Nothing exists in a vacuum. Whether by conscious choice or passive influence, the world bleeds into our perspective of it and how we share it with others. We are influenced by the world around us, which is often (if not always) impacted by politics, from the cost of eggs and gas to healthcare. It’s only natural that this would influence art, as it has for hundreds of years. The same is true of film.
A filmmaker’s creative choices are a byproduct of the circumstances that brought them there — how and where they grew up, access to resources and media, overall quality of life, etc. This is in part why horror movies are so often politicized. The genre investigates what terrifies us at that moment in time, regardless of our engagement with Politics in a formal sense. Some filmmakers didn’t intend to make a political film, but by virtue of when it was made, it may become a rallying cry for change (Night of the Living Dead). Or maybe it was a conscious choice to highlight prejudice in our time (Get Out).
Remakes are no different, though they can be tricky. When made for the sake of a bottom line, they tend to fall flat, offering very little besides spectacle (The Mummy 2017). But when they’re made in earnest with something to say? Well, that’s a horse of a different color.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers may be the most remade title on this list, and with good reason. Fear of assimilation, loss of self and identity, fear of alienation or being othered, and not knowing who to trust are fairly universal, primal fears.
The 1956 original leaned heavily into a rural hive mind, numbed out by routine and the homogeneity of domestic life. Similar concepts were applied to its 1978 counterpart, except domesticity had changed drastically over 22 years. Where Becky Driscoll’s (Dana Wynter) father would have dictated her future in 1956, Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) is under her husband’s control, in a way. A layabout man’s man, post-pod Geoffrey (Art Hindle) becomes a controlling presence, emphasizing the need for women’s rights and autonomy.
The largest march for feminism (at the time) took place on July 9, 1978, the year of the film’s release, with a goal to raise awareness for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that hadn’t been ratified. The demonstration was a necessity after years of harmful opposition from anti-ERA figurehead and Republican darling Phyllis Schlafly. She had all but tanked momentum towards ratification.
This devastating setback contributed to the ERA’s failure to be ratified in the US constitution, hindering women’s rights indefinitely. Schlafly represents the pod people and support of the status quo. This collective further facilitated women’s subjugation and indoctrination into an oppressively homogenized culture.
Phillip Kauffman’s 1978 retelling of Invasion changes the setting from rural to urban, suggesting progress only to rip that security away. Without protection, no one is safe, and the women in Kauffman’s San Francisco remain dependent on men to safely move through the world. Nancy Bellicec (Veronica Cartright) serves as proof of such cultural stigma as the last woman standing, her husband already assimilated along with all of her friends, as if to suggest that a solitary woman lacks protection. Legally speaking, that was correct in 1978.
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter’s The Thing was released during a particularly tumultuous time in the 1980s. The Cold War continued, Ronald Reagan had taken office and began changing the fabric of American culture, horrifying displays of violence and assassination attempts (including Reagan’s) shocked the world, and Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, retired as the CBS Evening News anchor, leaving a vacancy that would never be filled.
In 1981, a year before The Thing’s release, the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Review (MMWR) published the first report about what would become the AIDS epidemic. The report shocked health officials across the country who had encountered similar cases they couldn’t treat or explain. Reagan wouldn’t publicly mention AIDS until 1985, and inadequately funded medical research. No one understood it or how it was transmitted, resulting in long-standing paranoia regarding the disease and anyone who had it.
Carpenter has said that he never intended to make a film about AIDS, but that he was focused on the deterioration of trust between peers. However unintentionally, he imbued The Thing with the distrust of a nation that struggled to find its footing in a sea of violent change and a disease it didn’t understand.
The Fly (1986)
David Cronenberg’s remake of The Fly puts the audience in the scariest seat in the house: that of Veronica “Ronnie” Quaife (Geena Davis), Seth Brundle’s (Jeff Goldblum) pregnant partner.
The entire film is a discussion of bodily autonomy — both Ronnie’s and Seth’s. Ronnie finds out she’s pregnant once Seth’s mutation is well underway, and she has no qualms stating clearly that she wants an abortion. “I don’t want it in my body!” she screams as Stathis (John Getz) questions her state of mind. “Do you understand me? I don’t want it in my body!”
Abortion rights in the United States have been pushed back to a much darker time in the last couple of years with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But they were abysmal at the time of the film’s release, too. Meanwhile, abortion was still illegal in Canada, where the film was shot. The country’s abortion law wouldn’t be struck down by the Canadian Supreme Court until January 28, 1988, making Ronnie’s heartbreaking plea that much more impactful.
