Last Updated on August 3, 2021
Now I’m not talking about Asylum Films who have their own cottage industry of purposely releasing films with titles and concepts curiously similar to megabudget new releases. They are gleefully on this side of piracy and are doing their own unique thing. I’m talking about when you see a trailer, synopsis, or actual movie and think to yourself, “That was just like …”
So let’s check out some flicks that obviously decided another movie was just too kick ass not to copy. Some of them are decent in their own right, most aren’t, but to a pick they certainly weren’t worried about comparisons. Make sure to share your favs by spitting bullets, too!
1. REPO MEN (Repo! The Genetic Opera)
Well you knew it was coming to this didn’t you? I don’t really recall a time when the same concept was culled so specifically in such a short period of time. Fans of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA have been crying foul since the project was announced, and it’s hard not to see their point given that REPO MEN is based on a novel called Repossession Mambo that was written well after the stage play that RTGO sprang from was produced. If you want to get into the full debate you can do a simple search to see what all is going on, or you can just vote with your wallet.
2. JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (The Hidden)
Props to JimmyO for this idea, that quite frankly I wouldn’t have thought of on my own. I mean the body jumping slug that the producers of F13 decided to turn Jason into is so similar to what you get in THE HIDDEN that they should have called Kyle MacLachlan in for a cameo. What’s particularly egregious here is that it takes a cool concept and makes it stupid, and takes a cool franchise, and you guessed it, makes it stupid. No wonder they sent that f*cker into space next.
3. RED DRAGON (Manhunter)
A truly odd scenario here. A book that has already been made into a movie gets re-done because another book in the series was a huge hit, with a different cast. And since the villain in the new film was considered one of the best in movie history, his role was pumped way up in the new adaptation of the book in order to make him the sellable point of it. That of course was to try and recover from the poorly received original sequel to the second film. Got all that? Anyway, whether you like Ratner or Mann, Petersen or Norton, Cox or Hopkins, this ends up being a middle of the road flick that had way more firepower behind it than it deserved.
4. DOOMSDAY (Road Warrior, Escape From New York, etc.)
As my man Walkuski said, this pic actually is a mish mash of about 5 different films, but as he also pointed out, it’s a damn good time regardless. If you get a little chub anytime you hear “post-apocalyptic”, or “dystopian” then you’ll most likely grin largely as you take another journey from the incomparable Neil Marshall.
5. PIRAHNA (Jaws)
Jaws might be the baddest mofo in the ocean, but can’t we terrorize some people in rivers and lakes too? Hells yeah! Unleash a swarm of tiny cow de-boners on a group of bikini clad and seriously surprised summer sun seekers (piranhas in the U.S.? WTF?). Kinda lends a certain appropriateness to the upcoming remake, which we can only hope will be as much fun as the original.
6. 28 DAYS LATER (Night Of The Living Dead)
Zombies were, no pun intended, a dead genre outside of comedic half-efforts until Danny Boyle decided to change the rules a bit – he made those f*ckers run! Gone was the general feeling that a zombie apocalypse would be OK because we would be able to outrun those shuffling bastards. I’ve never been as big a fan of the flick as many horror fans, but there’s no denying that this one was a game changer.
7. FRIDAY THE 13TH (Halloween)
It’s hard to think of slashers as anything other than ubiquitous when it comes to horror, but much like SAW and HOSTEL launched a score of imitators, HALLOWEEN, the first movie of its kind since PSYCHO, kicked off a sub genre that would soon get tramped into the mud. But before it all got so played out that SCREAM had to rebirth that baby, F13 came in and snagged just enough of that glory to make us all love us some Jason (ironic, no?) and launch another towering franchise based on the simple idea of a hulking masked killer.
8. CRITTERS (Gremlins)
In the late 80’s I saw a comedienne who looked marginally like Cindy Crawford, and she said that guys dug her because she was the Cindy Crawford they could get. CRITTERS is kinda like that to GREMLINS. A film that is a lot cheaper in style and execution, but that has wisps of the spirit and intent of the original. While the subsequent entries got progressively ridiculous, there is a fair amount of silly fun to be had with this one.
9. THE COLLECTOR (Saw)
Written and directed by FEAST and later SAW entry writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston, this is pretty much what you’d expect from someone who has found a trick that works and is a bit scared to do anything else. While the concept of two bad guys working a house at the same time is novel, the result in this case becomes a SAW-like trap fest and adds little to that idea that hasn’t been exhaustively covered in the perennial Halloween franchise.
10. EVE OF DESTRUCTION (Terminator)
I don’t know if it’s fair to call this a redo since it could be argued that it served as inspiration for T3, but either way, what a waste of a great title. Of course instead of featuring a cyborg as hunter, this one gives us action star Gregory Hines (you read that right) trying to chase down a chickbot who is locked in wartime mode and set to self-destruct in a nuclear type fashion. It’s actually even stupider than it sounds.
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