Sitting down in the dark pit of my doll-riddled bed with a mug of tea, I scroll through various streaming services like Tubi, Philo and Prime. Remakes, remakes, remakes- then the original. A classic in my house, with framed posters along our staircase, mixed with more movie series: IT.
Along with this month of the “spookies”, horror movies are popping out left and right with movies like “Good Boy,” “Black Phone 2” and “Shelby Oaks” being released, but personally, in my family, we prefer sitting down in the dark with our dogs to watch the classics.
Classics are normally given at least one remake, such as “IT,” “The Amityville Horror” and “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” And I will be reviewing the old and the new, and will be pairing wonderfully, warm, cozy teas with each movie.
The first movie I compared was “Carrie,” the first book Stephen King published and turned into a movie. It is about a girl with telekinetic powers that is bullied and ostracized for her religious mother and shelteredness.
Disclaimer: The movie depicts menstrual cycles and nudity, so if you are planning to watch it, then there will be a few scenes you may find inappropriate and personal.
Sitting down to watch “Carrie (1976),” I thought it would be best paired with Blood Orange Cinnamon tea; warm and cozy with citrus, hints of cloves and cinnamon.
The movie itself is amazing; Sissy Spacek was amazing at playing Carrie White, depicting the religious fear and learned shelteredness that she was taught by her mother Margerate White (Piper Laurie). It has an air of up-coming tragedy throughout the movie, as Carrie is shown to have telekinetic powers that leaves room to think of things her power can lead to, leaving you to empathize with Carrie’s unknowingness and fears.
“Carrie” has had three adaptations; 1976, 2002 and 2013. I watched the 2013 one to see how the film was changed over a larger portion of time.
I paired this version of the movie with spice dragon chai, primarily made up of various spices like cinnamon, cloves and rooibos.
Right out the gate, the 2013 one was very different. The biggest difference I noticed was that Carrie is less quiet and talks back to her mother. When informed her mother will be called, Carrie recognizes the trouble she will go through unlike in the 1976 movie where she did not acknowledge it until she got home. The remake is far more fast paced than the original, with less set up to how all the girls treat her and a faster scene of her mother yelling about her “sins” of becoming a woman.
It is also made with more modern technology in mind, and mentions the main mean girls of the movie posting about the videos of them throwing tampons at Carrie when the original had gossip that spread through word-of-mouth.
Next on my list was “Nightmare on Elm Street,” a movie about a man murdered by a group of kids many years back, and terrorizing their future kids. He haunts their dreams and the only way to survive is to wake up from said dream, but after a close friend of Nancy Thompson dies at the hands of Freddy, they realize that when they die in the dream, they die in real life.
For the tea, I picked Black Current flavored, fruity and with a light bitterness to it.
The 1984 version itself is really good. The way they set up this feeling of fear and anticipation is amazing. The film instantly gets to the point of showing the main villain/monster in the film by revealing his knived gloves in a dream Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) shares with Tina Gray (Amanda Wyss). Throughout the movie we’re given quick, unsettling moments that set us up to think that Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) is going to attack them. I will say that this isn’t a favorite of mine; great in scare factor and getting your heart pumping, but I personally just don’t like these kinds of movies.
For the 2010 remake of the same film I paired it up with Blackberry sage, fruity and with a spiced warmth of the sage.
This version immediately opens with a different person, Dean, set in a diner. This new character does not last long, and is killed within the first 10 minutes of the movie. After that scene it cuts to a funeral for Dean where another new protagonist, Kris (Katie Cassidy) is introduced. While remakes are not going to be exact, the writers said that they wanted it to be closer to a sequel, but they didn’t make it in that way; too much of a sequel, too much of a remake at the same time.
Finding that balance is hard, however they didn’t promote this sequel as a remake so it was rather confusing watching it. It would do good with a different villain, but as a remake it doesn’t really stay true to much other than Freddy killing people through their dreams.
Last but not least, I watched “House on Haunted Hill.” The movie is about a group of strangers staying in the house and if they can stay the night and survive they get a large sum of money.
I chose Paris as the tea to go with this movie, a blend of black tea and oolong, with vanilla and black current flavoring and a hint of bergamot.
The film opens to a man preparing surgery on a man without sedation, and within a few minutes the building burns down and he is killed. Gathered by a cut away of a TV host describing the horrific incident, we learn that the building was actually a psych ward. The vibes of the movie aren’t bad, it’s less horror and more theatrical. I would say it’s a drama, and I quite liked it! It feels like the kind of movie that you can sit down and watch in the dark without being scared of what’s around the corner.
For the remake, I chose Strawberry black tea, filled with strawberry flavoring with a slight bitterness to it from the black tea.
The 2007 remake “Return to House on Haunted Hill” opens to Ariel- Sara’s sister from the first movie. She plans to go to the house on haunted hill to investigate the claims Sara makes about her experience there and need to find an idol long lost in the house. Rather than this being a remake, it’s more of a sequel to the original movie in 1999. Much like the original, it’s not horror. The 2007 remake is a drama, and it loses that spark in favor of more mystery.
Overall the originals take the cake. Time and time again the remakes are shown to either be completely new stories from the original, or aren’t produced as well, with the ones I reviewed primarily consisting of different plots than the original.