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Why do people insist on remaking classic films?

Seamus Davey-Kirkpatrick as Damien Thorn in the 2006 film of The Omen
  • Posted at 5:02pm
  • 14 November 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT
  • 2 comments

Here's what director John Moore and I have in common: we both love 1970s horror classic The Omen. And here's how we differ: only one of us loves it so much he felt the need to make it again.

Moore, whose previous film was a remake of 1965 desert-crash adventure Flight of the Phoenix (is anyone spotting a trend yet?), remade The Omen (Saturday 15 November C4) in 2006, showing his respect by pretty much copying the original, scene for scene.

Replacing the original film's stars (Gregory Peck and Lee Remick), Liev Schreiber now plays US diplomat Robert Thorn who makes the fateful decision to adopt after his wife Katherine (Julia Stiles) unknowingly has a stillborn baby. The boy, Damien, turns out to be the son of the Devil. The famous set pieces are (more or less) intact: the scene in the graveyard; the church struck by lightning; an ingenious decapitation.

But, unlike the original's deadly lightning rod, this film is almost entirely pointless. Of course, it's been "updated", which means mucked about with. For instance, the iconic black rottweiler that befriends the devilish tot has been replaced by . . . a German shepherd. Why? The sage-like Moore explains: "I kinda did that for fun."

Fun? Did you learn nothing from Gus Van Sant's academic shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which served only to prove that the 1960 original didn't need to be in colour? Mind you, Van Sant does achieve a seamless "travellin' pan" shot over the city of Phoenix into a bedroom window (not possible in Hitch's day), but that by no means justifies his movie.

I'm not against remakes per se. The George Clooney Ocean's Eleven is arguably better than the Rat Pack original; the 1983 Scarface is so different from the 1932 Howard Hawks classic, it counts as an original, and A Fistful of Dollars breathes new life into the Japanese Yojimbo.

But simply recasting, such as the 1999 Steve Martin/Goldie Hawn version of Neil Simon's The Out-of-Towners (Friday 21 November Sky Movies Comedy), as if it were a theatre play, is lazy. [The 1970 Out of Towners is showing on Sunday 16 November Sky Movies Classics.]

The Omen 2006 is not badly made, but it adds nothing beyond digital effects, bogus locations (Prague stands in for London and Rome) and a prettier cast. Oh, and a different dog.

"Rottweilers, while they're attacking you, are very savage," burbles John Moore. "But you know what, when they're just kind of sitting there, they're actually quite cute. Whereas the German shepherd is so angular, it seems like a much more powerful way to scare somebody."

Keep talking and you'll convince yourself – eventually.

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  • Posted on 15 November 2008
  • at 2:09pm
  • by Kenif

So many actors and /or directors seem to think they must leave a 'definitive' version of something which has gone before. Would they not be better employed seeking new areas of endeavour rather than indulging in yet another remake of a Dickens, Hardy, etc. classic. I am tired of all these remakes, so few of which seem to offer anything real in addition to that which has come before. The public is surely getting tired of having to view expensive remakes, especially from BBC, as we pay the bill in any these cases. There are myriads of stories both fact and fiction, worthy of attention, so why be so tied to the same old few ?

  • Posted on 14 November 2008
  • at 7:24pm
  • by MazY

I can only echo your thoughts on the travesty that was the Omen remake. I remember growing up on the David Seltzer books and loving the original movies.

When I saw there was a remake, I was eager to watch it. If it was possible to sue film-makers in an effort to reclaim that couple of hours of my life, I would have pursued it. What an utter waste of film that was. As you wrote above, it brought nothing new to the film but pointless modernity for the sake of it.

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