The Poughkeepsie Tapes

 

Like a privately educated shark or Carol Vorderman with a shotgun, serial killers are the winning combination of smart, deadly and, most importantly, fascinating. Unlike the first two (with the possible exception of Ice Cube’s worst nightmare in Deep Blue Sea) there have been an uncountable multitude of stories based on serial killers, from in depth police procedurals to twisted and gruesome portrayals of ‘real life’ events. Whether Ed Gein, John Wayne Gacy or Charles Manson there are some pretty fucked up people out there who have in turn inspired some pretty fucked up fictional characters.

The Last Horror Movie

 

I have a tendency to be pretty harsh towards ideas that I feel are unoriginal. I know there are only so many stories that can be told and all that bollocks and I don’t even mind re-makes. At least a re-make admits it is an attempt to re-invent an old idea. This doesn't mean everything has to be utterly ground breaking either, there is still room for skill and innovation when it comes to re-telling a traditional narrative. 

Maniac

 

I’m going to kick this review off with a controversial statement. Re-makes are a good idea. I’m not saying all re-makes are good, or that all films should be re-made, but in some cases they can be great. Most genre films are so painfully unoriginal that they feel a title card away from a re-make anyway. Audiences sensibilities, the boundaries of what is acceptable and the technologies used to create them are always changing. So in the right hands, yeah, a Clash of the Titans re-make could have been pretty amazing. It wasn’t, it was a pile of steaming kraken shit, but it could have been. Here’s hoping the new Godzilla film will be testament to this. Let’s not forget, The Thing, The Fly and even Scarface were impeccable examples of the re-make being done right.