Second Comings: FRIGHT NIGHT

by Alejandra Gonzalez

So, it’s true – there’s an elephant in the room that needs addressing.

Second Comings: The Hills Have Eyes

by Alejandra Gonzalez

When I think about the inspiration behind this column, I remember that the whole reason I wanted to look at horror remakes in the first place was to try to eliminate the popular notion that remakes are doomed to fail and be horrible. Because the remakes we’ve looked at so far have either shown to be extreme disappointments or proven that a remake can only be as good as its original, I wanted to look somewhere new for a retelling that surpassed those expectations and could be argued to be superior to its initial version. That’s when I looked to Alexandre Aja’s 2006 remake of Wes Craven’s classic: The Hills Have Eyes. If you know me, you know that I rarely ever tolerate Craven slander, but I found that it was a little difficult to get through his 1977 original upon re-visiting. I was afraid the same would apply to Aja’s remake (which was produced by Craven himself), but what I found was only the most pleasant of surprises.

Second Comings: Dawn(s) of the Dead

by Alejandra Gonzalez

As someone who used to be impartial to anything that dealt with zombies, I thought it would be interesting to revisit the movie that changed that forever and its remake, which celebrates its 13th birthday this week. Before having seen George Romero’s 1978 masterpiece, Dawn of the Dead, I would argue that “zombie” movies all followed the same formula and that zombies (and movies about them) were lame as hell. Upon recently revisiting both the classic and its 2004 remake (Zack Snyder’s directorial debut), I realized that I was VERY wrong. How could that be true when even a zombie movie remake could be SO different from its iconic original? In the case of Dawn of the Dead, it’s almost like watching two completely different movies, which in turn makes my job here a little harder. Either way, here I go.