Wii. But DS owners are in for a treat with Konami’s latest entry to the Castlevania series, a fresh approach to an old classic and a uniquely challenging adventure that will certainly reinvigorate the interest of longtime fans.

Score: 9 out of 10
+1 if you like a real challenge and are an experienced vampire slayer
-2 if you are a fumbling, unskilled n00b with little-to-no twitch action prowess