Let The Right Remakes In

In his Entertainment Weekly column, Stephen King named Let Me In as not just the best movie of the year but the best horror movie of the decade. I wasn't nearly as high on the movie myself but I did like it a lot and would've liked it that much more without the distracting, CG-abetted scampering of Abby, the vampire. But overall it was good stuff - the only American vampire movie worth a damn since Shadow of the Vampire (2000).

While King's praise for Let Me In might be just a little over-the-top, in my estimation, I do think the movie deserved to have been given more of a chance by the horror community who, by and large, shunned it on principle. Remakes continue to be regarded with suspicion and it's a shame when a quality one suffers. Whenever someone tries to champion remakes, The Thing and The Fly are constantly cited but I think bringing up the same two examples from over twenty years ago to prove that, hey, some remakes are good just makes it easier to dismiss the new stuff. You don't have to go back to the '80s to find quality remakes. Hell, you don't even have to go back to the '90s.

Here's ten recent remakes that I think match, or better, the originals:

The Ring (2002)

It used to border on blasphemy to say you preferred the US remake to Hideo Nakata's Ringu (1998) but quite so much now. When the remake was announced, I was really skeptical towards it. Ringu's story seemed so specific to the Japanese culture that I expected that it couldn't help but be a bad fit when transported to America. But director Gore Verbinski and screenwriter Ehren Kruger nailed it, I thought, by making some very smart choices and overall, I do prefer this over Nakata's version. Just the scene on the ferry alone puts it over the top for me.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

This is still Zack Synder's best movie and the best of the new millennium run of zombie films. Synder and writer James Gunn give enough of a nod to Romero's film to be respectful but their Dawn is its own thing. It'll never supplant Romero's original - at least not in my eyes - but I love it because it has scenes that had never been able to be accomplished in a zombie film before (as when a virtual sea of the undead mob the survivor's fortified escape vehicles) because they had always been low-budget affairs.

House of Wax (2005)

Director Jaume Collet-Serra won some acclaim with his instant cult classic Orphan (2009) but before that he made House of Wax into a superior, stylish slasher film. After a slow build-up, once the film's gaggle of teens stumble into an isolated town populated by wax figures, the movie goes full-tilt through some truly ghastly death scenes (and one truly crowd-pleasing one as Paris Hilton's character meets her end) until the outrageous finale set inside a literal house of wax as it melts down in a raging blaze. Technically, this is more a remake of 1979's Tourist Trap (sans telekinesis) than of the Vincent Price classic but damn, what a great Tourist Trap remake it is!

The Amityville Horror (2005)

If you were around in 1979 for the release of the original Amityville Horror and were, like, eight at the time, chances are you've still got a soft spot for it. Without nostalgia on its side, though, the original Amityville is not an especially good movie. In fact, it's kind of lousy. Some fans say the Texas Chainsaw remake was Platinum Dunes' best effort but while that had its moments, TCM '03 just doesn't stack up to Tobe Hooper's original. On the other hand, even though James Brolin sported a way better beard than Ryan Reynolds, it's pretty easy to argue that this new Amityville trumped its predecessor.

War of the Worlds (2005)

Steven Spielberg just doesn't get enough credit, the poor guy. With his remake of War of the Worlds, he went ahead and made the best alien invasion movie since I don't know when but yet you hardly ever hear about what a terrific, scary movie this is. Sure, the last minute reappearance of the older brother was a misstep but other than that ill-considered reach for an upbeat ending, this was really harrowing stuff. And it portrayed the Everyman perspective of an alien attack so much more effectively than, say, Cloverfield.

The Hills Have Eyes (2006)

The Hills Have Eyes remake came in at just the right time, smack in the middle of the torture-porn era, when it was suddenly ok for horror to play rough again. I don't think this is a perfect movie (neither was the original) but director Alexandre Aja makes you feel that he isn't just playing games here. True to the spirit of the first film, he made his Hills a vicious, unapologetic horror film.

My Bloody Valentine 3-D (2009)

The first of the new wave of 3-D horror films is still the best, thanks to the fact that, unlike The Final Destination and Piranha, MBV was actually filmed in 3-D. In revisiting "the horror from long time ago," as described in The Ballad of Harry Warden, scripter Todd Farmer and director Patrick Lussier showed a solid grasp of what kind of movie a MBV remake should be, keeping fans from spending "the fourteenth in quiet regret." The remake is slicker than the 1981 original but it retains the earlier film's working class setting and I love the audacious handling of the film's central mystery - deceiving viewers with a full-on cheat that makes it impossible to be ahead of the final reveal. That might not sit well with some but I appreciated the guessing game Farmer and Lussier's good-natured trickery allowed. Of all the old-school slasher films that've been remade in the past few years - Halloween, Friday the 13th, Prom Night - this was the best, with the enjoyably bitchy 2009 Sorority Row remake coming in second.

The Last House on the Left (2009)

Wes Craven may be losing it when it comes to making original movies but he sure knows how to bring his old classics back in style. After his success producing the Hills Have Eyes remake, he helped make this retelling of his most notorious movie into an arguably better film then the original. I respect Craven's 1972 original for its hallowed place in the annals of exploitation but I've never cared for it. Because of the subject matter, I don't care for the remake much more but I acknowledge that in most every way it's a better film. Most admirers of this film stop short of saying anything good about the final scene but I'll go ahead and say that I liked it. If someone wants to take out the scumbag that raped their daughter, paralyzing them and then exploding their head in a microwave oven seems like a plan to me. More importantly, since when do horror fans not applaud when a movie ends with an exploding head? Shit, that's how they should all end!

