Caffeinated Clint
I remember thinking a few years ago, when Alcon entertainment announced they were remaking the underrated teen-comedy classic “Can’t Buy Me Love” (1987), that the ‘idea well’ in Hollywood must surely be as dry as Sarah Palin’s bloomers. And it’s since been proven that my gut was on the money.
The Patrick Dempsey/Amanda Peterson-starring film still played well – and why shouldn’t it? it’s only twenty years old! I’ll admit to putting that thing on every few months! it’s an infectiously funny little movie! – why remake it!?
When the remake flopped quicker than a Cover Girl model’s breasts after giving birth I couldn’t have been happier. Surely this would be the end of the ‘lets remake everything – even if the original films aren’t even cold yet!’ trend that had set in there for a while!?
Yet Hollywood didn’t take the hint when “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” (2003) – Troy Beyer’s nauseatingly awful remake of Steve Rash’s lively rom-com – barely took in $6 million in its opening weekend, as opposed to the original film which garnered Touchstone near double-that (and by the end of its run, $31 million – taking inflation into consideration, that’d equate to quite the figure these days).
Like choppers arriving in Iran to rob oil for Bush, the remakes came in their droves – “When A Stranger Calls”, Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”, “Prom Night”, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “The Fog”, “Poseidon”, “The Amityville Horror”, “Black Christmas”, “Bangkok Dangerous”, “Death Race”, “Day of the Dead”, “Hairspray”, “The Hills Have Eyes”, “The Hitcher”, “Friday the 13th”, “I Am Legend”, “The Invasion”, “The In-Laws”, “The Italian Job”, “Sleuth”…. the list goes on.
I can understand Hollywood wanting to remake some of those films – especially those thirty-years old or more; advances in technology can improve a film I believe, in some cases anyway – but if there’s one thing I’m dead against it’s xeroxing flicks that are merely a ‘couple’ of years old…. films that have probably only just been released on DVD the same time as the trades announce the remake. That sucks harder than a black-toothed patient in the dentist’s chair.
But Hollywood have now gone one better – they’ve just ‘remade’ a film that – get this! – has [hardly] been released anywhere yet!
You know the most terrifying thing about the new horror pic ”Quarantine”? The fact that it exists!
If it ain’t enough that Hollywood’s out to remake all the classic horror movies – be it ”The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” or ”A Nightmare on Elm Street” – now they’re remaking foreign films that are yet to be even be released!
Please don’t let this be the new trend!
”Quarantine” is a remake of a little Spanish horror film called [REC] – a movie, mind you, that still hasn’t been released in the U.S (let alone Australia). Those lucky enough to have seen the film at one of it’s numerous film festival screenings will attest to just how good it is – it truly is terrifying.
Sony Screen Gems were so impressed with the film they made a deal to remake it – and snap up the distribution rights to it – before the projector had even cooled on it’s premiere screening. And it isn’t a surprising move – after all, this is the camp behind the remakes of American classics ”Prom Night” and ”When A Stranger Calls” we’re talking about here- Whatever smells financially viable, hey!?
What’s funny is that Paco Plaza and Jaume Balagueró. the co-directors and co-writers of what’s undoubtedly one of the scariest films of the year, had no idea Sony was planning to remake their film!
”We actually found out about it on the internet”, Plaza tells Dreamwatch Magazine. “One day I was surfing the web and I read that they were going to remake it in America. I said to Jaume, “Do you know anything about this?†And he told me he did not. So we called Filmax, the company who produced [Rec], and they told us that they had sold the rights.”
Balagueró adds, “We would have liked to have been asked. But we are not bothered about being involved in the remake. To remake your own movie one year after you finished it is a bit too soon for us”.
I kinda understand where the studio were coming from, [REC], after all, does have a killer plot… maybe they just want as many people as possible to experience the ingenious set-up?
A Television reporter Angela Vidal and her cameraman are assigned to spend the night shift with a Los Angeles Fire Station. After a routine 911 call takes them to a small apartment building, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Nowhere to Run! Nowhere to Hide!
As to be expected, the scares found littered throughout the original movie have been all but expunged from the flashy American remake. Instead, emphasis is on production design, the make-up effects of the film’s creatures, and, er, the ‘stars’.
Yes, stars.
The best element of [REC] is that it plays real; helped by the fact that it features a cast of unknowns. That element has been ruined in John Erick Dowdle’s remake with the casting of several ‘familiar faces’ in the lead roles.
For a film the studio hoped would be the next ”Blair Witch Project” – that’s quite a blunder. I mean, can you imagine falling for Dan Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s creepy mockumentary the same way had it starred Brad Pitt, Will Smith and Jennifer Conelly as Mike, Josh and Heather, respectively? Nah, me either. And by casting TV star Jennifer Carpenter – currently playing the title character’s sister on cable hit “Dexterâ€; She also played the lead role in the superior horror flick ”The Exorcism of Emily Rose” – in the lead role of the reporter, as well as Jay Hernandez (from the Hostel films) and, most notably, the very-familiar Jonathan Schaech (”How to Make an American Quilt”, ”That Thing You Do”!, the recent ”Prom Night” remake) audiences are immediately taken out of the film.
Maybe if ”Quarantine” had encompassed some actual scares to compliment its compelling plot – and it is a doozie of a plot – and maybe if the god-damn ending of the movie hadn’t been revealed in the film’s trailer (what the heck is with that!? Someone in the marketing department needs their ass kicked!) tit might’ve turned out OK- if even in that ”Resident Evil 20” kinda -way. As it stands, it is what it is – a tolerable but unnecessary mess of a remake. Yes, another.
And to think that this time next year it’ll be Zac Efron speaking those immortal words : “Hey, I like that hat, man. They sell men’s clothes where you got that? “.
Fill me up bartender. It’s gonna be a long night.
