‘Re-imagining’ the canon: examining the discourse of contemporary horror film reboots

Abstract

This paper examines the latest cycle of horror movie franchise reboots as a form of critical industrial practice. It argues that horror movie reboots such as Rob Zombie's Halloween (2007) should not be regarded as mere cynical attempts to repeat successful formulas but part of a far-reaching industrial strategy to cultivate notions of aesthetic distinction in viewers, specifically by rewarding cultural competencies that correspond to the logic of media brands. Examining the promotional and marketing discourses of Halloween, the paper shows how such reboot discourses reflexively incorporate ‘critical’ attitudes of canonical literacy, authorship, and subcultural distinction as a way to maintain consumer ties and enhance brand loyalty. In turn, these attempts to fold aspects of film reception back into the production process afford industry insiders (i.e. directors, producers, distributors, marketers) the opportunity to overstate the cultural and historical importance of a franchise, while presenting their subcultural credentials to genre fans. Thus, reboots act as a means of reflexively interrogating media properties so as to mediate and contain knowledge about those properties in accordance with the political economy and brand-valuing strategies of contemporary Hollywood.

Keywords::

• Reboot
• remake
• horror film
• industrial practice
• reception
• paratext
• DVD
• branding
• taste
• subcultural distinction

Notes

^1. For a complete list of horror film remakes, 1982–present, see Box Office Mojo2012.

^2. While this approach appears to elide institutional differences between critical academic commentary and the industry's own self-legitimating discourse, it calls attention to the fact that critical industrial practices can (and do) often take the form of institutionally sanctioned frameworks of interpretation. Indeed, as Caldwell (2009) points out, critical industrial practices of Hollywood do not simply represent mere brand extensions but also function as ‘scripted acts of cultural-industrial interpretation’ (171). In other words, they represent intersections of both production and reception cultures, to the point of making critical discourse a conventional aspect of media convergence. No doubt, it's tempting to view such practices with cynicism; but my inclination is to regard them less judgmentally – that is, not as bastardized forms of cultural critique, but as forms of social discourse that can aid the researcher in ascertaining the conditions under which the industry works to ‘initiate, stabilize, and protect’ the discursive existence of film genres (Altman 1999, 85). Thus, rather than lament the ostensible ‘co-optation’ of critical discourse by cultural industries, my goal here is to examine the former's flexible institutional operations.

^3. See also Los Angeles Times movie critic Tasha Robinson (2007), who observed a disingenuous ‘bait-and-switch’ tactic driving the film's marketing campaign: ‘Director Rob Zombie pulls a clever sort of bait-and-switch with his “re-imagining” of John Carpenter’s seminal 1978 horror hit “Halloween” … It's a more polished, high-fidelity version of a story that's played out on screen many times since 1978, but once Zombie runs out of subtext, he's right back to the same old slasher text: “Blood. Guts. The end.”' Thus, critics of various stripes were both hostile and dubious toward the ‘re-imagining’ rhetoric. See also: Kit 2006; Harvey 2007; Matthews 2007; Covert 2007; Demara 2007; Fox 2007.

^4. These and other fan comments were taken from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) user reviews; at the time of this writing, Halloween: Unrated Director's Cut, special ed. DVD (2007) had been reviewed by 980 users and rated by 53557 users, with an average score of 6.0 out of 10. See http://www.IMDb.com/title/tt0373883/reviews (accessed 3 July 2012).

^5. Additionally, there is a 2008 ‘Three-Disc Unrated Collector’s Edition', which contains the two documentaries discussed in this paper alongside a four-and-a-half hour documentary about the making of the film, entitled Michael Lives: The Making of Halloween. While the latter incorporates additional behind-the-scenes footage (and nearly an hour of clips taken from the movie), it duplicates much of the interview and B-roll material found in the shorter documentaries. Furthermore, it does not appear to have gained the widespread promotional circulation of Re-Imagining and Many Masks, both of which are freely available online via YouTube. Nonetheless, Michael Lives fits the broader critical industrial strategy analyzed here of studio-distributors packaging ‘insider knowledge’ as a means of generating brand loyalty, with a focus on Rob Zombie's authorial ‘vision’ of the franchise.

^6. Additionally, Isabel Pinedo (1997) notes how the subcultural appeal of many fan-oriented commercial publications, such as Fangoria and Cinefantasique, center on the tension between ‘special effects realism and [fan] awareness of its artifice’ (56). Hence, not only do these publications stimulate reader interest in special-effects technology; they also enact specialized forms of media literacy, which are geared to cultivate a discussion of SFX professionals and ‘how they do it’. In effect, fan-oriented publications ‘yield a discourse that reveals the hidden, behind-the-scenes work’ of production, and as a result typically aim to provide a sense of practical instruction, allowing the more ‘competent’ viewer to ‘distance him or herself from depictions of violence by looking for the trick, i.e., the cut from the actor to the prosthetic device’ (56). According to Pinedo, then, the strategy of ‘looking for the trick’ – or what she calls ‘ruptures in realism’ – serves to both whet the appetites of horror audiences for greater production knowledge and address spectators as discriminating members of a subcultural community whose pleasure lies in more fully seeing the mechanics of horrifying spectacle. DVD viewers of the Halloween reboot are similarly encouraged to thus seek out ‘ruptures in realism’, to ‘look for the trick’ by way of the flows of blood and gory set pieces.