A remake of Depraved Town that is merely "better" in the sense of bigger budgets and better effects would be a waste. But a remake that is morally, intellectually, and formally better could serve a vital purpose. It would show that difficult, disturbing subject matter need not be exploitative. It would prove that genre cinema can grow up—not by becoming polite, but by becoming precise.

We do not need fewer stories about depravity. We need smarter ones. The original Depraved Town was a symptom of its era’s cynicism. A truly improved remake would be an antidote: a film that stares into the abyss and, instead of winking, asks us to build a different town. That is not just a better remake. That is a necessary one.

The original Depraved Town used its setting—a forgotten industrial borough ruled by a child-trafficking ring and a corrupt police union—as a backdrop for lurid set pieces. The camera lingered on suffering with a voyeuristic glee that often mirrored the villains’ own pathology. The remake’s first improvement is perspective.

Instead of filming violence as spectacle, the remake should film it as consequence. Use long, static takes reminiscent of Michael Haneke or Gus Van Sant’s Elephant. When a depraved act occurs, do not cut away—but also do not eroticize or stylize it. Let the horror live in the actors’ faces, not in the choreography of blood spray. The goal is to make the audience feel complicit and sickened, not thrilled. That is a higher, harder form of art.

When a film earns a reputation as "depraved," it is rarely an accident. Depraved Town (fictional cult classic, 1978) earned its title through a cocktail of nihilistic violence, exploitative framing, and a worldview that seemed to leer at its own grotesqueries. For decades, it has been a rite of passage for midnight movie audiences and a cautionary tale for critics. Now, whispers of a remake have surfaced—and the internet has recoiled. "You can't remake Depraved Town," the argument goes. "The depravity is the point."

But that argument confuses subject matter with treatment. A remake of Depraved Town cannot simply be "better" by being slicker or more shocking. It can be better by being more intelligent about its own darkness. Here is a practical, creative blueprint for how a remake of Depraved Town can transcend the original’s grimy limitations and become a genuinely powerful work of art—without sanding off its essential horror.

The original’s antagonist, "The Curator," was a cartoonish fiend in a leather apron, delivering Shakespearean monologues while torturing victims. Scary to a teenager; silly to an adult. The remake should learn from Zodiac or The Vanishing (1988). The most depraved evil is banal: a polite mayor who signs off on disappearances, a nurse who sedates children for profit, a priest who hears confessions and blackmails the desperate.

By distributing the depravity across a system—economic, bureaucratic, familial—the remake makes a sharper argument. Depraved Town is not a freak show. It is a logic. The horror is that these people go home to dinner afterward. This shift elevates the material from gothic pulp to social thriller.

The original Depraved Town had a legendary chiptune soundtrack by artist "L8R_K1d." It was abrasive, glitchy, and iconic. But iconic doesn't mean immersive.

The remake’s audio director, Emmy-nominated sound designer Clara Vonn, made a controversial choice: silence. Not total silence, but the absence of synth. Instead, we get the hum of fluorescent lights, the distant scream of a subway train that never arrives, the wet click of the protagonist swallowing a pill.

When the soundtrack does kick in—usually during the "Moral Fracture" sequences—it is a sweeping, dissonant orchestral score that recalls Penderecki and Silent Hill 2. It gives the depravity weight. The original felt like a panic attack on a Game Boy. The remake feels like a funeral march in a sewer. The latter is far more unnerving.