On my way to seeing a vampire movie (not that one), I lamented to my fella that I hadn’t seen a good supernatural-themed movie in a while and was really hoping to enjoy Let the Right One In. I was pleased as punch to find that I did enjoy it immensely. It had its flaws: the low-budget special effects were sometimes out of place in what was essentially an art-horror film and there were some continuity issues. But for the most part, it was a very original (albeit based on a book) way to tell a coming-of-age tale about a bullied boy who falls in love with the vampire girl next door.
The story didn’t over-explain itself. Though I recognized budget-slimming gore shorthand from my low-budget horror-crafting days, I was impressed with the violence. The young leads were also quite good, despite this being the first movie for both of them. They conveyed the less-is-more method of child acting. In other words, it was a lot of wide-eyed close-ups. But it totally worked. I walked away from the theater quite happy and have been warmly recalling the experience ever since…
…Until now. Why, Hollywood?!! Why must you always RUIN EVERYTHING?! This film JUST came out and now they are talking American remakes. This movie already HAS an American crap-terpart. It’s called Twilight and it’s doing just fine, thank you. Of course, that’s probably just it. Twilight is doing SO well that they want to cash in while the cashing is good. And who wants to read subtitles or watch two unknowns when you can make the same movie with a Sprouse and a Fanning (I don’t know if that’s who they will cast, but I’m sure I’m not far off).
I didn’t like Cloverfield very much. I thought the monster was cool but the characters were completely two dimensional and I didn’t care what happened to them. So I don’t have much faith in the director to remake this film. Especially when he says ignorant crap like “It’s a terrific movie and a fantastic book. I think it could be a really touching haunting and terrifying film. I’m really excited about what it could be.”
What it COULD be? He compliments the source material and then basically says he can do better. What an asshole. In fact, that entire article pisses me off. It’s that “Americans can’t relate to any film in a foreign language” attitude that keeps artistic film far underground and crap like Twilight number one at the box office. And even then it would be fine as long as they left the art films alone. But they have to go and put their grubby little paws on everything. I’m sick of it. But there’s nothing that can be done about it either.
Damnit.
Effed by the Wind 
