The original was a masterpiece of weird, hippy, New-Age creepiness, a mystery that eventually turned into a horror film as the protagonist stumbled, helter-skelter, from good intention to good intention and so on down the road to perdition. It was somewhat less confusing than, say, The Dunwich Horror, a contemporary film that also featured hippies and creepiness, but for all that it was a masterpiece, it had its muddling moments.
The remake, with Nicolas Cage as the protagonist, is not a bad remake, but neither is it an improvement on the original, which leaves the viewer of both to wonder, why bother? The answer, of course, is that the original is now too dated for most kids to bother seeking out and watching, so, in that respect, at least some of the story ideas get their moment in the sun once again. Sadly, the creepiness of New Age hippies turning to more, er, traditional means of guaranteeing a good harvest has been replaced, in the remake, with a very muddled analogy to female-centric bee society. It really doesn't bear thinking about.
What's fascinating to this fan of the old film is that Nic Cage appears to have also been a fan of the original, and it comes out in his portrayal of the man character: a loutish, self-righteous ass who's so obsessed with being the he simply tramples the civil liberties of anyone who gets in his way. At the end, his echoing of the original movie's lines ("Oh, God! Oh, God!") is a superb homage. It's too bad the writer/director didn't follow his lead.
1.11.2007
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3 comments:
I actually think it *is* a bad remake because not only is the acting worse and the writing worse and the "evil beehive women" idea completely out of left field with nothing to redeem it except its value as MST3K material, the whole commentary about Christianity being just as ridiculous as the cults it supplanted is pretty much gone. There are traces, but that's about it. That was clearly a defining feature of the original and it was summarily removed from the remake and replaced with essentially nothing.
I saw the ridicule of Xianity to be a means of pointing out just how much of a humorless prick the protagonist is. Nicolas Cage does a fine enough job of being a humorless prick without needing to reference Xianity.
But I will also plead not having seen the original in at least fifteen years, so the anti-Xian message therein may not be as fresh to me as it was to you.
Ah. I've seen both within the last two months and I daresay if you watch the original again you will find that you have put the cart before the horse -- in the original the comparative religious ridicule isn't used to highlight what a prick the "protagonist" is; rather the prick highlights how pompous and hypocritical his religion is by being such a blustering prick. Plus there are a couple of dialogues, and several scenes, that pretty explicitly compare and contrast Christianity with Lord Summerisle's pagan mishmash religion-thing. And in my opinion, the dogged officer of the law is at no point actually portrayed as a protagonist; if anything Christopher Lee has that honor. But I am biased towards Mr. Lee; I'm a huge fan since way back.
I'd be happy to watch the original again with you; I love it (and you :-D)
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