Soy,
Thanks for embedding.
Your welcome.
It doesn’t look as bad as I thought it might and it still looks more promising than all of the recent vampire films out there. But I will reserve judgement as well. Then again, there was nothing wrong with the original film.
This remake is pointless. They’ve even gone out of their way to make it look roughly the same and get actors who have the same aesthetic vibe (“Euroness” is the only way I can explain it, but I think the similarity is obvious if you’ve seen the original) as those in “Let The Right One In.” It seems like possibly all they’ve done is add more of a thriller stylization to it, but then again, that could easily just be how the trailer is edited and scored. So many of the shots look almost exactly like those released, what, two years ago in the original?
What I find so offensive about this is not simply that a remake has been made, but that it clearly has been made only to insulate the American audience from the perceived torture of watching a foreign film. There is nothing technically unacceptable, or culturally confusing, or anything else, about the original that would make it unsuitable for wide theatrical release in America. In fact, if ever there were a foreign movie that could make a splash in American theaters, “Let The Right One In” would probably be it, what with its timely vampire themes.
Instead, they’ve spent a relatively immense sum of money ($30 million) to recreate the look and vibe of a film that originally cost $4 million to make, and will probably still end up looking better than the remake once all is said and done.
If they’d taken the property and changed it radically for the remake, I may still not have liked it, but at least I could appreciate its simple existence. But slapping together a frivolous rip-off of the original just to protect the American audience from anything foreign seems pointless and offensive to me.
“But slapping together a frivolous rip-off of the original just to protect the American audience from anything foreign seems pointless and offensive to me.”
I think that is a clear misunderstanding of why the movie was made and of the Hollywood system. The people who made this remake aren’t concerned with getting a great story to the American public, they’re concerned with making a movie that will make money. Zombies, Vampires, and all that other stupid pre-teen crap is hot right now in America, and since Hollywood nowadays exists mainly to pander to the masses, it stands to reason that Let the Right One In would get a Hollywood remake.
It is a shame that most of these pre-teen fans of vampire movies do not have the awareness of world cinema to check out the original, but I hardly think that the movie was made solely so that little girls don’t have to read subtitles for an hour and a half. It’s all about the money. (SEE: Insomnia)
If we want to talk about pointless and offensive movies, we should talk about why we needed to have two Hulk movies within a few years of each other :)
EDIT: Bolo, after watching the trailer a couple times, I absolutely agree with your assertion that they have tried to capture (or rip-off, depending) the European aesthetic vibe.
-In fact, if ever there were a foreign movie that could make a splash in American theaters, “Let The Right One In” would probably be it, what with its timely vampire themes-
Yeah, I think it probably could have done pretty well in the US. However, it should be noted that those involved with the original sold the rights for an English language remake while the film was still on the festival circuit (before it had the opportunity to play in a regular theatrical run even in the Sweden), which basically hamstrung the chances that the original would get a serious promotional push during a theatrical run in the US. So, in this regard, it’s largely the makers of the original who prevented it from “making a splash” because they choose the guaranteed payday early on.
The only thing that I see that looks promising about the remake is that Richard Jenkins and Elias Koteas have been cast in two of the relatively important supporting roles.
JD:
Well, no. Because they could have bought American distribution rights for the movie and made a killing that way if that were the only consideration. Clearly they don’t think the American audience can handle subtitles or any kind of “foreignness.” The original is contemporary, looks great, is well acted, and has the same exact vampire thematics of the remake.
Matt:
The reality is the reality, but it’s still a completely frivolous and unnecessary remake.
Sure, but after the American remakes of so many Japanese horror movies in recent years, it comes as no surprise.
“But slapping together a frivolous rip-off of the original just to protect the American audience” – Bolo Tie
Bolo, you make it sound as if it is a conspiracy. J.D.’s point is much more plausible. Money is their concern, not isolationism.
Trampin:
Yes, because they believe that a foreign movie won’t make money. Their aversion to foreignness as a potential commercial object is what led to their bottom-line decision to remake the picture.
Hollywood is full of people who believe in these cynical, forgone conclusions about what “will or will not play” to an American audience. In that sense, yes, Americans are being “protected” from foreignness by Hollywood decision-makers.
