The Reboot Boogeyman: The Pros and Cons of Remaking a Classic Like The Exorcist
After Morgan Creek retained Major League, Ace Ventura and the rights to The Exorcist in spite of the company’s sell-off of over seventy films in its library, the boogeyman of modern film reared its ugly head. The word “remake” was on everybody’s lips, and this was a particularly strong discussion when it came to The Exorcist.
It was like Voldemort to Harry Potter. The sound of it alone was enough to make you cringe and everybody had a “Don’t say that!” reaction if you had the gall to bring it up. Being protective of one of the most iconic films in the horror genre is more than understandable.
More than 40 years later, the legendary makeup done by Dick Smith still holds up to any modern effects, and the performances given by Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Dietz and the rest of the cast are the stuff of nightmares. The public is traumatized by a litany of awful reboots and ridiculous dissections of our favorite films and characters. Worse yet is that fact that the list seems never-ending and an original idea in Hollywood is almost becoming as accessible as a paranormal experience. You might need a medium, a white candle, the blood of a virgin and a spell book to summon a great original film as it just becomes easier to cash in on an existing franchise and exploit a preexisting idea and audience.
Rehash. Assume your audience is too stupid to realize this is regurgitation. Cash check. Party in the Hollywood Hills. Repeat.
I just cracked the major film production code. You’re welcome.
Remaking The Exorcist is beyond taboo and I hate the idea as much as anyone else. In the interest of breaking my own bias I challenged myself to be fair and come up with the pros and cons of revamping an iconic piece of horror cinema and ways in which it might (and I use that word very lightly) be okay. Morgan Creek released a tweet stating that they had no such plans to do so in response to William Friedkin himself stating that he was strongly against seeing them go down that road, but the fact is that exploring the merits of a remake becomes necessary to keep our sanity as the cash cow mentality still rules major film. I’ll grind my teeth and begin with the reasons that it can be a great asset to reboot franchises and favorites and I’ll try not to sweat in the process. Wish me luck.
There is something to be begrudgingly grateful for when a franchise or classic is given new life, and that is the flood of new fans and money given back to the franchise. It keeps it running and ensures that it reaches a whole world of people that otherwise might have no real idea what you’re talking about when you say it’s amazing. Do they understand people think it’s amazing? Yes. Have they experienced it for themselves? Probably not, after a certain point. They just take for granted that everyone says it was great in its day. I knew a mass amount of people who had not ever seen The Omen; however, when the reboot was released in 2006, there were many that saw the original just for the compare and contrast. I like that (even if in a roundabout way) it allows the original to come back into circulation in a much more aggressive way.
Come on, you know nobody wants to be the one to admit to the hipsters and purists that you never saw the original. Specifically regarding The Exorcist, it has been 42 years since its release, and I do not want it becoming an old ghost story that people talk about like a relic. Is that likely to happen? I doubt that as much as I doubt that I’ll be satisfied with a remake. I do know that as time goes on, that just ends up being the case all too often. More and more people have “heard about it, but never actually seen it,” and more don’t see it because they “don’t watch older movies.” Yes, this is a thing. They assume it will be dated and out of touch so there are movie-goers that, be it conscious or unconscious, won’t watch anything made before 1985… especially the younger generation. That time frame increases with each generation. It’s good to keep the memory and artistry of such classics alive, and sometimes it’s more than keeping it alive.
Sometimes they DO actually revive it. My favorite example of this is the Rob Zombie remake of Halloween. It is an iconic and classic piece of horror culture and he gave it a whole new look and feel while allowing it to still BE what it was. Never once did I feel like I was watching some half-assed money-grubbing version of the movie. He added a little bit of very well done backstory on young Michael Myers and his poor tragic mother without making it some useless insert that took over the movie because he was desperately and didactically trying to make it HIS. He gave it a fresh modern look and feel while keeping that 16 millimeter look and using costuming to preserve the era of the original. The result was a perfectly refreshed and new version of the movie I loved, while being so respectful of the first one that even my parents, who were among the original audience, were impressed.
If they were to decide to take on William Friedkin’s legacy at any point, the same amount of reverence would have to be paid to gain any respect from an audience. Some fatal mistakes I see being made are changing Regan’s personality to make her a “modern teen” or making her mom a religious nutjob of Carrie-like proportions. The base characters successfully terrified us because of the contrast between their simple everyday innocence and the violence of a group torn apart by the devil himself. Modern films like to thrive on conflict to beat you over the head with the extremes of the situation and this would need to be handled with much more care than that. Simplicity is what made this what it was and that is not something the modern world is good at.
