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USA: Morgan Spurlock, 2004

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USA: Paul Schrader, 1982

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Original title: MDC: Maschera di Cera
Italy: Sergio Stivaletti, 1997

In my opinion a step above Dario Argento's The Phantom of the Opera, this Argento-produced loose remake of The House of Wax was originally designed as a vehicle for Lucio Fulci, but when he abruptly died, the reins were given to Sergio Stivaletti. Stivaletti does a fair enough job, but I can't do much with the muddled script and terrible digital effects. That said, the stalk scenes are suitably tense, and the cinematography by Fulci mainstay Sergio Salvati is excellent, recalling Argento's Inferno. One has to wonder what this film would have been like had Fulci been able to see it through.

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USA: Norman Ferguson/Wilfred Jackson/Jack Kinney/Hamilton Luske/Bill Roberts, 1942

Another quasi-educational anthology piece from Disney, made during the war years as a cost-cutting measure, I think this one is overall better than Melody Time, but it suffers from the same problems, namely that the various shorts are inconsistent in quality and the attempts at educating the audience come across as hackneyed. At 40 minutes, this piece at least doesn't outstay its welcome, but there is nothing really to be gained from watching it.

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USA: Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

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USA: Alan J. Pakula, 1997

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USA: Cameron Crowe, 2001

Glossier and more superficially accessible than the original Abre Los Ojos, Vanilla Sky has to rank as one of the most pointless remakes I have ever seen. Transposing the script virtually word for word (how the Writers' Guild awarded Cameron Crowe credit for the screenplay beats me) and even going so far as to feature Penélope Cruz in exactly the same role (and, my god, how much better of an actor is she in Spanish?), everyone seems to have gone to great lengths to make exactly the same film as before, only with prettier faces and more licensed music. If this was an original film it could probably be considered a pretty good one - and don't get me wrong, it was shot and acted extremely well - but why watch this one when the original, only four years older than it, is already out there?

Because of the fact that this film is a virtual carbon copy of Abre Los Ojos, I don't feel that it would be fair to assign it a rating. I mean, come on, if you're going to remake a movie, at least do it for a reason other than to avoid actually coming up with your own script, and to make obvious elements that the makers of the original film assumed the audience would be smart enough to work out for themselves.

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Spain: Alejandro Amenábar, 1997

This is the first film I've seen by Alejandro Amenábar, and you can colour me suitably impressed. Abre Los Ojos (Open Your Eyes) starts out in a relatively mundane way and proceeds to get trippier and trippier as it goes. A wonderful mindfuck that blends fantasy and reality in a wonderfully seamless manner, Abre Los Ojos benefits from a great cast, a wonderful score (co-written by Amenábar) and a truly dreamy atmosphere courtesy of some superb cinematography. To say any more would spoil much of what makes this film so good - the experience of not knowing what is going on - so I'll shut up now and advise you all to check out this gem ASAP.

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USA: Marcus Nispel, 2003

First, let me say that this remake of Tobe Hooper's classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is really not a bad movie, just an incredibly uninspired one. It takes the premise of one of the most shocking and visceral horror movies of all time and runs it through the generic machine to make it like every other teen slasher out there. Lurching uncomfortably between weak terror and goofy comedy, nothing about this remake ever rings true, even if the gore is well-executed and the photography decent. Jessica Biel does her best, but she's never a patch on Marilyn Burns in the original and always looks just a little too perfect, even when drenched in blood and sweat and running for her life. Oh, and the film really could have done without that cheesy "police footage" wraparound.

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USA: Iain Softley, 1995

Quite possibly the most idiotic movie I've seen in some time, this ridiculous piece of hokum stars Jonny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie as top computer hackers (can you swallow that?) teaming up to stop a dangerous madman from unleashing a virus that could destroy the world (try swallowing that). Hilarious for its incredibly ill-informed portrayals of computers, the internet and... phones... this piece of garbage combines an awful script with terrible acting for a non-stop rollercoaster of disaster. How this screenplay was approved is anyone's guess, and how they actually managed to get people to act in it and to obtain a distributor is a mystery. Worth seeing, perhaps, if only for the sheer shock factor, but unless you have a real thing for awful movies, my advice is to steer clear.

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