Archive | Remake Head to Head

Head to Head of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead Was Great!

George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead changed horror movies forever. It’s impact on the genre is jaw dropping, and is revered by most of us to be a masterpiece. It was made in 1968, it was black and white and it gave us a new spin on the zombie. We may take flesh eating zombies for granted nowadays, but if this movie hadn’t came to be then we would simply have living cannibals at best to worry about. Now that I have said that, let me ask you this… If it was so great, Why has it been remade? Well as many of you know, imitation is a form of flattery. That, and George Romero lost the rights to the movie making it fall into the public domain ‘GASP!’. So in this edition of remakes head to head, we will be covering the movie that started it all, the Genesis of the ‘flesh eating’ zombies, ‘Night of the Living Dead‘ and the inevitable remakes that followed. What I won’t be covering is the colorized re-issue, the terrible extended footage in the 30th anniversary edition, or the cartoon version that used the original sound track. Three movies enter… only 1 will reign supreme! But, who’s it going to be?

Remakes Head to Head: Dawn of the Dead (1978) vs. Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Let me start off by saying that I love zombie movies! And if you like zombie flicks, you almost automatically like George Romero. George Romero is the man when it comes to zombies and in fact he defined what the modern zombie is. Zombies in films before Romero’s 1968 classic ‘Night of the Living Dead’, were just catatonic people under mind control or people under a voodoo spell of sorts. George has given us the gift of the modern flesh eating zombies, and his work has been imitated and even *gasp* remade! Although he has directed several films he is best known for his ‘of the dead’ series which are ‘Night of the Living Dead’, ‘Dawn of the Dead‘, ‘Day of the Dead’, ‘Land of the Dead’, Diary of the Dead, and ‘Survival of the Dead’. A few of the remakes of his work were decent like Tom Savini’s 1990 remake of Night of the Living Dead, and others were terrible like Night of the Living Dead 3D or the remake of Day of the Dead (2008). The original Dawn of the Dead was one of my favorite zombie films of all time, and I was also impressed with the remake. But which one will reign supreme?
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Remakes Head to Head: Manhunter (1986) vs. Red Dragon (2002)

Hannibal Lecter is one of the most terrifying movie killers of all time. He is a total genius, he knows exactly what he’s doing, its almost impossible to get into his head and he eats people! A lot of people think of Dr. Lecter and they think of the 1991 movie titled ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ starring Anthony Hopkins that gave an epic portrayal of the now infamous on screen serial killer. Anyone following the series knows that ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ is actually a sequel to ‘Red Dragon’ even though it was released eleven years later in 2002. All of the movies in this series are adapted from novels written by author Thomas Harris. Thomas wrote Red Dragon in 1981 and wrote The Silence of the Lambs in 1988 then went on to write Hannibal in 1999 and lastly Hannibal Rising in 2006. Not a lot of people know that before Anthony Hopkins put Hannibal Lecter on the map in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, ‘Red Dragon’, and ‘Hannibal’ there was a film that pre-dated all of these starring the genius killer. Continue reading “Remakes Head to Head: Manhunter (1986) vs. Red Dragon (2002)” »

Remakes Head to Head: The Bourne Identity (1988) vs. The Bourne Identity (2002)

Not a lot of people know that the character Jason Bourne made famous in 2002 by Matt Damon was actually remade. The original ‘Bourne Identity’ was a two part made for T.V. movie back in 1988 and it starred actor Richard Chamberlain as Bourne. Both films are adapted from series of novels by a man named Robert Ludlum. Ludlum released ‘The Bourne Identity’ novel in 1980. The book series has a total of 8 books (the 8th releasing in sometime in 2010). Ludlam wrote the first three in the series (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum) and author Eric Van Lustbader took over writing the stories for the last 5 novels (The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, and The Bourne Objective). Lets get to the reviews so we can suit up the two super spies for a battle to the death!

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Remakes Head to Head: Last Man on Earth vs. The Omega Man vs. I Am Legend

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