Sunday, April 2, 2017

Plastic Purge-ry.

So, as I was saying ...

A few days ago, I was filling up my tank when a dude in his 60s offered me $200 to show him my goods. This was the culmination of a seemingly pedestrian inquiry about how to get to Huntington Beach, which was nowhere near us, and even farther away from my boobs in terms of the question itself. But, money is money and the offer was extremely flattering, so I slowly peeled off my blouse kindly thanked the man (who was now begging), got in my car and laughed all the way to work. I stopped laughing when I got to work and relayed the incident to my friends, who all thought I should've been offered way more.

He wasn't talking about Phantasm, you nard.
Well shit, I replied, I'm over the hill; this is called depreciation. Is it any surprise that Oprah started preaching about gratitude on her stupid show after she turned 40? Because this is the point where we become the Lexus you lease instead of the Rolls that you buy. I'm just happy to be breathing and even happier that the sins of my previous decades didn't land me in prison or Cliffside Malibu. But who knows; maybe if I was 20, I would've still been offered that $200, except with a Frappuccino from the Starbucks across the street. This guy had just gotten off of a bus, after all.

I promise all of this is getting to a point--point being, that no matter how much time passes, the value of everything, even things that supposedly carry exponential value, is subjective. We place such a high value on classic horror films, like Halloween, Black Christmas and Friday the 13th, and yet each film has been remade. Somewhere in the timeline, it was decided that the value of these films lay exclusively in their names and motifs. To say anything else would be dishonest; otherwise, why aren't we remaking House of the Dead? Why aren't we "reimagining" Motel Hell? Because not enough people know about the latter, and no one wants to admit to having seen the former. And let's not forget TV .. The Exorcist ... Bates Motel ... this is how the studios remake shit without the fanboys losing theirs. It's having your cake and eating it, too (a stupid phrase; wtf is cake for if not to eat it?). It's almost as dishonest as remaking Star Wars and calling it The Force Awakens.

And now we're remaking It. We're remaking Suspiria. The argument that the original It warrants a remake is fair, in defense of those who truly hate it and don't care that Tim Curry is the gatekeeper and the key master. But Suspiria. Without the color. Without the Goblin. Without the everything that makes it so classic, if not so great. Why do films even get remade in the first place? Because studios finally cotton on to a film being a lifer, worthy of their attention, hallelujah and blessed be the baby Jesus? We never needed their validation. Because directors finally have access to the technology they wish they had the first time around? So much for the legacies of Vercoutere, or Harryhausen, or Savini. Because a "fan" in a position of power decides they love a film so much, they want to distill it down to a name, with their ideas attached to it? We already have something for that; it's called fan fiction.


Oh, and then you've got those who think we need these remakes. I'm going to guess most of them were likely not around for the originals and cannot comprehend their importance in the pop cultural landscape. They'll tell you to not get so "butt hurt" or "titty slapped" or "pussy pounded" or whatever other stupid insult they can wank out before moving on to the next thing. And they can say what they want. It's all bullshit. Suspiria is the beautiful girlfriend your parents introduce you to, but you ignore her to chase the hot stripper with the fake boobs at Spearmint Rhino, also named Suspiria. Of course, she'll take your money, but like every newer model, you won't get much else. Just be sure to put aside enough for the bus fare while you figure out a way to get back to Huntington Beach.