Sunday Scaries: I’m So Excited for ‘The Black Cat: Remus!’

Wow, 1979 has been quite a year so far, hasn’t it? And no, not just because our President got attacked by a swamp rabbit just six weeks ago. It’s been pretty memorable for movies, too. Flaws and all, I’d go to bat for The Deer Hunter as a largely justified pick to be the latest Academy Award winner for Best Picture, and how perfectly fitting was it that Jon Voight happened to win Best Lead Actor for a character in Coming Home who reflects his own undying progressive convictions? Beyond the recently-concluded 51^st Academy Awards, we’ve also seen Woody Allen’s totally unproblematic romantic comedy Manhattan that future generations won’t think we’re gross for loving so much, the knockout thriller The China Syndrome scaring me off from ever trusting nuclear power plants in a way that I’m sure I won’t regret later, and the inspirational biopic Norma Rae re-affirming our absolutely ceaseless commitment to organized labor unions. And we’re only halfway through the year! There are still more promising releases on the horizon.

For example, a few days ago, we got a new trailer for one of my most anticipated upcoming films of the year – The Black Cat: Remus, a new prequel set between the events of the first movie and its sequel The Black Cats! What we’ve seen so far looks awesome, with tantalizing hints at filling in the narrative gaps created by all the other sequels and prequels. Sure, the backstory and worldbuilding of those installments left me feeling deflated just like last year’s My Grandpa Godfrey did, despite starring 86 year-old William Powell returning to one of his most beloved roles for a fourth outing… but I’m sure this one will do it right! I mean, it cannot possibly be worse than The Black Cat³, The Black Cat: Resurrection, and those silly The Black Cat vs. The Raven spinoffs. It also, thankfully, looks like it’s going back to the old tried-and-true visual callbacks and narrative tropes of the original classic, instead of going off in weird directions like Epimetheus and The Black Cat: Concordat. Remember those? I was so excited when Edgar G. Ulmer announced he was returning to the franchise for a series of prequel films expanding on the mythology… and that was what he had in mind? No, thank you.

This time, they’ve tapped someone more fresh-faced to direct The Black Cat: Remus. His name is Ridley Scott, and he’s a fairly young upstart who made a big impression with his debut feature The Duellists. I really liked that movie, and I think it’s great to see major studios selecting up-and-coming talent to assign to be their dynastic franchise shepherds. Imagine what poor Mr. Scott would’ve had to make do with, if Universal Pictures hadn’t presented him with a ready-made template for a pop culture mainstay that’s literally older than he is, along with strict edicts on what he can and can’t include in this movie meant to appeal to us fans who are entitled to the same feelings we’re so desperate to experience again when we watched the first film in 1934? It’s not like an original horror movie has any shot at reaching a comparably wide audience as a retread of a known commodity is guaranteed to do.

I’m also encouraged by the casting of Sandor Elès in the lead role, mainly because he looks very reminiscent of the main character, Dr. Vitus Werdegast, played to perfection by Béla Lugosi forty-five years ago. I was worried they were going to rock the boat with a type of character I wasn’t already familiar with, like those awful Flash Gordon sequels The Last Arborian and The Rise of Zarkov. It was so cringe seeing them pack those movies with diversity casting and shoving woke anti-Apartheid and anti-nuclear proliferation messages down our throats. And what was with the absurd reveal that Dale Arden was secretly Ming’s granddaughter‽ If it wasn’t for the spinoff shows Prince Barin, Azura, and The Shark Man, I’d have given up on the franchise entirely bought new Flash Gordon merchandise with a scowl on my face and berated an underpaid actor at a Flash Gordon-themed amusement park attraction by now. In a future article, I will use statistical evidence to prove that George Lucas (who I originally thought would do right by everyone’s favorite spacefaring adventurer because of how much I enjoyed that nice little coming-of-age dramedy he directed and co-wrote a few years back) objectively torpedoed that franchise.

But forget about those crushing disappointments that I fully and unironically expected to continue the early glories of that prewar series. Right now, I just want to express my hope that this time, with this decades-old franchise that first got started when my parents were younger than I am now, the studio executives who keep holding on to these old stories and characters will do right by them. Sure, I just talked about how it’s been a case of diminishing returns for a very long time. But what in the world are we going to do without these iconic intellectual properties? These are treasured cultural icons deserving of nothing less than a regularly-occurring production output of content extending their canon indefinitely. I have fond memories of The Black Cat, Abbott and Costello, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Doc Savage, Charlie Chan, and The Shadow, and getting a constant stream of follow-ups reminding me of those indelible moments when I first watched them gives me a slight dopamine hit of nostalgia before I suddenly return to feelings of vague discontent for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on.

It’s not like we’re missing out on anything better and more culturally relevant to my generation than prioritizing these ongoing franchise extensions as the primary output of mainstream Hollywood, right?