THE FOURTH TEST OF HDC IDOL II - ROUND 2
Choose a suitable horror film from the past to be remade into a contemporary horror film, interjected with your own unique changes in the storyline, complete with a script outline, casting, a chosen director and a suitable Hollywood studio. Also, give the reason why you chose that particular film.
Roshiq's entry -
Quote:
First of all, I wouldn't like to go for a remake of an old/classic film. Cause we all know, remake sucks! and specially in American way. At the moment, I've actually no film in mind that I can say is suitable for a remake. But again for the sake of this particular challenge I have to choose a film. Now, on this regard I was quickly looking through any sort of old/classic horror film that supposed to be good or say has an good beginning or premise but didn't deliver the promised entertainment as well as a good finale at the end.
Anyway, after the "search" I've finally chose to butcher Richard Fleischer’s 1971 film SEE NO EVIL for the sake of this challenge. IMO, it's got a fantastic premise at the beginning & middle but a bad & disappointing ending. So let's see how wild I can run my imagination to remake Richard Fleischer’s SEE NO EVIL in today's or contemporary context.
Let the show begins..
Blind Terror
(Don’t want to use the other alternate popular/known title SEE NO EVIL, as there’s an unrelated slasher film released in 2006 with that title)
Plot Summary of the original film from wikipedia:
After being blinded in a horseback-riding accident, Sarah visits her uncle's home. Out on a date with her boyfriend Steve, she escapes the fate of her relatives, who are murdered at their home by a psychotic killer. Sarah returns from her date and spends the night in the house, unaware that three of her family members' corpses are strewn about the house.
She eventually discovers the bodies, as well as a bracelet containing the engraved name of the killer. The killer returns, searching for the lost bracelet and discovers Sarah, who manages to flee on horseback. Sarah encounters a family of gypsies and shows them the bracelet with the name "Jacko" inscribed. One of the gypsies concludes that his brother Jack must be responsible. In an effort to save Jack, the brother pretends to take Sarah to the police but, instead, locks her in a secluded shed.
Sarah eventually escapes from the shed and reunites with Steve. Steve and his grooms leave Sarah at his house and begin a search for the killer. They come across the two gypsy brothers and are about to kill them, when Jack reveals that he wears a bracelet with the name "Jack", and not "Jacko," inscribed. The boyfriend, upon learning that the real killer's name is "Jacko", doubles back to his house, where it is revealed that one of the grooms, Jacko, had been left behind to tend to Sarah. Back at the house, Jacko attempts to drown Sarah in a bathtub, but Steve returns just in time to rescue her.
The remake:
Without any opening title, the film will open in the nice country side 2 storage Rexton Residence. Mr. & Mrs. Rexton (George & Betty) & their young daughter Sandy are having a dinner. They are talking about their niece Sarah, who has been blinded (in a car accident) for last 6 months & have been moved from New York & started to living with them since the accident. Sarah isn’t home at that moment; she went to the town with her friend Emily to attend a Get2Gather party of their close school friends. Sarah already called & told her aunt Betty that she’ll be late as the girls planned to have the dinner in a restaurant. From the conversation between Mr. & Mrs. Rexton & their young daughter Sandy, it’ll also be clear that they all very much love & care about Sarah who lost her parents in a very early age and they’re very glad that Sarah has already started to nicely coping with everything after the terrible accident.
Suddenly they’ll hear a sound of knocking…the sound is coming from the drawing room. At first they thought someone’s knocking on the main door and they were bit surprised to realize that whoever is knocking, why he/she isn’t using the door bell?
At first Sandy & his dad wants to go & check but Mrs. Betty Rexton stops both of them & goes by herself to check it out & as soon as she get close to the main door she then understands that the unexpected visitor isn’t actually knocking on the door…he/she’s knocking on the glass of the window beside the door from the outside veranda.
Mrs. Rexton asks who is it but nobody answers. She tries to switch on the light at the veranda but strangely that isn’t working. She then tries to take a gaze on the window. From the background, the voices of George & Sandy are coming…they’re anxiously asking her about the visitor at this odd hour. It’s snowing outside. As soon Mrs. Rexton put her face into the window glass she sees somebody is attempting to hit the window with a big heavy sledgehammer that is coming fast towards the window/her face but it was too late for her to take her face away from the window glass. **BANG!** It hits the window & results some gore-e-fying moments. There are broken glasses all over Betty Rexton’s face that cuts it in places pretty badly along with injures of a smashed nose, eye & forehead.
The camera is now totally focused on Mrs. Rexton’s bloody face. She is groaning in pain. We can now see her bloody injures in detail. The rest 2 murders (killing of George & Sandy Rexton) are happening off-screen. From the background we’ll hear the visitor/invader/psychotic killer enters into the house by breaking the main door. George & Sandy are screaming & yelling in shock & terror. The killer knocks down George dead with the hammer. Sandy tried to runs into the kitchen to save herself but the killer captures her and grabs her hair, cut her throat with a kitchen knife & snatches her on the floor & takes her body to the upstairs. After some moments the killer returns & we see the hands (wearing gloves) of the killer grabs Mrs. Betty Rexton & takes her away. The camera doesn’t move from the spot where there’s now Betty Rexton’s blood on the carpet. The camera fades into the black & the opening title starts to appear on the screen.
Now, from the above beginning we can find some differences from the original Richard Fleischer’s film.
- 1. First of all, the killing of Rexton family wasn’t shown in the original film. The original film opens with the murderer walks past shops selling toy guns, violent comics, television sets (showing violent programs), and who has just been to the cinema to watch an exploitation sort of film (Rapist Cult!). And all we see of him is his cowboy boots. In the remake the psychotic killer’s reasons or background will be shown in the later part of the film.
2. In the original film, the central character Sarah has a boyfriend with whom she was out on a date at the night of the killing of Rexton /her uncle’s family. From the above details we can see that has changed. Sarah has no boyfriend; she was out with her friend Emily to attend the school friend’s Get2gather party.
Back to the film:
Sarah returned home from the party. Emily dropped her by car. As Emily was on hurry to meet her boyfriend & talking over her cell phone, she didn’t notice the broken window or slightly closed broken door from the gate. Meanwhile through the conversation between Sarah & Emily, we come to know that as it’s already pretty late & probably everybody is sleeping now, Sarah is not going to use the front door to enter, she will use the back door at the kitchen. And she does that pretty convincingly. As Sarah is living here for the last 6 months she knows her way around quite well.
She goes to bed not realizing that the entire family has been murdered while she was out. Very much like the original film, Sarah unknowingly sleeps overnight, among a houseful of corpses, arising the next morning to quietly creep out of bed, in order not to awaken the other members of the household. Now there’s a difference from the original film & that is we’ll see the killer never left actually, he was sleeping in some other room. So after, arising the next morning Sarah decides to relax and take a bath, only to discover just then in the bathtub that Sandy has been slaughtered. Sarah discovers the other 2 bodies of Mr. & Mrs. Rexton, one by one, murdered in her absence. Much like in Fleischer’s way, the camera will portray the awful progression of such a discovery in Sarah’s sightless world & the killer’s shadow lurking throughout the house while following her with a close & careful distance.
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(TBC...)
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"If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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