I watched two remakes this weekend. Actually, it's becoming increasingly difficult to find new movies that AREN'T remakes. Here's an idea for you, Hollywood: Why don't you make The Dark Tower into a film series? Or make a film based on It that is actually good and doesn't have Tim Curry in it? Or even one based on Cell (one of Stephen King's more recent novels). I'm sure he'd sell the rights to you for about $19.

Anyway, enough with the tangent. I could go on and on about that all day. In any case, I watched Halloween and Friday the 13th. Already these movies are at a disadvantage, because you know what's going to happen. They can change the plot from the original all they want, but it all comes down to the same thing no matter how you slice it. (Pun intended.) And that is, it's a guy in a mask chopping people up. That's all it is, and that's all people are going to expect, and that's all you can give them.

The reasons why the originals were so popular and so shocking it because no one really knew what they were getting when they went to see it. It's the unexpected that shocks and scares people, and it's always been that way. It doesn't matter how much more blood you can put on the screen now and not get slapped with an X rating -- that's not scary. Now that we know what we're getting when we sit down to watch this movie, the bite to it is gone. I firmly believe that if you made a slasher film, put people like, say, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DeCaprio in it, advertise it as an R rated romantic comedy, and then cut them into little tiny pieces instead, THAT would be shocking. And probably sell lots of tickets, too.