The Horror of the American Remake

Eli

The Horror of the American Remake

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I remember one of the first films I had ever seen in a theater.  I was 6 years old and my step father took me to see Batman Returns.  I remember being completely enthralled by the story, the gritty atmosphere of Gotham, the intriguing characters (most of whom had some unhealthy affinity towards an animal) and the engrossing plot rich with character development.  This one experience led me to a life long love of comic books.  When I was 17, I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and it again sparked a life long love; this time for foreign films.  Point is, when I saw Let the Right One In, I had to take my friends.  I even convinced my friend Anthony, who absolutely despises anything with subtitles, to come with.  We all thoroughly enjoyed it.  You can imagine my surprise when I heard the announcement of an American remake of the film (because like Anthony, Americans seems to hate subtitles); a mixture of anticipation and dread washed over me.  Will it be a faithful adaptation?  Or will it be an abomination thriving on the buzz from the original mangled beyond recognition?

A good friend of mine said her movie loving cousin thought it was fantastic, almost a shot-for-shot remake.  With this endorsement and almost identical run times my spirit soared and I became giddy with excitement.  But as they say, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is.  To put it bluntly it was like being told Diet Dr Pepper tastes just like the original but when you go to take a sip, you get kicked in the shin with a pair of steel-toed boots then punched in the face.  Now I could continue ranting about how Let Me In was a terrible film and a crime against cinema, I will instead try to rationally make my points.

**Spoiler Alert**

First, Oskar versus Owen.  If you haven’t seen either film, Oskar is the name of our male protagonist in the Norwegian film and Owen is the American protagonist.  Oskar is an only child, his parents are divorced (turns out his dad prefers the company of other men) and he lives with his mom.  Oskar is rather meek but active in class and as such constantly bullied at school by three other young boys.  He has macabre newspaper clippings of deaths and imagines one day standing up to the oppressive bullies.  Owen is also an only child who lives with his mom after his parents divorce.  Owen is also bullied (by much more vulgar) kids.  His only extra curricular activities seem to be watching the neighbors with his telescope and lying to his mom about eating Now and Laters.

As for the bullies, in the Norwegian film the bullies you can actually feel empathetic towards.  The lead bully is bullied by his older brother and the other two seem to simply be lackeys who simply stand by because they are afraid to be bullied themselves (the bullies themselves are all seemingly scrawny kids).  In the American version, the lead bully is simply a vulgar, more athletic kid who I just wanted to punch in the face and his lackeys could’ve been replaced by cardboard cutouts for all they did.

Now let’s talk about our vampire, Eli/Abby.  A “12 year old” vampire who moves in next door to Oskar.  Honestly the closest to a faithful translation of any character but Abby still felt a little clunky when viewed next to Eli.  However my biggest gripe with the Eli/Abby character was the handler.  The Norwegian handler played a more central role to Eli’s survival and was subservient that hinted towards a more intimate relationship.  We can see that he cares but obviously bends to her will, even sacrificing his life for her.  The American handler is actually listed as “The Father” and plays less of a subservient role and more that of a father or jaded, jealous lover (his and Eli’s relationship is more explicitly pointed out).

Now while these changes bothered me, the worst possible change in the line up came from changing the side story of 4 friends who follow the recent string of murders plaguing their neighborhood into the couple Owen watches having sex across his apartment complex.  Instead of these old friends following the attacks until one of their own is attacked (by Eli who is subsequently fended by another of the group) sending one of them into such a rage that he tracks Eli down intent on killing her until Oskar comes and saves the day (really he just warns Eli and she rips the guy’s throat out), Abby attacks the woman and her spouse fends Abby off and a rogue detective is the one that tracks down Abby and breaks into her house (pretty sure a creaking floor board doesn’t mean he can kick in the door without a warrant).

All in all Let Me In isn’t terrible by itself but when compared to Let the Right One In it is the usual botched Hollywood treatment popular foreign films get.  I actually skipped the remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo because I was afraid it’d be more painful than running a marathon with broken glass in my shoes.

