SHORT FEATURE – THE SHINING IN 8-BIT

What’s going on in Hollywood? It’s Halloween season and the best the multiplexes can muster up in the way of scary movies is another tired remake? Is that really all we’re getting? Oh well, it is what it is. You can check out my review of the latest take on Carrie over at Aleteia. Trust me, if you’ve seen even one of the four previous versions of this story (I highly recommend tracking down the 1988 musical on YouTube for some jaw-dropping hilarity), then there’s absolutely nothing new for you in this one. Now, maybe if they had taken a different approach, like say in this remake of The Shining…

Well, it’s like I keep telling my kids, there’s always more than one way to tell a story. That’s true even in the Bible. The books of Kings and the books of Chronicles overlap one another, but with varying perspectives due to the different times they were written in. And, of course, the four Gospels cover pretty much the same material (give or take a few incidents), but each has a different audience in mind, and so each has a distinct feel, not to mention theological emphasis, from the other three. Mark concentrates on Jesus as a man like ourselves, while John emphasizes Jesus' divine nature. Matthew details the Jewishness of Jesus, while Luke concentrates on how he relates to the gentiles. Each gospel tells the same story, and yet each brings something fresh to the story, some new insight into our relationship with God through Jesus.

Alas, Hollywood seems to have learned little from the Gospels. Oh, occasionally we’ll get something like John Carpenter’s The Thing or David Cronenberg’s The Fly, but for the most part we get remakes like Carrie, movies that cover the same exact ground as their predecessors while offering little new insight to the characters or situations. These things have little reason to exist other than to make a quick buck, but that’s the only reason Hollywood needs to keep making them anyway, so we’re stuck with them. And I’ll have to go review them, probably even the upcoming remake of (why, Lord, why) Endless Love. Now that’ll be scary.