Horror Remake Vs. Original: Friday the 13th

Friday the 13^th (1980) vs. Friday the 13^th (2009)

In The Red Corner: Friday the 13^th (1980)

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham featuring Adrienne King and Betsy Palmer.

In the Black Corner: The 2009 remake (sequel? reboot? desperate push for greenbacks?)

Directed by Marcus Nispel with Jared Padalecki and Danielle Panabaker

Let’s Get It On! The original cash-in slash-in Friday the 13^th is in the house to represent against its own parasitic offspring. Ch-Ch-Ch-Ah-Ah-Ah away!

Round 1 – Director: Cunningham’s point and shoot style, mixed with stalking camera work and love of violence, puts up solid points for the original. While not as revolutionary as his contemporaries, Cunningham’s style would be emulated for the next decade by up and coming horror directors. The remake boasts Marcus Nispel, who also tackled the better than it could have been TCM remake. He gives the flick a solid visual style and some interesting shots, but really struggles with pacing, especially in the second act (more on that later).

Round 1 Score: 1980 – 22 / 2009 – 18

Round 2 – Cast: Adrienne King’s Alice is drafted with the quickest of strokes, but that doesn’t stop her from being a solid final girl. Betsy Palmer is great as the deranged / devastated mother, which gives the third act a much needed punch in the intensity level. The rest of the cast (including all seven degrees of Kevin Bacon) are solid if not long lasting. The remake does okay; problem is, most of the characters are making bone-headed moves left, right, and center. Despite some major development problems, Jared Padalecki comes off well. The same can be said for Ms. Panabaker’s literal girl next door. One wonders how she could have such a dick boyfriend. Speaking of that, if there was an Oscar for playing a dick, Travis Van Winkle would get it. I wanna punch that guy!

Round 2 Score: 1980 – 20 / 2013 - 18

Total – The Original’s in charge – 42 to 36.

Round 3 – The script: The original’s script is pretty basic. Its roller-coaster structure is enjoyable and efficient, allowing for much running in the dark and slaughter. The remake doesn’t fair nearly as well. Not only are the characters idiots in the highest degree, they’re making all kinds of dumb moves. What makes the whole thing worse is that the title break occurs 24(!) minutes into the flick. That means we’ve only got an hour with our main characters, so none of them are developed in the least. Even a major twist at the end fails to impress because we don’t know or care about these idiot characters. The quality actors can’t save it.

Round 3 Score: 1980 – 20 / 2009 – 7

Total – The original takes a seemingly insurmountable lead, 62 to 43.

Round 4 – Effects: F13 1980 boasts a slit throat, arrow wounds, axe to the head, and plenty of ugliness. The remake is no slouch either: stabbings, arrows to the head, cooking folks in sleeping bags, and fun with a wood chipper. Despite this, I was really hoping the remake would go further, especially with the recent High Tension and Hatchet on the scene.

Round 4 Score: 1980 – 22 / 2009 – 25

Total – The redux isn’t out of it yet, but is still down, 84 to 68

Round 5 – Fear Factor: With its well-oiled, roller-coaster set up, the original works as a fun slasher flick. It’s not with you after you leave the theater, but it’s scary enough while you’re inside. The remake doesn’t fare quite as well. Scenes are intense, sure; but, a lot of the horror is a bookend, occurring in the first twenty and last twenty. The middle is a kind of a horror-less wasteland.

Round 5 Score: 1980 – 25 / 2009 – 20

Total – The original is laying into the newbie, 109 to 88

Round 6 – Overall Film: Friday the 13^th (1980) spawned a dozen other flicks and one of the most financially profitable movie franchises of all time. The remake didn’t manage to get the title card in the right place.

Round 6 Score: 1980 – 28 / 2009 – 10

Final Result: The winner, by knockout, is the original Friday the 13^th! Final score: 137 to 98

- J.W. Brewer

Staff Writer

Follow JW on Twitter

Original Vs. Remake: Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Vs. 

Night of the living dead (1990)

By Jasmine Casimir

“They’re coming for you Barbara.”

George A Romero dazzled audience and future filmmakers with his classic Night of the Living Dead in 1968, birthing a new genre of horror, soon to create and maintain a solid cult following. As you all may know, it was then remade in 1990, directed by Tom Savini. The following is a comparative look at both films.

We begin with the classic and familiar storyline of siblings visiting a graveyard. Soon after the quick introduction to our first characters, seemingly queued onto screen by Johnny with the infamous tagline, the two are greeted by a man who appears to have just risen from the grave. Johnny is killed instantly, and Barbara flees to a nearby house where she meets Ben, and eventually two couples: one with a “sickly” little girl.

Taking a break however from my synopsis, which I am sure you can make up from there without continuation, I do want to point out the main merit of the original. Although pretty much only a technicality by way of “they didn’t have the technology yet” was, for starters, the black and white film and the lack of noise-assault. This did two things: it choked down much of the aural and visual horror in a way that made these aspects less cheap and obvious, and it did not force one to be on edge, by way of scary sounds the whole time. The horror was in the actors and situations as is arguably the way it ought to be. It was genuine, organic, and in that sense, much more “spooky” than overtly visually terrifying.

Back to the plot and characters.  It’s possible that this is all due to my post-second-wave feminist upbringing, but the fact that the entirety of Barbara’s personality was boiled down to constant, irrational, screaming, whimpering, sad-sack in the corner was so irritating that I spent equal amounts of brain power trying to ignore her as I did watch the rest of the film. Granted, this was just a reflection of the times, it was a distraction, as that character archetype always is. 

I do also want to point out that the little girl character, once transformed into the living dead, was much more jarring and creepier due to lack of over-done gore, the film quality, and the lack of brain-punching sounds. I don’t think many film “monsters” have left as big of an impression on me as that little girl, with the subtle, dark, sunken-in eyes, appearing from dead silence with that iconic facial expression as she ceases munching on her father’s dead corpse to kill her mother with a trowel.

Taking a gander at the 1990 remake now, we are greeted with the familiar scene of siblings, brother killed instantly, pretty much follows the original plot pretty damn well, including the line, “They’re coming for you Barbara,” in the same oh-so-spooky, foreshadowing manner. Barbara wasn’t so much of a waste of sobbing, hysterical oxygen, taking on an equal lead to Ben. Which, although a fundamental device to the original, it was not uncomfortably irritating for me to watch. This film, apart from a few other very minor adjustments, such as divulgence of clarification, was pretty much the same. Per usual, I will not give away any endings. I did have moral obligation to stand and applaud to the switching up of the ending, which gave one hell of a nod to the original but also to the character-facelift of our leading lady.

All in all, despite the fact that the Night of the Living Dead remake was basically just the original with minor alterations, it was not, in my opinion, the abomination that some people feel that it was. I will admit, I am a bit of a purist and generally lean much more heavily to the original. That being said, the remake did not reek of over-cautiousness (despite the strong similarity to its predecessor) or do that hideous, terrible, hateful thing where they leave out really important stuff and invent new scenarios that just screw the original story line. Both films are worth merit in my book and take up equal playing time in my VCR, and maybe you’ll think so too.

- Jasmine Casimir