The point being, it seems like every movie these days is being grabbed and thrown into the recycle bin and used for the next cash cow. I mean, really...Gulliver's Travels with Jack Black?
Anyhoo, when it was announced that the director of Cloverfield would be helming the remake of the Swedish vampire import Let The Right One In, (entitled simply Let Me In) I was left scratching my head. The original is a masterpiece of horror and quiet desperation, so I was skeptical if we would just get another wannabe PG13 scare flick with teeny boppers running around.
Imagine my surprise when the film started and I saw the "Hammer" films studio logo. Hammer Studios had produced lots of British anthologies and horror stories throughout the 1950's through the late 70's. Perhaps that shows my age, or my bizarre taste in horror films, but I've always been fascinated with Hammer's work and the great British actors Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee adding their "veddy veddy" cockney wit to any movie drenched in blood.
Let Me In's story concerns the friendship between Owen and Abby, two youngsters who both seem to share a common bond of loneliness and sadness. Owen is bullied at school and comes home to a divorced, religious freak of a mother who ignores him, and Abby, who has moved in next door with an older man who appears to be her father. Only problem is, Abby is not who she appears to be. (She's a human paintball test model for Sherwin-Williams red paint.)
The original movie carried with it a quiet sense of dread hovering over every scene. Surprisingly, this version does too, and that makes the movie work. It was quite the shock considering what I was expecting. After 2 years of dealing with movies about vampires that sparkle with glitter bought at the local Hobby Lobby, it was refreshing to finally see a horror movie that doesn't pander around and resist the temptation of a PG13 rating in order to get the Hannah Montana crowd in the theater.
The film has a magnificent soundtrack, done by Michael Giacchino, who gave us blaring crescendos and fluttering strings for 6 years during the network run of LOST, and it's evident here as well, but appears darker and much more creepy. Unfortunately, it seems like the music is used a little too much. So much can be conveyed in a single glance or a suspenseful scene where just the eerieness of silence can portray true terror, which was what the original film did. Here, as great as Giacchino's score is, it seems a bit out of place in some scenes. Rather than just letting certain scenes play out to their full potential, we are "told" early on that something bad is about to happen by the music, thereby ruining any source of suspense or terror. Perhaps the director Matt Reeves was trying to let the music be part of the story, just like Hitchcock did with Psycho, or John Carpenter with Halloween.
Crap, did I really just type a whole paragraph about a movie's musical score? That's very, very scary.
But seriously folks, see this movie. It's a great tribute to what makes a great horror movie. Both film versions of the story convey a sense of silent, inner grief without succumbing to the dreaded underdevelopment of the characters. All too often we get junk poured on-screen where the main concern is to make a buck, and I for one am one moviegoer that appreciates a fine horror film when I see one.
Now, if you will excuse me, I must go watch my Slugs DVD again....
Let Me In, 2010
Grade: A -
2 comments:
Michael Giacchino also scored three of the best Pixar movies, and the woefully-maligned Speed Racer (still the best eye candy on the silver screen of the century). But more to your post's point, the Hollywood remake is perhaps not a new idea, but it certainly is not their most original (see how I did that?). A creepy, quiet little movie like Let the Right One In does not need to be turned into anything in Hollywood, unless Hollywood is afraid to turn off their churning machines of mediocrity. This movie has no appeal to me, particularly because I thought the original was disturbing and best left alone. The Powers That Be might think we need more vampires in movie theaters across the nation, but what we really need are more original movies.
I agree wholeheartedly with you about originality, and I now realize that’s something I probably should have addressed in the post, and I for one have grown considerably weary of recycled ideas. However, I think we may just have to accept the fact that the remake is never going away, and us as moviegoers just have to wade through the excess. The vampire movie has been done to death, no question (and no pun intended either). Let Me In looked interesting when I saw the trailer and since I found Cloverfield enjoyable, I was interested in what that director would do with a horror movie. Thusly, I was pleasantly surprised with the film. I guess it sometimes depends on who has taken the directorial reigns. I'm glad we still have writers and directors such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Charlie Kaufmann, Darren Aronofsky, and Christopher Nolan to add fresh approaches to cinema. Who knew the Batman franchise was salvageable after Joel Schumacher single-handedly destroyed it?
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