ONE OF THESE THINGS IS JUST LIKE THE OTHER


SPOILER ALERT
This blog will contain minor spoilers for Quarantine/[Rec], but I can almost guarantee you've already been spoiled.
It is my opinion that if you intend to watch one or both of these movies, the experience will not be ruined by knowing what I'm about to talk about.

Let's talk movies. More importantly, let's talk foreign movies and their American remakes.
Americans are lazy. It's true. I have a lot of people who refuse to watch any movie with subtitles, and as such are missing out on a lot of great movies such as Pans Labyrinthe, and I even know a few who refused to watch Inglorious Basterds because of all the subtitles.

What this leads to in today's Hollywood market is a lot of remakes, particularly of horror movies. Some of the more famous examples are "The Grudge" ("Ju-On", Japan) and "The Ring" ("Ringu", Japan). What's interesting about these is that when Ringu came out, it was the highest grossing movie in the country, making $6.6 Million in it's run. When The Ring came out, it made $8.3 million in it's first two weeks in Japan.


These movies also started the awesome "creepy grey ghost child" trend that we all loved.

If you asked a large group of people who had seen both movies, you would get a very wide variety of answers as to which movie they prefer. The pacing in The Ring makes it a very different movie from Ringu.

On the other hand, there are almost no differences between The Grudge and Ju-On. I would almost view that as an insult to the original director, if not for the fact that he directed both versions (as well as Ringu).
The same can be said more or less for Quarantine and [Rec].


Spoiler Alert?

CHANGES
* The dog is actually in the building in Quarantine, but just mentioned in [Rec]
* Quarantine removed the religious references at the end.

Other than these two changes, Quarantine is almost a frame for frame remake of the original. Every other scene is left intact with minor changes. I don't want to spoil it, but removing the religious references to the Vatican, the newspaper clippings, and not playing the tape recorder seems kind of weak to me.
Speaking of spoilers, let's talk about one of the things that annoys me the most with Quarantine.
The trailer. (This is where the spoilers are. This is the official theatrical trailer too...)



If you just watched that, or have seen it before, congratulations. You've seen the ending of the movie.
From 1:12 to the end, is literally the last scene in the movie; in both versions. It's the box art for the DVD. It was on all of the posters. Cute. Sure it's out of context, so you don't know what happened; and you don't KNOW it's the end until you've seen it, but I sure know that as soon as I saw it and realized what they did I was pissed.

So to recap; The Grudge and Quarantine were remade, and for the most part the only change is that the lead actors now speak English. Is reading really that difficult?

On to my next target, which is actually more of me worrying than anything else. The original is just little more than a year old, and the remake is scheduled to come out this year.


These vampires don't sparkle.

Let The Right One In is a marvelous Swedish movie based on a book by the same name by "John Ajvide Lindqvist" (which is available in Barnes & Noble and other bookstores here. You'll probably have to special order it though; while I was looking I got the last copy. They told me copies were coming in all the time but selling immediately.) Interestingly enough, there are English versions of the book which were also retitled "Let Me In" (mine has the original title, and a variant of the DVD cover for the book cover. I think the retitled one is pretty rare), and the author wrote the screenplay for the original movie.

It tells the tale of a young outcast named Oskar, and the friendship he develops with the new neighbor girl, Eli, who just happens to be a Vampire. The story that unfolds is a beautiful story about love, and what that word means.



Casting for the remake, "Let Me In" is completed and work is underway.
* Eli (the female lead) will be played by Chloe Moretz (Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass, Rachel in (500) Days of Summer) and is being renamed to Abby.
* Oskar (main character, male lead) will be played by Kodi Smit-McPhee ("The Boy" in The Road) and is being renamed to Owen.
* Hakan (Eli's "father") is being played by Richard Jenkins (Dr. Doback in Step Brothers, Nathaniel Fisher on Six Feet Under), and is only referred to as "The Father" at this time.

The casting is great. Kodi was amazing as "The Boy", and Richard Jenkins is a brilliant actor. But the rumors I'm already hearing (the second "discovery" about Eli, which although not covered in detail in the original movie as in the book; is being completely left out for one thing) combined with America's track record...


[Rec] : 7.7/10 (30,68 votes)
Quarantine : 6.1/10 (19,716 votes)

Ju-On : 6.6/10 (8,42 votes)
The Grudge : 5.7 (41,435 votes)

Ringu : 7.4/10 (19,402 votes)
The Ring : 7.2/10 (79,493 votes)

Let The Right One In : 8.1/10 (47,810 votes)
Let Me In: Let's just say, I'm worried.