On the warpath: Redux Schmedux

People, I'm on the warpath. For too long I've been silent about something that really raises my hackles (well, that's a lie, I rant about this about once every two weeks, but not often in written form). Raises 'em right up there, sky-high. What the hell are hackles, anyhow? Oh, the hairs on the neck or upper back. I see.

What I want to rant about are all these remakes of old movies. I have nothing against remaking old movies in theory, but here's the crux of my irritation: all these remakes ruin themselves by trying to give back-stories to everyone or to explain everything that might have been less than crystal-clear in the original movie. A few examples should clarify my position:

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: why do we need to know about Leatherface's horrible childhood? Why do we need to know about his motivation? Isn't it way more terrifying to have no idea why this psychotic halfwit is trying to kill, dismember, and eat people?

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory: even Tim Burton falls into the trap, with the back story on Willie Wonka and his relationship with his father. Seems to me a big part of the appeal of Willie Wonka the character is the mystery of who he is and where he came from. The lack of explanation is a real driving force in the original, and filling that empty space in in the remake has the effect of suffocating the viewer.

The Amityville Horror: this is one of the worst. Instead of just some evil force that confuses and terrifies us, as in the original, the remake provides a child ghost, a possessed father, and finally a ridiculous buccaneer-looking guy who ran a native-american torture camp underneath the house. Again, how much more terrifying to not know the cause of this evil? How much of a let-down when the movie foists answers on the audience instead of leaving us room to think?

The new Star Wars movies: so technically these aren't remakes, but part of what makes them suck so much is their obsession with filling in every last unknown from the original trilogy. Every loose end is tied up, every appealing mystery is solved, every place where we might have imagined something vague and wonderful about what the original movies didn't tell us has been replaced by some pat story or connection. This is especially true with all the useless-to-the-plot information we get about Bobo-Fet, or however you spell that guy's name. I mean just seeing him without the mask is an immediate let-down, and I guess the mask is a cheesy but apt metaphor for my problem with these remakes in general: whatever face these remakes supply, it can never hold a candle to what the audience imagines if given a little room to do so.

I guess as a movie fan I like to have some room in which to interpret things, and wonder about details, and imagine different pasts for characters. As a lover of horror flicks, I find that confusion and lack of understanding heighten the sense of terror. So I take it as a personal affront when some director decides to fill in a bunch of holes in a remake. I think of those holes as places where a movie, as a living organism, can breathe. And as doorways through which an audience member can get into the world of the movie. Filling them in kills the movie and shuts out the viewer. Fuck that, I say. I'm on the warpath. Maybe the thing to do is to get these remakes on VHS, then randomly delete a few minutes here and there throughout the movie, just to cut yourself some slack and make them watchable. Then again, as with all rants like this one, why don't I just not watch the shit? Fine, I won't.