It is a matter of finding the balance between new material and not straying so far that it isn’t even what we came to see. There will never be an end to people that bitch about remakes, but IF you choose to see one, on some level, you do want to see something you recognize. “If it’s so close to the original, what is the point?” My only rebuttal is that if you are hoping to see a different movie, why see a reboot? A fresh take on the original source material is the whole point, so don’t see House of Wax or The Hills Have Eyes with a release date after 2000 because, by your own logic, you should only see the original because those are pointless remakes… that I happen to love. (Seriously. House of Wax. Put that on. Now. Good. Cheesy. Fun. In the best possible way.)
The new technology on a project like The Exorcist could be an asset or an enemy, and that is mildly terrifying. The lack of major digital tampering is what made it so chilling, and the organic quality of it was really incredible. I feel like it’s part of what makes it so timeless. If handled well, there are many scenes that could have their game stepped up by the talents of an excellent visual effects artist, but it is, again, all about balance. The kiss of death to many a project is not knowing when to quit with the C.G.I. (I’m looking at you, Fright Night 2011.) The spider walk is a legendary scene for its terror factor (and is a personal cringe-worthy tick of mine) that could be made smoother with modern technology. My fear is digital vomit that makes you wish to god that they would just switch back to the damn pea soup and overdone fog that makes it look more B-movie than cult classic, as the title deserves. That coin toss is why so many of us are already begging the film industry to leave well enough alone. It could be great. It could be terrible. None of us are sure we want to risk finding out which.
The cons are endless, but I will stick with the most obvious, the first of which is that there are too many incredible ideas out there to be burning money and energy on what was already done right the first time. There are endless stories of filmmakers with amazing concepts that almost didn’t get made, and meanwhile, they’re hunting down people to remake these business ventures. Amazing films had an almost impossible time getting any support from a studio, and there are remakes that had multi-million dollar budgets before they had a working figurehead. The goal should always be innovation first and foremost in the arts to keep the industry thinking and moving. Ideas inspire ideas, and when your sole activity is recycling existing ideas, the innovative ones get left behind or buried. Kevin Smith has stated many times, “It costs nothing to encourage an artist,” and that is something that needs to be remembered. Focus on new scripts from many sources and keep looking for the next fresh thing instead of clinging to the same franchises because they make money. When the amount of rehashed ideas in cinema has become a frequent punchline, there is definitely a problem. Independent films will become the new classics (and in some cases already are) if mainstream companies don’t try to up their innovation game.
The other major con plaguing me is the censorship guideline changes since The Exorcist came out in 1973. They barely got away with what they got away with then, and now it seems like people complain about almost everything in comparison. Anything they could do to increase the intensity or shock value to even TRY recapturing the terrible magic of the first one would be met with hate mail, MPAA rating fights, restrictions, and battles over whose financing gives them the final say, since the amount of money it would take would force it to be made as a movie by committee. I would be far more open to seeing a freeform, no holds barred interpretation that explores how gruesome it could really be than a restricted, carefully crafted compilation of business decisions. Is this too far? Will the Vatican bankrupt us for this? The cross to the crotch is fine, but be careful with the flies, we don’t want to piss off PETA. I can’t imagine that kind of environment allowing for a truly competitive version that would be worth seeing. The original budget was 12 million dollars, and a big budget blockbuster today would consider that the tip of the iceberg. Until they can stop completely prioritizing the business side of these types of films, a remake would not be allowed the freedom it needs to be cutting-edge.
In the end, it’s all about preserving an idea. At this point, if you can’t bring something new to the table, let the original stand on its own. It’s had people fainting, puking, and all-around freaking out for almost 50 years, which is a serious indicator that it doesn’t need help. I think a good majority hope that original ideas will dominate once again, and we have a bright future of death and dismemberment to look forward to in the world of horror once the reign of remakes and mass-production success have subsided (because it is a well-accepted knowledge that it will never actually go away). May Ellen Burstyn live in infamy for her performance as Regan’s exhausted and abused mother. Nothing will compare to the incredible powerhouse that was Linda Blair’s chilling performance when she was barely more than a kid. Blair herself, in an interview with Dread Central, stated, “People have tried to master what Billy made in this movie and recreate it again and again, but they just haven’t been able to,” and I agree. We have seen attempts to recapture that brand of lightning in a bottle, and the glass breaks nearly every time. The best course of action is just to let it remain the legend that it is and let it go down in history as an original that stands on its own. Besides, as crappy Exorcist ideas go, I personally think that quota was filled by The Exorcist: The Heretic. Sorry, Not Sorry.
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