WARNING: This Review May Contain Spoilers
So, this is something I never thought I would say, someone has remade Rocky Horror Picture Show! Now, I guess the best way to describe it is more that it has “reimagined” which I will explain as we go along but what is even more rare is that it has been done by Egypt! Typically, when there’s a foreign film involved, I’m telling you it has been remade instead of the other way around. I stumbled on this completely by accident and in truth, thought it was fake…
Opening Scenes
I definitely wasn’t expecting Fangs to be a frame-by-frame remake considering the change to the characters, not to say that some later scenes don’t feel familiar, but I did enjoy the fact that they kept the opening sequence reasonably similar. As Rocky Horror Picture Show begins, we are treated to the singing of Science Fiction Double Feature, and all that is on the screen is a pair of lips. Now, I guess you could say Fangs more pays homage to this than replicating it considering that the images of the lips singing is interwoven with what seems to be a ritual dance taking place.
A Twist on the Story
Now, those of us who have seen Rocky Horror Picture Show know that Frank-N-Furter and his cohorts are not human but are in fact aliens from outer space. However, our antagonists, not that I look at our characters this way in the original film, in Fangs are vampires (as if the title didn’t give this away!) I think if the original film had been written in this way, you slightly lose the funny side of them coming from Transylvania.
This change in character background, also leads to a change in the relationship between characters featured in the remake compared to those in the original film. For example, it is my understanding that Shalaf is meant to be the Riff Raff of Fangs, however instead of being as important as Riff Raff turns out to be by the end of the film, Shalaf is the genuine servant to Dracula instead of just posing as one. It also seems to mean that we lose characters. Of course for a story such as this, there is no need to have a Rocky character however it would have been interesting to see how they could of introduced characters like Magenta and Columbia – they could have been vampire mistresses or something along those lines.
Use of Music
I was honestly expecting the remake to be a non-musical version of the story, however I was wrong. In a weird kind of way, Rocky Horror Picture Show uses certain songs to introduce our characters – especially in the cases Dammit Janet and Sweet Transvestite. The introduction to Ali and Muna isn’t that different to that of Brad and Janet as we meet Ali singing about his love for Muna, much like the way Brad uses Dammit Janet to propose to her at the beginning of Rocky Horror Picture Show. What’s interesting however is that Ali and Muna’s second song is rather similar to that of Over at the Frankenstein Place as Ali sings about finding the light in such a dark night.
Of course, while talking about music, we have to discuss Time Warp. This is our first introduction to those we later come to understand may also be the Transvestites, and it seems to be some sort of, as Brad so eloquently describes it in the film, folk dance. There is a similar moment to this included in Fangs with a little bit of singing but it goes on for so much longer than the Time Warp does that, for me, it almost takes you out of the story itself! There’s also a weird use of instrumental music – like the James Bond theme when Ali and Muna’s tap is being fixed.
A Change in Tone
Both of these films are considered as “horror comedies” but what’s funny is that I don’t find Rocky Horror Picture Show scary and I struggled to find the comedy in Fangs, however that could be due to the language barrier, even with the subtitles. There were even moments that I wasn’t too sure that the subtitles were even correct. However, what that meant was the remake felt creepier than the original film – but this could also have been caused by the addition of the occult which we have discussed already.
A Tale of Two Narrators
Another similarity between the two films is that of our narrators, providing the audience with a warning about the story to come – the trouble our lead characters are about to get themselves into. I always wondered about the narrator in Rocky Horror Picture Show, whether he was actually connected to the story in some other way than just outlining what we were watching whereas, as the narrator in Fangs speaks it becomes pretty clear that he is involved as his own fangs gradually appear. This is proven later on also by his interaction with Dracula himself.
A Disjointed Plot
I don’t know if it was my lack of understanding but something very odd happens with the plot of Fangs. The majority of Rocky Horror Picture Show is set in Frank-N-Furter’s castle, however this film seems to start in the castle and then suddenly, we are following Muna and Ali in all these different places and almost seem to jump years into the future as they have a child and are pregnant with another. I understand that this was the director’s way of maybe showing there are vampires everywhere but I found it rather confusing. This means that it loses that darker tone it has earlier in the film.
In Conclusion
I understand what the Egyptians were trying to do with this film, but I think they lost a little something along the way. It’s been a long time since I’ve said this but the remake, or reimaging if you would prefer, does not hold a candle to the original film.
