The neurocultural remake reflex model: An interdisciplinary tool for understanding film remakes

The Neurocultural Remake Reflex Model (NRRM) is an interdisciplinary grounded method that integrates intersubject correlation (ISC), cultural memory theory and affect theory to make reception-centered, testable inferences about how remakes trigger recognition, emotion and reinterpretation. The six-steps involved in the framework are Attention Mapping, Cognitive Processing, Cultural Recall, Cultural Reframing, Emotional Resonance and Emotional Dissonance. Most existing research on remakes has primarily focused on comparative textual analysis, often overlooking the neurocognitive and emotional aspects of audience reception. The NRRM addresses this gap by explaining how viewers attend to, interpret, remember, emotionally connect with, and sometimes resist or contest a remake’s narrative and aesthetic cues. The paper demonstrates the method through a scene-level application of two case studies to show how remakes function simultaneously as mnemonic devices and affective tools. In doing so, NRRM reveals how remakes preserve cultural legacies while generating new meanings, offering film scholars and media psychologists a reproducible framework for tracing how remakes conserve, reframe or disrupt cultural memory and affective experience. This study proposes a six-step systematic methodology for analyzing remakes. By integrating cognitive and cultural approaches, it introduces an interdisciplinary framework for remake analysis. This framework demonstrates how remakes function as neurocultural reflexes, triggering nostalgia through both resonance and disruption.