 

TL;DR version, America takes plot and character development and turns it into shaky camera work and special effects and it makes me sad.

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  • http://ogeeku.com/members/gundamo/ Tyler Martin

    I hear ya on that, I still remember seeing the original version of Shutter and loving it. I saw about 10 minutes of the NA remake and had to leave before I vomited.

    The problem with North American adaptations, is they always cater it to the masses. They add, remove, and change the content until it’s “NA Friendly” which ends up ruining a perfectly good film.

    In closing, check out Dead Snow, a fantastic Norwegian film about Nazi zombies. No “too good to be true” here, it IS a foreign film.

  • Jessica Hulsey

    I was absolutely adamant against the remake of Let the Right One In. It’s so hard to take a film that good and try and make a remake that won’t be disappointing to fans of the original. A lot of people who had never seen Let the Right One In thought Let Me In was really good. But I rarely come across people who saw the original and thought the remake was just as good.

    I wouldn’t have anything against someone remaking a film if they were able to do it well or as a good tribute to the original, but let’s face it, that NEVER seems to happen….

    Anytime anyone talks about the upcoming Old Boy remake, my heart cries. ;_;

  • http://www.twitter.com/SamKirsch Sam Kirsch

    I found Let Me In to be just as good honestly. I don’t know what shaky cam you were referring to, I thought the camerawork was just as sharp as the Swedish version, and even added some great ideas, like the scene where the Handler screws up his kidnapping, shot all through the back of the car.

    They’re different movies but I think most people who have seen LTROI dislike LMI just because it exists.

    I feel like hating on remaking films is a tough argument, obviously we want original stuff, but when it comes to adapting novels, or sampling songs in pop music, we afford those artists the right to impress us.

    Most remakes are crap (think about all the remakes of AMERICAN movies that exist all over the world, believe, you’d prefer Let Me In to the Bollywood version of The Godfather, which I’ve seen).

    If you make a crap film, that sucks. But a remake isn’t necessarilly a bad thing.

  • Brodie Young

    It’s not that these remakes are better or worse than the original, I just think they are unnecessary. Let Me In, Funny Games, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, theyre all guilty.

    They werent bad by any means but in the case of Funny Games, it was almost an exact remake. Shot for shot.

    It’s almost like they were made just because no one in America wants to read subtitles.

  • http://ogeeku.com/members/lifeindayglo/ Steven K.

    @Sam I only referred to the shaky cam in the TL;DR portion. In general, American cinema has become rather found of the shaky cam especially during action scenes. Often times there is subtle movement in camera work that bothers me in certain instances (during dramatic dialogue for example). Sometimes it can add to a shot or sequence like if we’ve been following a central protagonist and the camera movement is foreshadowing something like the degradation of the characters mental health or we find that the character has been living a lie (like the Machinist though I cannot recall if there was shaky cam at all during that particular epiphany). There’s a reason we use tripods and spent years mastering the Steady Cam.

    Another qualm I have is jump cuts as opposed to pan shots or extended shots. A ten second shot just seems too long for the average American audience. Watch dialogue in a film and you’ll see it jumps between the actors more often than it captures both characters conversing with each other in a single shot.

    In essence, the biggest reason I didn’t like Let Me In was because I went in with the expectation that the film would stay true to the original (as I was told it was “basically a shot-for-shot remake”) and I felt betrayed. I did enjoy the movie but I still prefer the original.

    Now the cinematic problems I address aren’t necessarily in Let Me In but are just general complaints I have with American cinema in general. I just feel that we have sacrificed much in the way of story/character development for special effects in the past 20-30 years.

    It just makes me sad that these movies get such critical acclaim then are watered down and reshot without the complexities that made the originals great so that a wider audience will shell out $8+ for a ticket. It’s like Hollywood’s obsession with sequels.