Michael Bay’s 2000s-era Slasher Remakes Were Quickly Buried By Critics — But Are Now Seeing Second Life On Letterboxd

Photos: Everett Collection ; Illustration: Dillen Phelps

Given nan number of caller scary movies that transverse our screens connected a yearly basis, it’s really rather singular to see that nan copy titans of ’80s slashers, erstwhile renowned for their near-annual multiplex appearances, person agelong been missing successful action. That’s right: No movies featuring Nightmare connected Elm Street emcee Freddy Krueger person been released since 2010, and Jason Voorhees hasn’t been seen since February 2009. (You tin astir apt conjecture nan precise merchandise date.) Granted, ineligible snares person screwed up plans to revive Jason – nan original Friday nan 13th title, its characters, and its sequels are someway not each nether nan aforesaid ownership. But immoderate of those ineligible problems existed successful nan precocious 2000s, and were dutifully worked retired connected nan remix, er, remake, astatine nan behest of nan man who produced would-be comebacks for Jason, Freddy, and besides Texas Chainsaw’s Leatherface: nan different boogeyman himself, Michael Bay.

Bay’s Platinum Dunes shingle churned retired a number of slick scary remakes passim nan 2000s; nan 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre redo was its first title, and nan dependable watercourse of remakes didn’t really fto up until nan institution recovered immoderate franchises of its ain via nan Purge and Quiet Place series. The remakes earned a estimation arsenic being soullessly Bayified rate grabs, visually slick but thematically empty, and isolated from a Texas Chainsaw prequel that underperformed, nary of them succeeded successful reviving these characters. In retrospect, though, this is shocking, particularly considering that his unofficial big-three trilogy were each beautiful large hits, albeit of nan open-big-and-crash variety. How did 3 profitable and well-attended ventures starring scary icons thrust two-thirds of said icons into a ditch? (Though Leatherface hasn’t really starred successful a deed movie since, there’s been nary shortage of attempts. At this point, much than half of nan films successful that bid person travel retired successful nan past 20 years.)

You could reason that these movies were truthful poorly-received by critics and particularly fans that immoderate imaginable for much was doomed anyway. But while it’s existent that Platinum Dunes showed invited restraint by not automatically ordering a fleet of sequels to remakes nary 1 seemed to peculiarly like, it’s besides not arsenic if nan Friday nan 13th movies aliases moreover nan Nightmare sequels were particularly beloved successful their day. The Friday nan 13th remake from 2009 made astir nan balanced of nan much celebrated sequels. The 2010 Nightmare made a akin sum.

Photo: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection

Moreover, successful nan years since those movies were tagged arsenic failures, nan predictable arc of horror-movie fandom has taken over, and immoderate – not widespread, but immoderate – reclamation has begun to return place. The fantabulous professional A.A. Dowd, not precisely a changeless champion of nan lowbrow, wrote a thoughtful, detailed defense of nan Nightmare remake for its tenth anniversary. Specifically, he praises nan movie’s discomfiting determination to make Krueger a kid molester, alternatively than a murderer: “I’d reason that this queasy constituent activates an undercurrent of dread that’s ever been percolating nether nan aboveground of nan franchise. The segment wherever nan teens yet unearth photographic grounds of what happened to them arsenic children is haunting successful a measurement nary of Freddy’s 8 different Nightmares were. Maybe it’s not nan astir tasteful taxable matter for a multiplex slasher reboot to tackle. But scary isn’t ever tasteful—it risks crossing lines successful violating our comfortableness zones.” He’s not wrong.

There isn’t arsenic overmuch to unpack astir nan 2009 Friday nan 13th, which goes retired of its measurement to proviso young group arsenic reckless, stupid, and prone to smarmy antics arsenic immoderate of nan aged movies. But surf your Letterboxd feed for reactions to that movie, particularly if you travel immoderate horror-heads, and you whitethorn beryllium amazed to find immoderate appreciation, or, astatine very least, acknowledgment that nan remake is not doing things truthful wildly different than astir of nan misbegotten Friday sequels, pinch possibly much coherent storytelling and higher-level filmmaking.

It’s that slickness that turned disconnected plentifulness of critics astatine nan clip – understandably. The kickoff Platinum Dunes remake, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, tries to replicate nan gritty wrongness of nan ’70s original, moreover going truthful acold arsenic to prosecute nan original cinematographer Daniel Pearl. The movie surely has a chopped aesthetic, and it does sometimes look art-directed wrong an inch of its life, each shadiness of grime arsenic calibrated arsenic nan euphony videos aliases ads wherever Bay sewage his commencement (and wherever Pearl besides worked, pinch Bay). Pearl replicates that look successful nan 2009 Friday nan 13th, which reteams him pinch Texas Chainsaw ’03 head Marcus Nispel. Nightmare connected Elm Street has music-video roots, too; it’s nan only characteristic from head Samuel Bayer, who made Nirvana’s seminal “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video, among galore others.

©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection

These music-video versions of scary classics can’t compete pinch their sources, obviously. Even nan original Friday nan 13th, a clunky Halloween knockoff, feels much legitimately verdant and grounded, particularly successful retrospect. Yet viewed pinch 15 years aliases truthful of hindsight, location is thing appealing astir really nan remakes effort to waste their ain bespoke acheronian without turning successful thing arsenic drab as, say, that caller Hellraiser redo. All 3 of these biggest Platinum Dunes remakes are changeable connected film, pinch vivid saturation and shadows – they’re stylish successful a measurement that plentifulness of gray, digitally-made “better” scary movies are not. They’re not important aliases collectively absorbing capable to suffice arsenic a genuine activity successful horror, but it’s difficult not to deliberation that if immoderate of them came retired now, they’d beryllium overmuch better-received, astatine very slightest arsenic a displacement successful ocular emphasis.

These movies besides person nan advantage of their perceived failures – namely, that they mostly didn’t animate sequels (save nan 1 Texas Chainsaw prequel) aliases knockoffs, too each other. Though they don’t monster-mash their slashers together for illustration Freddy vs. Jason, nan Platinum Dunes horrors do consciousness of a portion arsenic a scary bid accidentally reckoning pinch our fond memories of immoderate horrifying cinema mascots. It’s location successful nan Nightmare teens sorting done their hidden past, successful Nispel’s fastidious recreation of Texas Chainsaw squalor, and successful nan Friday nan 13th re-envisioning of Jason arsenic a lonely survivalist, tending to his amazingly elaborate lair successful nan woods, nursing his grudges. (The “real” Jason could never! He’s nan type of slasher who had to beryllium made supernatural because it’s nan only measurement to explicate really he tin unrecorded connected his ain for longer than a fewer days.) Bay whitethorn not person aimed to reinvent nan slasher-movie wheel, and he judge didn’t succeed. But it turns retired that successful immoderate form, these movies are pleasingly intolerable to kill.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is simply a writer surviving successful Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts astatine www.sportsalcohol.com, too.