Let’s say that I was walking along the beach in Malibu one summer afternoon with the surf lapping zestfully at my bare feet, and I came across a lamp washed up on shore, and rubbed it the way you’re always supposed to do, releasing a genie who chose to express his or her gratitude by granting me three wishes, I know exactly what I’d start with.
Not a million bucks.
Not the promise of safety and longevity and good health for me and mine.
Not even the old childhood favorite, a wish for three more wishes.
No, I think I’d blindside that genie with three wishes that I’m pretty sure nobody’s ever asked for in the history of lamp-rubbing.
A) Access to a film crew and director with an unlimited budget.
B) A guaranteed automatic greenlight from the studio of my choice.
C) Complete remake rights to the John Hughes film library.
Not that I’d ever wish to remake any of the John Hughes movies that filled my own adolescent experience with moments so real that half of them seemed to have actually happened to me. Hell, no. I love those movies, and their setups are so perfect that any attempt to redo them straight would necessarily be doomed to failure.
No. I want to re-imagine them.
As horror movies.
Now just hear me out. My theory is this. If John Hughes had stuck around long enough in Hollywood, instead of pulling his post-Curly Sue J.D. Salinger act, I think he would’ve been a whole lot happier if he’d made at least one balls-out screamfest. Who knows? He actually might have made a good one. But since he didn’t, (I’m not counting Weird Science, and neither should you) we’re forced to imagine how much more mind-bogglingly awesome his greatest movies would have been, if they’d transcended from teen angst into a flat-out limbic-system overload of horror.
Why? Because, unlike almost all the directors and screenwriters cranking out slasher movies in the late 70s and 80s, Hughes could actually write credible teenagers. His kids were funny, canny, sympathetic and utterly familiar. All they lacked was a guy with a machete.
Consider:
The Breakfast Club.
Tagline from IMDb: "They only met once, but it changed their lives forever."
Five high school kids, all different stereotypes, meet in detention. They bond over music, dope and mutual frustration, only to realize by the end of the day that the doors of the high school have been chained shut...from the outside. The corpses of Principal Vernon and Carl, the janitor, turn up not long after, and someone--or something--begins to hunt the survivors through the halls. Who will survive and what will be left of them?
"Fear--it's what's for breakfast."
Ferris Bueller's Day Off:
Tagline from IMDb: "While the rest of us were just thinking about it...Ferris borrowed a Ferrari and did it...all in a day."
After spending a memorable day of truancy in Chicago, Ferris, Cameron and Sloane decide to take a shortcut home along a stretch of abandoned industrial parkway. They cut off a refrigerated butcher's delivery wagon with blacked-out windows and not long after, the Ferrari runs out of gas, stranding them miles from the nearest rest area. Ferris and Sloane leave Cameron with the vehicle while they walk to get help (no cell phones in '86) and come back to find the meat truck parked behind the broken-down Ferrari. Cameron's still in the passenger seat...most of him, anyway.
Behind them, they hear the door of the van creak open, and the blood-soaked figure that climbs out is already grinning as it heads toward them...
"This day off might be their last!"
Pretty in Pink:
Tagline from IMDb: "He's good. She's good. He's just Duckie."
Young Andie is one of the not-so-popular girls in high school. She usually hangs out with her friends Iona or Duckie. Duckie has always had a crush on her, but now she has met a new guy from school, Blane. He's one of the rich and popular guys but can the two worlds meet?
Duckie, for his part, grows impatient with the way that Andie keeps overlooking his feelings for him. After all, she's all that he can think about. Sometimes he waits outside her house for hours, looking through the windows, imagining how wonderful life will be when they're finally together. And the "special room" that he's building for her in his basement is almost finished...
"Pretty in pink...so much prettier in red..."
She's Having a Baby
Tagline from IMDb: "A comedy about the labors of love."
Think about it. How much more compelling would the relationship be between Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern if he slowly came to realize that she was carrying Satan's child? Imagine the moments of creeping dread while Bacon lay beside his wife, staring at her, imagining the unimaginable. You know it must have come up in at least an early draft of the screenplay.
Home Alone
Tagline from IMDb: "A family comedy without the family."
Forget it. This one's too easy. Poor McCauley Culkin...
Joe Schreiber is the author of Chasing the Dead, Eat the Dark, and No Doors, No Windows. He was born in Michigan but spent his formative years in Alaska, Wyoming, and Northern California. He lives in central Pennsylvania with his wife, two young children, and several original Star Wars action figures.
Welcome to Suvudu Joe, about bloody time! Loved this post. I think you took the easy way out with Pretty in Pink though. Duckie is too predictable. I think Steff (James Spader) would be the more interesting evil doer. He's already creepy and chasing after Andie.
Yeah, and Home Alone already is a horror movie, complete with all the bad sequels.
Sixteen Candles...of Human Wax!!!
I imagine Molly Ringwald's character, Samantha Baker, being upset that no one remembers her birthday, and one by one, all the characters start to disappear, their corpses to be found horrifically mutilated. The Geek, for example, is found decapitated, his head sitting on a toilet seat with his mouth stuffed with panties.
The climactic scene finds Samantha Baker kissing studly Jake Ryan, and things heat up as they both undressed. When the two are about to do the nasty, Jake's eyes suddenly widened and he falls back screaming. You see, Samantha Baker...has a penis a la Sleepaway Camp.
Sixteen Candles...of Human Wax!!!
I imagine Molly Ringwald's character, Samantha Baker, being upset that no one remembers her birthday, and one by one, all the characters start to disappear, their corpses to be found horrifically mutilated. The Geek, for example, is found decapitated, his head sitting on a toilet seat with his mouth stuffed with panties.
The climactic scene finds Samantha Baker kissing studly Jake Ryan, and things heat up as they both undressed. When the two are about to do the nasty, Jake's eyes suddenly widened and he falls back screaming. You see, Samantha Baker...has a penis a la Sleepaway Camp.