The Crazies (2010)

I'm sure a fresh viewing of Romero's 1973 original would make this remake seem even more simplistic to me but I can't deny that I had a blast with this lean, effective retelling. On the negative side, there's about a half-dozen jump scares too many, and its characters keep getting put into tight jams only to be conveniently rescued but I liked the no-nonsense approach of director Brent Eisner, the uniformly solid performances (I thought Timothy Olyphant made for an especially likable protagonist), and movies that play into paranoia towards government and the military are like catnip to me. Crazies for the win!

Let Me In (2010)

The common perception among horror fans seems to be that this remake didn't do well because the horror community stayed away en masse. While I don't doubt that a few horror fans sat this one out, that doesn't make or break a movie (did horror fans want to show their disdain for original movies, too, by passing on Splice?). When it comes to box office success and failure, it's always the general public that decides and this one just didn't appeal to them. You could blame bad marketing but look, a vampire movie starring two prepubescents? That's a hard sell to the average moviegoer, I think.

Oh well. Just call it a loss all around that so few took a chance on Let Me In because it's damn good.

A classic, if you ask Stephen King - someone who knows more than a little about classic vampire tales. But for now I think it's enough to regard Let Me In as above-average. I just hope the next time someone goes ahead and makes a remake as well-crafted as this - strike that, the next time someone makes a movie as well-crafted as this, forget the remake tag - that it doesn't go ignored.

Shadow Of The Vampire

The fact that a new vampire film is in theaters that isn't part of the Twilight saga ought to be cause for celebration. But for many it's a problem that Let Me In - a remake of the 2008 Swedish film, Let The Right One In - exists. After all, Let The Right One In is a very recent film - not some dated classic. And if people were not so reluctant to read words at the bottom of the screen, one of the best genre films in recent memory would not need to be retold.

All this is true. In a perfect world, studios would look at a movie like Let The Right One In and say "man, we'd be assholes to try and touch this." And in a perfect world, there'd be no hesitation on the part of the average moviegoer to sample foreign fare. But we don't live in that perfect world. If Let Me In introduces a wider audience to a great story, then I don't see the need to disparage it as a matter of principle. When the remake is atrocious, as in the case of Pulse (2006), the abomination masquerading as a remake of Kairo (2001), then yes - that's bad. But when the remake is as finely made as Let Me In, then why be high-handed about it?

While Let Me In does nothing to eclipse the artistry of Let The Right One In, writer/director Matt Reeves has attentively preserved the tone of the original. It's still a melancholy look at a lonely, bullied kid who finds a lifeline in the form of a vampire. Only now instead of Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and Eli (Lina Leandersson), it's Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Abby (Chloe Moretz) who develop a strange, sad bond. And instead of taking place in Stockholm, we're in New Mexico. It's still 1983, though, and it's still in the dead of winter.

The major story beats and set-pieces are all pretty much the same as in director Tomas Alfredson's film - even down to the way they're staged. But it feels as though Reeves is honoring Alfredson's work rather than just mimicking it. Reeves does bring in some new scenes and tweaks a few existing ones. He also prunes some of the extraneous story elements from the original, making for a more efficiently told tale. From the start, there's a palatable sense that Reeves "gets" the original - and its source material novel - and that in his hands, Let Me In was never in danger of becoming the movie that fans feared it might be.

However, there are some ways in which the remake just can't compete. As strong as the child performances are here, it's difficult for Smit-McPhee and Moretz to surpass the work that Hedebrant and Leandersson did in the original. Those two kids - Leandersson, especially - just had a look and vibe that can't be duplicated. Smit-McPhee and Moretz are outstanding but as you watch them, you're looking at actors. Skilled actors, yes, but still actors. There's an inevitable (if faint) air of Hollywood to Let Me In. When you watch Leandersson as Eli, you easily buy into the reality that this girl (or whatever) is a vampire. With Moretz, you're seeing Hit-Girl as a vampire. That's not enough to derail Let Me In but it's one reason why it can never have the unique mystique that the original does.

Let Me In is also less enigmatic than the original, with Reeves choosing to be more explicit about the relationship between Abby and her caretaker (Richard Jenkins) than Alfredson and novelist/screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist were about the relationship between Eli and her caretaker (Per Ragnar). I thought that this tragic pairing of young and old (or rather old and very old) was one of the eeriest and most affecting aspects of the original but it wasn't clear to every viewer what the nature of that relationship was (was this man Eli's father, or perhaps a pedophile?). By including an old film strip from a photo booth capturing Abby side by side with her guardian when he was just a boy himself, Reeves confirms that this person came into Abby's life decades earlier and has grown old as Abby's protector. Now the cycle is starting over with Owen.

There's so much that's wise about Let Me In that it's glaring when Reeves makes a bad decision. The single poorest choice on Reeves' part was to depict several of Abby's attacks and her gravity-defying movements through CG. It looks silly and I can't believe anyone connected with the movie thought it was the right way to go. It only occurs a few times but it's a few times too many. A secondary issue with the use of CG is that it makes Abby appear so capable and deadly that it makes us question why she would need someone to hunt for her. If Abby is so ferocious - moving like a Reaper from Blade II - then a companion doesn't seem so essential. And if we question Abby's need for a companion too strongly, that could derail the entire movie. After all, as with the original, Let Me In really isn't a love story. It's about Abby choosing someone that will serve as her protector and guardian. Reeves should've been more aware of the problems he was potentially creating before deciding to invite CG in.

Some slight missteps aside, though, fans of the original who wanted to guard a film they loved from the machinations of Hollywood should be relieved that Let Me In has emerged as a smart, sensitive movie. That it exists in the shadow of a better film shouldn't discount the excellent work that Reeves and his collaborators have done.