The funny thing about people involved with remakes nowadays, from Platinum Dunes to Rob Zombie, is that they always say “I know, remakes suck, we all hate them, but we’re doing it the way it’s supposed to be done!” Sometimes they get it right- I think Alexandre Aja has the right approach – and sometimes they most certainly don’t.
FRIGHT NIGHT can go either way, of course. The remake is being produced by Michael De Luca, who has been talking up a blue streak with Collider recently. The two got to the bottom – well, near the bottom anyway – of the FRIGHT NIGHT remake, which is supposedly going to be scary and cool and, well you know, not just a shitty remake.
“… with Fright Night, with all the romantic vampire stuff going on with The Vampire Diaries and True Blood and Twilight, the most obvious. We thought it would be interesting if, in this atmosphere of the way the vampire is being portrayed right now as a romantic object, under the wire of all that in the culture the real thing moves in next door. And the real thing is a killer. Just a predator. It’s the shark from Jaws. On the outside it’s a seductive package and it looks like a human being, but it’s just about ripping your throat out and drinking your blood. And introducing that kind of vampire into the current environment.”
De Luca also said all the right things when it comes to the stigma of remaking a beloved horror film: “I get it that remakes are a drag to hear about. I’m on the Internet all the time. I know what they say. Like there’s no original ideas in Hollywood. I understand the responsibility on the remake front of things because there are fans…you have responsibility I think to the fans of the original and you also have the responsibility to not suck even more than something original because you have so many people expecting you to suck because of the predisposed bias against remakes and stuff.”
Apparently, De Luca and the studio (Dreamworks) are still waiting for a first draft from Marti Noxon, a long-time “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” scribe. To read the rest of his thoughts on the project, head on over HERE.