Buy Or Don’t Buy

First: go watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show… done?  Okay.  Now go watch Poltergeist (1-3). Done?  Good.

You may be asking why I made you jump through those hoops just to read this post. Well, those two film favorites are going to be ruined within the next five years. Savor them while you can…

Because MTV is remaking The Rocky Horror Picture Show as a TV movie.

RHPS might actually become a genuine “horror show” when MTV kills off its fan base (instead of expanding it, as MTV plans) and makes a mockery of one of the greatest cult films of all time. As far as I know, this is the only film that has people showing up to midnight showing after midnight showing, decades after its original release, in costume.

According to the BBC, Richard O’Brien, the creator of the original monster, first heard about the remake not from MTV itself, but rather from “people sending [him] cuttings from US papers”.

I don’t know where they’ll go with it really… I’ve even heard that they’re going to put new songs in… Where are they going to get songs from? Who’s going to do that? That’s a bit strange isn’t it?

Strange? That’s a lot coming from the guy who wrote the original demented masterpiece.

It bothers me that MTV is remaking it. I wonder who they’ll cast. No one could beat the original cast - Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, that dude from Spin City.  I’m thinking Gossip GIrl’s Nate Archibald and Hilary Duff would make a great pair, with Fat Joe as the new Meatloaf. If all that’s not unappetizing enough for you, think about all those loyal cross-dressing fans sitting on their living room couches to tune in.  Gross.  

There is a petition you can sign to save the original memory of the movie before it becomes another Hip-Hopera.  But unfortunately, a little petition is unlikely to stop the steamroller that is Viacom.

RHPS isn’t the only cult classic being remade into a potential tragedy. Poltergeist is also up on the chopping block. This movie scared the hell out of me when I was a little kid. (It was totally plausible that our house was built on an Indian cemetary.)

Somewhat luckily, Poltergeist is getting the MGM treatment, instead of MTV’s glam-up. But it’s also being written by the same team of people who wrote Boogeyman, which is a definite downgrade.

All I’m saying is that there is no way these two remakes will earn the money or the following that the originals had. And for you, Poltergeist, that set had better be cursed and that vomit had better be green.

Other remakes to not look forward to after the jump.

Nightmare on Elm Street (with Billy Bob Thorton)

Hawaii Five-O (being remade because the theme song was so good)

Rock and Roll High School (produced by Howard Stern and without the Ramones)

My Fair Lady (every time it’s annoying, this time it has a drunk Keira Knightly)