This is a remake. Seriously. What, you never heard of the original movie, made in the 80's that went straight to dvd? Yes, they are now making remakes of straight to dvd horror films. (* correction it did have a small theatrical release that even I, who loe horror films, had never heard of.)
I have to ask why? I know it's wiki page says the original is now a "cult classic" but who the hell are those people. I know a lot of horror fans and, sure, the original is liked as a fun little movie with scream queen Linnea Quigley, but you could point to any of her (or Michelle Bauer or Brinke Stevens) movies and call them "classics" just as easily. What's next, a remake of EVIL TOONS? BLOOD DINER? Because really if you are going to remake this movie you might as well just walk down the aisle at the local video store (wait, do video stores still exists?) and remake them all.
And I'm not against remakes. I understand pre-branding and better audience recognition and I'm fine with it. But usually there is a clear reason to do the remake -- either the original was cool and you have a way to do an interesting update of it (THE FLY) or you just want to cash in on the original (anything by Lionsgate). But a remake of a barely-more-than-straight to dvd horror film? Really?
The story: kids to a party Halloween night at a creepy house where a bunch of people died thrown by this girl Angela. The police bust the party but some kids become trapped and then Angela becomes a demon and starts infecting people and they have to try to survive until sunrise when the demons will vanish.
Was it good?
No. and it's a shame because the original was a fun-but-cheesey little horror film.
(poster for the original movie)
However, this movie just doesn't get it right. The original was made in the hey-day of fun sex-and-death horror movies. That's what the 80's scream queen films were all about. It was silly, it was sexy, it was let's get drunk and screw our brains out and --whoops!-- there are demons and now we're going to die in a very over-the-top way. This movie has a lot of the elements -- good looking girls, spin-the-bottle, demons who do weird things to people...but it never really finds the fun. It's kind of a downer to be honest. I'm not sure I can explain it. There are beautiful girls in the movie, but it's like the filmmakers didn't enjoy having beautiful women in the film, the camera doesn't linger the way it should to enjoy and show off how beautiful they are. There's making out and a sex scene, but again there isn't quite that voyeuristic enjoyment of those scenes. And there's some kinky violence, but the film makers never seem to quite embrace it. It's like they want to minimize all the things that made the original a fun horror film and they put them there because they had too...but then what is it that they wanted, what was that cool, fun things they wanted to make instead? I couldn't tell you. There's nothing really with the characters or the camera or demons or anything to really get a sense of what it was the filmmakers thought would be fun instead of the stuff that was fun in the original.It makes the whole film feel...soulless.
It's a shame. The girls are beautiful. Some of the effects are good. The house looked good. There's no reason why they couldn't make a fun little screamer...
...but they didn't.
*** AVOID ***
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