Movies have been around for about 125 years and during this time they have made us laugh, cry, scream, and even dream. However, with all these emotions that movies make us feel, what have they been based on?

Some have been based on rehashed ideas. For example, the movie “Annabelle.” It was a good movie, but many scenes I had seen before. This movie took a lot of inspiration from the 1968 film “Rosemary’s Baby.” The basement scene was the most prominent.

Both leading women go into the basement to retrieve an item and end up getting stuck down there while an evil spirit is tormenting them, until finally they escape.

“Rosemary’s Baby” serves as an inspiration to many other movies. The movie “Devil’s Due” screams “Rosemary’s Baby” and unfortunately it only provides a mediocre performance.

Another way movies are trying to get by with new ideas is by taking a successful movie like “Halloween” and just turning them into remakes or just continuing the story. After the original movie came out in 1978, 10 more were made before the original was remade in 2007.

Similarly with “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” after the original movie in 1984, eight more movies continued the story before the remake in 2010. I understand remakes and I appreciate them very much, especially in the horror genre.

The purpose of remakes are to keep that beloved character going and popular. It is also just to update the movie to make the imagery and effects match the time frame.

Horror films aren’t the only ones that share this likeness with other movies.

Action movies like “Olympus has Fallen” and “White House Down” have very similar plots. One involves a man who formerly worked as a guard for the president and the other was just denied the job.
Both men, however, must race to save a child, the president, and their country from terrorists who attack the White House. These two movies were both released in 2013 about three months apart.

Rumors about movies come out frequently so it’s not like the other producer wouldn’t have known, especially since they themselves are likely to know more about it than the public. If I was the producer, I wouldn’t really want to put out a movie that was basically just released three months prior.

Creativity is not limited, but plot-lines are. There are obviously going to be cases where movies overlap, but this is because there is a system to this movie madness.

Every movie has to have a conflict and resolution and so it’s kind of easy for problems to repeat themselves, but the way they play out is where the creativity can occur and just how the events unfold.
One horror movie that follows the basic structure, but still manages to surprise, is “As Above So Below.” A simple plot-line of a girl getting trapped while searching for a precious stone is turned into greatness when she must go through the horrors she faced coming in again, in order to escape.

“It’s Kind of a Funny Story” is another movie that follows structure and manages to shake things up. This movie shows the characters’ serious mental problems through the use of light-hearted comedy. By using comedy it allows the viewer to not just see the illness of the character, but their true identity.

Movies have been around a long time and there are only so many stories to tell. It’s understandable to have similar plot-lines, but it’s all about an original execution of the movie as a whole.