In the 1980s, a cycle of remakes and films that paid homage to 1950s sci-fi/horror B movies were released throughout the decade. Roger Corman remade his own Not of This Earth (Corman, 1957), whilst Tobe Hooper remade Invaders From Mars (Menzies, 1953), all part of a trend of remakes from the films of the McCarthy era. Homage films that shared similar narratives to 50s films were also prevalent throughout the decade, Lifeforce (Hooper, 1985) brings to mind The Astounding She Monster (Ashcroft, 1957) in its narrative of a seductive female alien terrorizing humanity, whilst Q: The Winged Serpent (Cohen, 1982) (fig 1) updates the giant monster narratives found in The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (Lourie, 1953) (fig 2).
When exploring the genre films from both decades the way the narratives are updated and recontextualised become clear as the both the horror and science fiction genres have always reflected the societal fears and anxieties of their respective eras of which they were made. The Stuff (Cohen, 1985) shares a similar narrative with films such as The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958), only the monster is a food product that attacks America in a commentary on capitalism and consumerism in the Reagan era as opposed to the communist paranoia allegory found in The Blob. This updating of 50s narratives to reflect the culture of the Reagan era is what I wish to explore in this project, to understand why this sub-genre became relevant again three decades apart. Between the 50s and the 80s radical change happened all throughout America, socially, politically, and also within the film industry itself, these changes helped to shape the identity of the 80s and in turn the remakes from this decade will tell the same narrative of the 50s film, but with significant changes that help to define their era they were made in. Here I will be looking at three separate movies: The Thing (Carpenter, 1982), The Fly (Cronenberg, 1986) and The Blob (Yeaworth, 1958). All three movies were remakes of films from the 1950s which provides a direct frame of reference as they are telling the same story from 30 years prior, which will in turn make the changes in the remakes all the more prevalent, therefore informing us of not only why these stories were still relevant in the Reagan era, but also how the horror and sci fi genres themselves are constantly evolving to say something about American culture at large. As Lauren Rosewarne has stated that a key driver for the production of a remake is to bring a freshness to a well told story, even if it is not original (Rosewarne, 2020, 281), in the case of these films, to recontextualise the narratives to speak to the fears of a new era.
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