Dead Ringers: The Old and the New

The Old Irons

 *WARNING: I'm going to mention wokism in this. It's not my privileged rabidity, it's calling a keyboard a keyboard when that's what it is. If that's going to offend, maybe read somehting else.*

*Since friends will read this before anyone else does, that's not for you--it's for the future. Long game thinking. That's the way.*

*You'll understand why I did this if you watch the remake.*

Ah, the old Irons Mantles. That makes them sound fittingly mighty. And they were--

Cronenberg's 1988 version was deeper. You can tell that was made for adults with adult minds. I feel like the 2023 is made for grown folks with kids' minds. I can imagine the new generation calling the Cronenberg boring. I don't think anyone would call the new one boring. Stupid, maybe. And over the top, blatantly gory, and demeaning to the birth process.

Like a good horror movie should be. Not exclusively to the birth process, but to any process or thing. If you're a horror writer and you're not demeaning something, you've written suspense, not horror. That's why it's called horror. It's fucking horrible.

I dug the 2023 like I dig your basic good horror flick. 

The new Rachel. I can hardly call it Weisz.

The old one moved me. This one didn't. The new Mantles are very different from the old Mantles. In both versions they are reflective of the others' shadow side. In the old neither Mantle was professionally unethical until dope came into play. Weisz's Beverly is sardonic but essentially normal whereas her Elliot is an outright vile junky cunt straight from the jump. I loved the old Mantles as people--who they were hit home with me, for reasons. I don't love Weisz's Mantles. I do think they're wicked for horror characters. Witty and highly entertaining, but thin--not that I blame Weisz for this. I think she nailed the heart of the Mantles in a way that had to be updated to suit the Pocketbooks. It kept me entertained--but I wonder if she wouldn't have been truer to the original if it wasn't for the direction in which society currently veers. 

Bev's actress lover isn't a saint in the old one like she is in the new one. In the old one she's more like what you'd imagine a 1980s actor would have been like. In this one she seems like what you'd think 2020s actor is like but, due to wokism, she must be represented as a saint. Due to the way the final brush paints the woke I say this character was spun that way because films have to see print too and if they don't pass PC muster, they won't. And they won't gross. Almost as if in vengeance the new one actually makes wokism look fucking evil--except for the actress. I'm not sure if it is an inflation of or an apology to the demographic the actress represents but at any rate it appears to be pointless pandering that added fuck all to the story.  

But ye fucking gods would the new age viewer have turned feral if the new version of the actress had given the addiction to Bev the same way she did in the old one, so I get it. And at root PC is not worth getting in a too terrible a twist about. Hollywood has never been anything if it has not been pandering. There's also a much bigger piece of pandering than said character close to the end of the mini-series but I don't want to spoil it for anyone. What's the fun in that?

In the old one Elliot creates his own addiction to resynch with Beverly. In the new... let's just say they don't have that kind of love for each other. In the old they did love each other monastically. In this one they inwardly despise one another but work together until circumstance presents a certain Machiavellian opportunity. There's no Monism to it.

At the end of the old the impossible love is shown. The end of the new is capricious rather than moving. Fun, but it totally fucked off the pith of the original ending. And another, very important thing that got fucked off--the blurred lines between which Mantle is which. Late in the remake the Mantles tell us they feel that the lines between their identities feel blurred but they're two completely different people. In the new they seem obsessed with each other. In the old, they WERE each other. And the different endings reflect that. Honestly, I think the producers of the remake could have written their own original film about crazy twins practicing medicine and it would have hit harder, even with the graphic content.

What the hell did you do to my character???

Since for all it is this new one does have a massive set of balls there was hyperbole (and certainly hyperbabble) surrounding the film.

I did enjoy how the new one shows the boundless narcissism of the wealthy. There's every piece of evidence in both works that the elite do think of us as tinker toys, but the remake portrays elites as pure human demons. None of the new characters have any energy center within themselves that isn't solely geared toward personal gain. Others exist to facilitate their whimsy and for no other reason. It begs the question; are elites really this bad? 'Cos holy shit. It's fucking painful. Anyone who watches this will see what I mean. Elitist tribalism abounds in the '23 DR, and I dig the arcs they used--birthing center, evil financers, narcissistic writer whose only muse is ruin, etc. 

The new one covers a lot of ground about the medical side of difficult births. That may be why there was hype saying it was based on actual events. Well, C-Sections do happen. They're portrayed here. Remember always that the hype artists will use tricks like that to make dumbasses think they are watching non-fiction. Big money in that. This is a work of fiction based on another work of fiction, a book called Twins that I have yet to read. The film is no more (or less) based on real events than other dystopian horror film.

I make no apologies, wanker! My girls were hot!

They were pretty fucking brutal.

And that's pretty much it for a basic contrast and compare review. For initiate kicks, I've added a few of my notes from watching both of these films. They're spoilers, so don't read them if you've never seen these films.

Irons winning Best Actor for the Mantles. He still is, by leaps and bounds.

The Spoiling Notes

 1. The Dr. Benway move from the first one is not in the second one. I do miss that. There is WSB Canon in the 2nd one but it's more The Ticket That Exploded than Naked Lunch. And Eliot was the one in the new who acted crazy--outwardly. Bev tried to be normal and couldn't do it.

2. Bev pulls Eliot into addiction bc they can't get away from each other. That doesn't happen in the new. The new paints Bev saintly bc, you know, she's with the actress. Kinda shitty. Fucking PC making 3 dollar bills again.

3. The madness in the old one is much more outwardly surreal what with those hideous tools Bev made, but there's much less of it. The psychological horror is less extroverted in the old one. The new one's blatant, extravagant madness is kinda badass. Bloody and ruthless asf.

4. At the end of the first one they've been binging together, presumably on speedballs, and make plans to kick on Monday. Ofc they want orange pop. Opiates and all. Fun. I've been there too.

5. Eliot dies in the new one bc he can't deal with identity. It's more than a having an identity crisis. It's having an identity at all. Eliot kills Bev in the new one bc Bev doesn't know how to live unless she's Eliot and her new life forced her to throw her crazy ass Elly under the bus but that's fucked and so it's time to die. Using the line "don't forget the good part" doesn't mean shit in the new one. It's like it's just there.

6. Both of them have an equal amount of things going on that might make a person squeamish but they're relative to their Era. These days no one going to freak out over a crazy junky doc who makes a weird instrument and accidentally kills a patient but back in 1988 they would've.

7.  After rewatching the first one I think I'll call it a three 1/2. The old one is far more compelling and the story is less fettered by today's PC bullshit. That said, I dig how evil the new one made the pc world look, I dig that they exploited some of the conspiracy theories and showed how wicked folks can be. But the old one is a 5 to me. I'd have given this a 4 if not for the fucking piece of pandering pffft they tossed in. Like fucking why? I don't feel guilty for things that happened before I was born. Don't try to make me. Both show what happens when the science mind goes horribly awry. I appreciate that but I think I wanted to enjoy this more than I did. 

8. Oh my bloody back pussy did they really do that with the history of gyno? Gratituity!

9. I told Bubba he'd dig this. I may wind up chewing toes.