Cronenberg is a proud Canadian filmmaker whose work has been prominently funded by the Canadian government. It comes as no surprise that he would make this a key part of his film’s terror while being characteristically outspoken about his country’s politics.
The Blob (1988)
Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont’s remake of The Blob is infinitely more brutal than its 1950s counterpart. In addition to geographically isolating the events, they changed the hero of the film from all-American dreamboat Steve McQueen to shared protagonists Shawnee Smith as cheerleader Meg Penny and Kevin Dillon as rebel-with-a-mullet Brian Flagg.
Most things involving gender are due to social conditioning, a byproduct of culturally accepted norms and political doctrine. By 1988, Ellen Ripley had proven herself as a badass, as had Sarah Connor and Nancy Thompson. But they were the exceptions, not the rule. Change was slowly making its way to the mainstream.
Sandra Day-O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court justice, and discrimination laws changed in public schools, organization membership policies, and law firm promotion guidelines. Reagan even declared August 25, 1988 to be Women’s Equality Day, a hollow gesture, but a large one for the time.
It’s no accident that Meg is the most competent character in The Blob (1988). The film counts on you making assumptions about gender roles, and it pays off. Meg never hesitates to do the right thing and fight like hell. And she does this while surrounded by powerful, posturing men with the emotional intelligence of a toenail who snicker and call her hysterical.
Funny Games (2007)
A meditation on gratuitous violence in media, Funny Games was always political. Remaking it was simply a means to reach the intended English-speaking audience that couldn’t “overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles.” “The film is […] about the representation of violence in the media,” Haneke said in an interview with Cinema.com, adding that the original didn’t reach English-speaking audiences “because it was in German.”
By Haneke’s own admission, Funny Games was “more relevant than ever because the pornography of violence in the media [had] increased” in the decade following the original. By the mid to late 1990s, reports of violent crimes littered the news, including the Unibomber, the murder of JonBenét Ramsey, and Princess Diana’s fatal car crash caused by paparazzi endangering her for a photo.
By 2007, that became more prevalent, with school shootings increasing up to and following the Columbine massacre, Matthew Shepard’s murder, 9/11, the Columbia space shuttle disaster, the Iraq war, 60 Minutes’ graphic report of abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers… I could go on.
To say that depictions of violence in media had increased was an understatement, one that amplified the relevance of both iterations of Funny Games.
The Crazies (2010)
The Crazies builds on similar themes from Funny Games, namely gratuitous violence in America. In 2008, Barack Obama won the presidential election, leading to a correlative rise in violence and hate crimes across the country. Seemingly ordinary people were doing heinous things to others in their communities, gun violence was on the rise, and trust in the government was rapidly eroding. Breck Eisner saw the sociopolitical climate as an opportunity to remake George A. Romero’s 1973 film about government negligence and citizen casualties.
Eisner took Romero’s political commentary and applied it to middle America, where, as he put it, “…there are these vast North By Northwest plains with desert for 30 miles in every direction.” That vast nothingness isolates the small town of Ogden Marsh from the rest of the world, reducing its civilian casualties to statistics while amplifying the carnage.
The Crazies was right at home in 2010, closing out a banner decade for horror with the New French Extremity and remakes of titles like Thirteen Ghosts, Black Christmas, and Dawn of the Dead. These ultra-violent horror films reflected the rapid and chaotic sociopolitical shifts of the time, and though it may not be the most violent of its cohorts, The Crazies fit right in.
The Invisible Man (2020)
The four years that preceded Leigh Whannel’s The Invisible Man remake were full of monumental and horrifying historical moments. Donald Trump became President and was later impeached. Twice. There were a string of mass shootings and public attacks including Pulse nightclub and Parkland High School. The murders of Botham Jean, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and countless others galvanized the public to fight racial injustice. COVID shut down the world.
Women’s safety and sexual assault also littered headlines. Harvey Weinstein’s prolific history of abuse became public knowledge, disgraced former doctor Larry Nassar was convicted of abusing hundreds of girls and young women, and the #MeToo movement swept the world like a tidal wave. Changing The Invisible Man from the story of a mad scientist into one about surviving his domestic abuse made sense.
During production of the film at a set visit, both Whannell and executive producer Beatriz Sequeira explained to FANGORIA that these horrible cases were so present in the public’s mind that they would have assigned meaning regardless of their intentions. They may as well have control over the discourse and apply the allegory thoughtfully.
The Invisible Man turned out to be incredibly self-aware. Whannell and his team recognized the influence these events had on not only their industry, but the world as a whole. They did what creatives do — they pulled from life.
The post These Horror Remakes Are Vital Sociopolitical Mirrors Of Their Time appeared first on Nerdist.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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