Less Really Can Be More
Just when I think I may run out of things to babble on about, along comes something to strike my interest. I can usually find fodder within the forums, and I have once again.
There has been an ongoing discussion about remakes of films like Rosemary’s Baby and how some fans would like to see one done that showcases some bloody kills. Other fans (myself included) have a rather hearty distaste for the idea. So of course my little mind gets going. Please read on to find out where it took me.
Certainly everyone has heard the statement “less is more.” Remember the old adage about not buying the cow when you can get the milk for free? Or how it seems sexier when someone is scantily clad versus all out naked? Keep those in mind for the duration of this editorial.
I am not one to discount a film for its use of blood because I rather like a good gory film here and there. I’m not a horror fan for nothing, after all. But sometimes I do agree with the above statement. And I believe it counts for many aspects of film making. Wouldn’t you know it? I am going to cite examples.
I hate to beat a dead shark, but let’s take Jaws for instance. The reason that film worked as well as it did was because they didn’t have the opportunity to show us the shark as much as planned. Thanks to some creature malfunctions, we don’t even get a good glimpse until well into the film. The absence of the visual allows our own imaginations to go to work. And let’s face it, we don’t have to see sharks in the ocean to know they are there. But if we had been overloaded with a clunky machine version of this perfect predator, it would have dragged us out of the film and made it laughable rather than horrible.
Look at newer examples of the same concept. Let’s take… Deep Blue Sea. Very similar in concept. Okay, they are sharks. Anyway, while I do enjoy that film for what it is, I really don’t find it scary. Once you get to see them and realize it’s CGI, it’s not scary anymore. Animation can hurt no one…except the film makers who fail to use it shrewdly.
Another example is overall budget. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that the bigger budget you have, the better film you should be able to make? I would think that more money could only add to the effectiveness of it, giving the director the ability to create on screen exactly what he sees in his twisted little mind. For this point I will use the much-loved director, George Romero. We all love us some Uncle George. Dawn of the Dead, arguably the greatest zombie film ever made…though I have no idea who would argue against that, was made for a meager $650,000.00. To me, that seems like a good chunk of dough, but for a film, it’s practically nothing. The average film budget for 1978 was $5,000,000.00. I would say that was a successful film, well received by fans even 30 years later. And it was made with unknowns.
Then take a look at Land of the Dead. The budget for this film was $16,000,000.00 and it was teeming with faces we all know. While that is still a paltry sum for films of today, it is considerably larger than Dawn’s plus it had studio backing. But somehow, even with George at the helm, it doesn’t quite measure up to his earlier efforts. Even all the tricked out CGI effects don’t make it better. I believe that when you are forced to work within constraints, monetary or otherwise, it forces you to be creative. When you cannot rely on all the advances in technology to support you, you have to work from the heart and dig down deep to find the soul of who you are as a director.
But what does all this have to do with Rosemary’s Bloody Baby remake? Not much except to say that ALL elements of film making can sometimes benefit from less. The original movie is a classic tale of suspense and it is quite chilling. I honestly can’t think of how bloody kills would work here, or why they would need to. That really isn’t the point of the film. Why toss insides around when you can accomplish a deeper level of shivers without them? Hey…wouldn’t that make the budget lower too?
In the end we all know that they will do what they like and we have little to say about it except at the box office. Perhaps a time or two of them not recouping their losses would teach them a lesson. Okay not really. But if that baby pops out with an Uzi or goes on a bloody killing spree while simultaneously wrecking the city from end to end, I will give them a good talking to.
RELATED POSTS:
- Kerr Smith Talks My Bloody Valentine 3-D At the Screamfest after party for Trick 'r Treat, I had a moment to get...
- October horror movie picks: ‘Diary of the Dead’ Each day, I'll be counting down the time to Halloween with a look at some...
- Backwoods Bloodbath “Backwoods Bloodbath” is an old school horror-gore flick about six...
- Bruce Campbell Talks Evil Dead 4 There has been so much talk about Evil Dead 4 over the last 3 years but...
- Sam Raimi Gets Back To His Horror Roots With ‘Drag Me To Hell’ During all the hoopla surrounding "Spider-Man" and its two sequels - the...
- Fuller Talks Rosemary’s Baby Remake This is gonna probably piss off a bunch of you. Brad Fuller from Platinum...
- ‘The Exorcist’ Coming to Blu-ray in Fall 2009 Blu-ray.com reports that In an interview with DVD Review, director William...
- What’s With All These Travel Horror Movies, Anyway? When Eli Ellison and I first started working on our list of 13 Great...
- Michael Roesch and Peter Scheerer Talk Brotherhood of Blood Michael Roesch and Peter Scheerer have been in the screenwriting biz for...
- 13 Seconds Review I normally don't bother watching low-budget movies that people send to...
No Comments
No comments yet.
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
Leave a comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
