One of the most prominent victims of remakes is the cult classic, a niche of film that has survived by the sheer weight of its obscurity, thriving off midnight retrospect and obsessive fandom. It’s a type of genre that remains more often unseen from the mainstream light, slowly building a reputation for its camp, its atypical narration and structure, or its completely bonkers approach to storytelling. Names like Ed Wood, Herschel Gordon Lewis and Jean Rollin are synonymous with the cult status, often breaking ground in subject matter, merging avant-garde aesthetics with a more liberated sensibility.
Remaking a cult classic can, and should be, a delicate process, one that takes into consideration the ardent fan base of the original and the mainstream adoration it may inspire. An unsuccessful remake has the potential to shed light on its predecessor and expand its cult appeal, while a successful remake stands on its own as an original take on an old product.
As Flatliners arrives this weekend, apparently a sequel rather than a remake of the memorable cult original, we present five cult classics that could well stand the test of time…
Evil Dead (2013)
Taking us back into the woods that we never quite made it out of is Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead, dropping ‘The’ from its title and cutting straight to the bone to give us one of the goriest, gutsy, savagely violent and sensory castrating horror incarnations to grace the big screen. Replacing the affable charm and goofy antics of Bruce Campbell’s Ash is the dope-nose seriousness of Mia, a waning heroin addict who is brought by her friends and brother to a remote cabin in order to kick the habit.
If you never thought of the ramshackle nature of the cabin as a character, then you will once you step inside Alvarez’s recreation, its floorboards squeaking like trapped souls that can barely muster a syllable from the copious amounts of blood that stain the basement floors. Hanging cats, rusty chains, burnt wood caked with hair, and a flesh wrapped, barbed wire bound book of the dead litter the evil grounds of our heroine’s makeshift rehab.
By the second act, all of this is coated in blood from our trapped group, the outskirts and safe passage home flooded from the Necronomicon’s ill intent. Sure, we’ve seen what one of the earliest Video Nasties conjures up, but it’s nothing compared to what befalls the diabolically drenched denizens of our cabin in the woods. If Sam Raimi’s original masterpiece feels like a fungi trip into a thorn bush, then Fede Alvarez’s remake is an aggressive comedown from that trip, its blood soaked grandeur acting as a stabilizer to its manic descent into madness.
The Blob (1988)
When a meteorite lands in the middle of the woods, a gelatinous blob is awakened that begins feeding off the citizens of a quiet Pennsylvania town. With each horny teen that falls prey to its galactic absorbance, the blob grows into a shapeless nightmare that destroys anything and anyone in its path. If this sounds familiar, then you may have seen a baby-face Steve McQueen go toe-to-toe in The Blob; a cult classic that’s become a criterion in the early monster mania of the 1950’s.
Playing to younger crowds looking to squirm in their mint Chevy Impala before moving on to Lovers Lane, The Blob hit the drive-in scene with a clear message – the atmosphere and teen sexuality are heating up, and something must be done! Coming off the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street: Dream Warriors, director Chuck Russell decided to recreate the social and environmental commentary of the original, but with a hip modern flair. Replacing McQueen’s pressed preppy look is Kevin Dillon, sporting the mother of all mullets that perfectly encapsulates what Russell’s remake is; pure, adrenaline filled fun.
With a script co-written by Frank Darabont, Russell streamlines the originals excessive banter that critics knocked, replacing it with some of the most thrilling body invasion since Philip Kaufman’s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. While I’m generally against remakes playing their hands so closely to the original, The Blob instantly becomes an exception to the rule due to the immense amount of joy that pours onto the screen, making it one of the most exhilarating times you’ll have. That is, until you park your Toyota Prius on Lover’s Lane.
Maniac (2012)
Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2012, Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac instantly became the type of remake that harnessed the ultimate idea of what a remake should be; daring, fresh, thoughtful, introspective and alive. What Khalfoun manages is to invite us deep within the confines of a man we only observed in William Lustig’s 1980 slasher sleaze, one who battles deep seeded mommy issues with an overly large and compensating bowie knife.
Expanding on the concept of the male gaze, we witness every moment from a POV, unleashing an inescapable directness that puts a unique take on an old classic. Frank Zito, played with a tenderly gaunt yet hauntingly concaved appearance by Elijah Wood, scalps lone women in measures that at time puts the original to shame, though Khalfoun’s polish alleviates an air of grime only 80’s New York City can evoke. This is Los Angeles after all, where the streets are lined with equal measures glitter to gore, a refreshing home for such bloodthirsty rage.
Scribed by horror remake king Alexandre Aja, we are given a front row seat to our stalkers mindset, creating a delicacy to his torment as well as a weight to his actions. By the end of Maniac, we can’t help but feel responsible for the degree of Frank’s ruthlessness, which is precisely what the male gaze needs.
Cape Fear (1991)
Martin Scorsese’s remake of the 1962 adaptation of the novel The Executioners is a blistering and bloated blockbuster (it made almost $200 million worldwide), one that takes every liberty possible in exposing what J. Lee Thompson’s cult classic couldn’t due to censorships from the BBFC. Replacing Robert Mitchum’s Max Cady is another Robert in the form of De Niro, who leans down Mitchum’s puffed up bravado with jailbird ink that rests atop pulsating veins and stretched muscle. It’s a performance that’s equal parts Travis Bickle and Harvey Keitel’s Lieutenant (Bad) that takes Norman Bates obsessiveness, places it in a pressure cooker and sets it off!
There’s a cartoonish omnipotence to Cady that allows Scorsese, collaborating for a seventh time with De Niro, to go all out, doing so like a reckless Carolina gator after swallowing a satchel of fireworks. Replacing Lori Martin’s Nancy is Juliette Lewis’ Danielle, a choice that showcases sexual explosiveness, creating some of the tightest tension to grace the screen since Humbert Humbert moved into town. It even features cameos by Mitchum and Gregory Peck, our old Hollywood brushing up against the new, reminding everyone where it’s coming from.
Cape Fear is that remake that voyeuristically peers behind closed blinds, letting us know its intent when it can’t contain its perversion, and knowing that we very well can’t take our eyes off its brutally rolled up sleaze.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
How do you take a 72 minute early Roger Corman picture turned off-Broadway musical about a love-clumsy florist who raises a carnivorous plant from outer space, and adapt it for a new generation? You turn the dialogue into lyrics, crank the black comedy to eleven, and amplify the special effects with puppetry, creating one of the most bizarrely resonant horror musicals in cinematic history.
Stepping behind the camera is legendary puppet master Frank Oz, who brings Skid Row from Los Angeles to New York City, capturing the melancholy of poverty with such toe-tapping energy that you’d swear the grit and grime of its city streets were alive with the sound of music. Watching our carnivorous plant beg, whine, devour, prosper, and defeat in all of its glorious greens, yellows, blues and purples is akin to witnessing one of the most whimsically terrifying rags to riches stories ever sung. There’s a brutalism behind the mic that captures the struggle of life, but it’s constructed with such harmony that it never overshadows just how much fun this green thumb is.
Combining near pitch-black humor, growing terror and lyrics that will turn you into one mean green mother from outer space, Little Shop of Horrors is a rarity that works as gracefully and colorfully as a painter, taking dabs from both its sources. The end product is a remake that needs to be seen, felt, and ultimately sung on the streets, because in the end, everything is suddenly Seymour.
What are your favourite cult film remakes? Do you agree with our choices? Flatliners is on general release in cinemas from Friday 28th.