It's funny but in the 1970s and 80s I don't recall Hollywood constantly remaking horror films from the 40's and 50's and when it was done it was done pretty well 1978s Invasion of the body snatchers and 1982s The Thing come to mind. But since the new millennium it seems the only offerings from the horror genre have been pointless remakes to smart and SCARY classics from yesteryear. We had to revisit the likes of The step ford wives, A nightmare on elm st.,Halloween I AND II,Black Christmas,Friday the 13TH, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,When a stranger calls, The Fog, The Amityville Horror,Hills Have Eyes,The Hitcher,Last house on the left,Dawn of the Dead, another body snatcher remake The Invasion and in the late 90s remakes of Psycho and The Haunting and not to mention the almost blasphemous remake of The Omen! The formula is always the same take an intelligent blockbuster, recast it with a politically correct ensemble(usually with arrogant, annoying teens),saturate it with play station worthy cgi effects and rewrite it so that it's familiar to an MTV/reality show audience with the attention span of a fly. And I'm sure there are more on the way....When is Hollywood gonna produce an original horror script that doesn't insult my intelligence? After all isn't that why they're paid millions and millions of dollars? Don't be afraid of the dark is no exception to these new rules and frankly from this writer and director I expected better. The 1973 creepy original which terrified me as a child starred Kim Darby as a young wife who inherits a gloomy mansion infested with demonic creatures and cannot get her executive husband Jim Hutton to believe her despite warnings from an ominous handy man. This version centers naturally around a young girl instead of a young wife (hence the annoying arrogant teen, kid rule) and a back story (hence the rewritten to the Mtv/reality/dancing with stars attention span crowd) the bottom line if an original is a known as a "classic" always stick with the original, if they must make remakes remake a crappy film and make that one better not vice versa believe me there are enough to choose from or remake a film that is not well known what Gauls me the most is todays young audiences are being jipped into thinking that some of todays garbage are the originals. If this trend continues I suppose in 2040 there will be remakes of Saw,Insidious,Silent Hill,Hostile and the 2040 generations will think they're the real deal. Please don't let my rant prevent you from making up your own mind we all have different tastes if you wanna go see it and if you enjoy it, dandy , this is simply one humble mans opinion.
