MovieChat Forums > The Awakening (1980) Discussion > Was this movie a remake

Was this movie a remake

posted 14 years ago by silverraven-1
5 replies | jump to latest

I found myself on the page about a movie called "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" (1971) and the description of the plot reminded me so much of "The Awakening" that I thought about "The Awakening" for the first time in years. I had to think for a few minutes before I remembered the title. A plot summary on IMDb describes "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb" in this way: "A group of Egyptologists discover the tomb of an evil queen. When the girl born to the wife of the expedition's leader at the moment of the discovery grows up it becomes evident she has inherited the beauty and the soul of the mummy." That is how I remember the plot of "The Awakening." Has anyone heard of "The Awakening" being a remake of "Blood from the Mummy's Tomb"?

[–] Lumbering_Golem 14 years ago

Yes, 'The Awakening' is a remake of the earlier 'Blood from the Mummy's Tomb', both being adaptations of Bram Stoker's novel, 'The Jewel of Seven Stars'.

You can usually find out if something's a remake of an earlier production by clicking on the 'connections' link for each IMDb entry:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080402/movieconnections

[–] ContinentalOp 13 years ago

Remake is a bad word to use, it is simply a re-adaptation of the same novel. Other versions include 'The Curse of The Mummy' (1970 - TV) and 'Bram Stoker's The Legend of The Mummy' (1990s - Video).

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[–] Lumbering_Golem 13 years ago

Yeah, I noted that they were both adaptations of the same novel in my previous post.

The story was made as a film and then the story was made again - remade - by another production team. Whether or not the earlier film is based on an original screenplay or from some other source shouldn't really matter when describing the latter filmed version of the story as a remake.

They're supposedly making the story into a movie yet again, as 'The Mummy Resurrected':

http://www.joblo.com/horror-movies/news/promo-poster-logline-for-halcyon-internationals-the-mummy-resurrected

Fingers crossed. We could do with a few decent mummy films.

[–] ContinentalOp 13 years ago

Remake is still a bad word to use in the context of films that are simply different adaptations, in my opinion of course. A remake implies continuity when there is none. It is why I rarely use it. Re-adaptation might be a better word because it acknowledges that the source material has been adapted to film but doesn't make it sound like it owes anything to the original film. But everyone is different so your use is fine, it is just a preference thing.

I hope we do get a decent Mummy film. It is a pretty untapped genre; I mean we get werewolves and vampires almost everyday, it seems!

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[–] saltsan 12 years ago

It's always a tough call, especially when a filmmaker says "we aren't remaking the earlier film; we're simply making our own adaptation of the novel previously adapted by so and so." That's essentially what the producers of the US SOLARIS said, that they were going back to the Stanislaw Lem novel, not the earlier Tarkovsky film. When it came out, it contained stuff from the earlier film that was not in the novel and not much out of the book that hadn't already been in that first film version, so I'd certainly say it was a remake.

Historically, the term comes from the film business, and was used by the studios: "MGM is remaking [their own silent film] BEN-HUR [as a sound film]." In this case, I wouldn't be surprised if the makers of AWAKENING didn't bother to see the earlier film. For them, it was more of an attempt to capitalize on Bram Stoker's authorship of the novel.