Variety reports a remake of John Landis' 1981 horror comedy An American Werewolf in London is in development at Dimension Films. I'm guessing someone at the studio figures that after New Moon and the Benicio Del Toro remake of The Wolf Man, both due later this year, werewolves are going to be the new vampires.
No matter who makes it, a remake of London is doomed to fall short of the original, because one of the things that made the 1981 movie so memorable was the Oscar-winning makeup effects work by Rick Baker. Those effects, which depicted the Dr. Pepper guy transforming into a shaggy beast, were unlike anything moviegoers had seen before.
The new version will presumably just use boring old CGI, which just isn't as effective. Plus London was one of the first horror movies to combine laughs with scares throughout, which has become old hat now. A much better candidate for a remake is The Howling, which came out the same year and had a premise you could spin out in a new direction.
Hollywood doesn't even care anymore. They are so bankrupt of ideas, its actually quite sad.
Why do they continue to remake movies that were perfect the first time around? There is nothing they can add or improve upon. They should remake movies that would benefit from a remake....like The Howling!
Posted by: Juan | July 01, 2009 at 12:13 AM
The Howling was perfect, it shouldn't be remade. I'm sure there's enough new scripts out there to create a new film about werewolf's. "Dog Soldiers", "The Brotherhood of the Wolves" are 2 that spring to mind.
Why is it that Horror films and Sci Fi are being remade more than any other genre? Enough already!
Posted by: mrbluelouboyle | July 10, 2009 at 01:01 AM