What do films like Roadhouse, The Crow, and The Garfield Movie have in common? They are all considered among the worst movie remakes of 2024. We are letting loose all the horrible films Hollywood churned out last year. I think it is time we asked: Is Hollywood dried up?
Hollywood’s esteemed Golden Age was around the late 1920s to the ‘60s. This stylized period produced movies that captured the zeitgeist of the Golden Age, i.e. Casablanca, 12 Angry Men, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and King Kong. Compared to the modernity of new-age films, these oldies might seem overrated. Regardless of how it may seem, you must view it through the lens of its time. These films are celebrated due to storylines and innovative practical effects. In the present day, unfortunately, everything is diluted down to reskinned ideas, CGI-diluted scenes, and horrible writing.
Many of the movies from that era were based on books. A great example of this is the book All Quiet on the Western Front. A novel by Erich Maria Remarque that follows a group of young German soldiers during World War One who face the horrors of war. This book was adapted into film three times, once in 1930, then in 1979, and now the most recent being in 2022. This story is one of the few special cases. It’s important to keep retelling this story through generations as it conveys an important message: War comes at a cost, the lives of naive young men.
Unfortunately, many films that keep popping up in this day and age have no special moral or life-changing message. Scream is a long-lasting murder mystery thriller series, ranking up a short-lived TV show and 6, nearly 7, movies, which garnered millions of fans and a plethora of merchandise. It seems as if the market for new horror icons is scarce. Only one modern-day clown has survived insurmountable odds and made it from a few short films to three features on the big screen. The Terrifer films are a grey area when it comes to this argument. It’s true, it’s mainly an original concept. However, it still takes inspiration from old horror icons such as Pennywise the Clown and Michael Myers.
While on the topic of redundancy in film, I asked Jake Foster (12) what he thought about the repetitiveness of the Spider-Man trilogies, “Yes [they are] 100% necessary. There are different comics and versions of Peter Parker that must be represented. However, I think that the whole spider verse thing is really unnecessary and overly complicated.”
Moviegoers have seen just about everything now and they’re getting tired. When will Hollywood become golden again?
