July 28, 2009 I don't want to go too much against the popular current, but here goes anyway ... a brief editorial on remakes.

What's bizarre about this year's Comic Con is how much fans seem to be supporting the plethora of horror movie remakes that are happening. It's weird because all of the passionate horror fans I've ever known hate the idea of remakes. Yet, there they are -- frothing at the mouth and enthusiastically cheering the unveiling of a "Nightmare on Elm Street" poster that looks like any other "Nightmare on Elm Street" poster, only more boring.

Perhaps what's most troubling about the "Nightmare on Elm Street" remake is how much it looks like another "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. The iconic glove, cap, striped shirt. This is not a reimagining of the Wes Craven original -- like 1978's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" or 1982's "The Thing" were true reimaginings of fifties classics -- but rather a repackaging.

The poster says it all -- it's a "Nightmare on Elm Street" movie. Yet it's a remake, not a sequel. It doesn't take an old idea that has become dated and reinvent it for a modern audience. It actually takes the same costume and make-up design and simply repackages it. Not unlike the "Friday the 13th" remake.

The fact that the studios are making these remakes, however, isn't the most troubling thing. What's most troubling is there are fans out there that are buying it. I mean, really buying it. Looking forward to it.

Well, generations change and there are tons of young people that never saw "A Nightmare on Elm Street" film on the big screen, and this is there once chance.

But it's depressing when 50 percent of what is getting the major attention are the remakes.

Hopefully the fans will really get behind "Jennifer's Body", "The Collector" and, heck, even "Book of Blood" -- other, original horror films that had a presence at this year's conference but didn't generate the buzz that the repackaing of Wes Craven's timeless "A Nightmare on Elm Street" managed to pull off.

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