I’m willing to defend remakes of foreign movies in a number of cases, such as when the technical standards of the original are clearly not palatable to a mainstream contemporary audience (say, if it’s a movie made 50 years ago), or if the original includes a lot of cultural stuff where knowledge is assumed and which would fly over the heads of the majority of American viewers. That’s justifiable, if you’re trying to market something to a mainstream audience. But “Let The Right One In” fits neither of those conditions. It’s crafted remarkably well, from a technical standpoint, and it isn’t mired in Swedish cultural references that nobody in America would understand.
It’s pretty much the ideal case of a foreign movie that should just be distributed as-is, rather than remade. And whether their little bet will come through—that this $30 million remake will have been worth it financially—has yet to be seen. $30 million is a big hole to dig your way out of in the fall theatrical release schedule.
Let The Right One In just felt like an old M.Night film made in Sweden. There is nothing culturally specific about it. of course hollywood is going toi remake it.
Bolo, I like what you touch upon. I noticed the almost slavish re-dos of certain scenes in the trailer (the underpass, the fall of the Helper) and I would agree that should there be a re-make, it would be a little more acceptable for it to be quite different.
They are taking scenes from a film where they must know that the fans of the original will be reacting to a re-make exactly as we are doing, and so the re-made scenes will play for an audience that has no reference to the original, by and large. Yet, they recognize the power of the original scenes and they just take them. Opportunism and intellectual laziness (and I know I shouldn’t care and it doesn’t matter, but if we can’t be outraged about such things here, where then….:-))
Lina Leandersson (‘Eli") is perfection. A very difficult, subtle role to play at age 12, and she does it with amazing depth. Even if she doesn’t act again, she has given us one performance for the ages.
I have the BluRay, I have seen the film god knows how many times, and it never gets old.
It’s the horror movie Bergman never directed.
Let them do their thing. I am not interested.
it is a remake not a rip-off and it will probably allow the filmmaker of the original to make a good deal of money producing and get a new project financed.
Claus:
That’s exactly it. I perhaps wouldn’t like a remake that differed significantly from the original, but I’d at least have to acknowledge that it had a reason to exist. As it is, “Let Me In” just feels like a completely frivolous product of boom-time Hollywood, where throwing $30 million out there to make a carbon copy of a film that already exists is a mere drop of water in the bucket. Let’s forget that they could use that $30 million to fund 7 or 8 movies with the budget of “Lost In Translation” (a movie which, by the way, made the industry well over $100 million). That’s the price we’ll pay to advance outdated notions about what Americans will/will not watch in cineplexes. So absurd.
Dennis B:
It looks like he’ll be directing an adaptation of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” so I don’t think he’ll be needing any independent financing for his own pictures any time soon.
even so, making some money off getting yr film remade is not a bad deal, it usually makes people appreicate yr film more plus u get money
Well, if the money from the deal for the re-make actually gets down to the man who directed the original, Tomas Alfredson, more the better. If he gets enough ‘rainmaker’ points to get the next one going, fine. That would be the good thing to come from this.
JJ Abrahms is back – prepare for the Crapfest!
-Let The Right One In just felt like an old M.Night film made in Sweden. There is nothing culturally specific about it. of course hollywood is going toi remake it.-
I agree. And of course Alfredson went right from this to making a decidely un-Swedish adaptation of Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy for Working Title Films.
Claus Harding
It was optioned to Hollywood, and I expected the worst. Being a stupid optimist, I held out faint idealistic hope that the material, by its quality, would implore even the most tone-deaf of remakers to “hold it down” some and not just go to the LA Teen Angst Sausage Factory….well, here is the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjavOLdPk1c
Part of me wants to compare. The very large majority of me wants to just run screaming. I had “LTRoI” on this afternoon and was just enjoying the subtexts and precise filmmaking…the music of the trailer, the general Apocalytic Big Horror Movie Feel plus the fact that they couldn’t even keep the original title make this a screening that someone besides myself would have to pay for.
I will, however, reserve judgement, even as my innards are crying in protest…:-)
Claus.