Following the recent news of the Rosemary's Baby and The Birds remakes getting flushed down the developmental toilet, I can't say I'm not pleased to report that Sony's planned remake of Tom Holland's '80s vampire sleeper Fright Night has also been deep-sixed.According to Ryan Rotten over at Shock Till You Drop, the inability to cobble together a script that pleased the execs is the reason being cited for shelving the project. It had been in development for nearly two years.
Seems to be a growing trend. And for all those who tend to be more "open-minded" about these remakes, I'll say this: No, they're not all bad. Dawn of the Dead was very good, for example. But for every one that's decent, we get five others that tarnish the name of the originals on which they're based, obscure those originals in the minds of new potential fans, and represent cowardly, unimaginative bottom-line thinking at its worst.
Here's to original ideas!
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I'm proud as a peacock to announce that The Vault of Horror has been nominated for best horror blog of 2008 by TotalFilm.com, the website for the UK's Total Film magazine. It's part of their overall 2008 Movie Blog Awards, which should be up on the site sometime next week. Keep an eye out!